Alaska Airlines and Virgin America to Add 13 New Routes From the Bay Area
Today, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines shared the details of a slew of new routes from both San Francisco (SFO) and San Jose (SJC). Virgin will be adding seven new routes from SFO, while Alaska will add three from SFO and three from SJC.
The 13 new routes from the Bay Area expand the soon-to-be combined carriers' reach to the middle of the country and to the East Coast. In addition, the carrier will add new service to Hawaii, Los Angeles and a proposed route to Mexico City, pending government approval.
Here's the full list of additions:
- Virgin America
- San Francisco (SFO) ⇒ Philadelphia (PHL) — beginning September 31
- SFO ⇒ Nashville (BNA) — beginning September 5
- SFO ⇒ New Orleans (MSY) — beginning September 21
- SFO ⇒ Indianapolis (IND) — beginning September 26
- SFO ⇒ Baltimore (BWI) — beginning October 16
- SFO ⇒ Raleigh-Durham (RDU) — beginning October 19
- SFO ⇒ Kona (KOA) — beginning December 14
- Alaska Airlines
- San Jose (SJC) ⇒ Austin (AUS) — beginning August 28
- SJC ⇒ Tucson (TUS) — beginning August 28
- SJC ⇒ Los Angeles (LAX) — beginning September 20
- San Francisco (SFO) ⇒ Albuquerque (ABQ) — beginning September 18
- SFO ⇒ Kansas City (MCI) — beginning September 18
- SFO ⇒ Mexico City (MEX) — beginning summer 2017
The new routes further bolster Virgin and Alaska's presence in the Bay Area. With the new routes, the two will offer a total of 125 daily nonstop flights to 42 destinations from the three major Bay Area airports (OAK, SFO and SJC).
An interesting note is that Alaska Airlines' release didn't detail that the Virgin America flights would be operated by VX. Instead, it only specified the aircraft type (A320) that will operate the routes — possibly giving us an indication on what direction Alaska plans to take the Virgin brand.
Executives have been relatively quiet since the close of the merger as to what the future of the Virgin brand will look like. With the exception of some loyalty program news, there's still no word on what the future of the brand will look like. But, generally speaking, it's good news for travelers that Virgin and Alaska are continuing to expand its combined route network.