Alaska Airlines Announces New Winter Routes From The West Coast

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In the past three months, Alaska Airlines has announced new routes out the Pacific Northwest, new routes to California’s wine country, and new routes between California and a number of National Parks in Montana. Now the airline is back with news that it will be launching four new winter routes out of three of the West Coast cities that it serves.

Alaska’s New Routes For Winter

Some of us are only just getting some decent warm weather for the first time this year, but Alaska Airlines is already planning new routes for winter 2021 as it looks to capture the business of travelers looking to exchange the winter cold for palm trees and sunshine.

These are the four new routes that Alaska Airlines has announced:

Palm Springs – Austin

Between 19 November 2021 and 18 April 2022, Alaska Airlines will operate a 5x/week service between Palm Springs and Austin. At the time of writing, this is what the planned schedule looks like:

AS3319 PSP 11:05 – 16:10 AUS (Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat & Sun)
AS3320 AUS 09:00 – 10:35 PSP (Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat & Sun)

This route will be operated as Horizon Air using the Embraer 175 aircraft (more on this aircraft later).

San Francisco – Cancun

Between 16 December 2021 and 18 April 2022, Alaska Airlines will operate a weekly service between San Francisco and Cancun. At the time of writing, this is what the planned schedule looks like:

AS36 SFO 09:40 – 17:55 CUN (Sat)
AS37 CUN 11:00 – 14:00 SFO (Sat)

This route will be operated by a Boeing 737 aircraft (more on this aircraft later).

Portland – Tampa

Between 16 December 2021 and 18 April 2022, Alaska Airlines will operate a 4x/week service between Portland and Tampa. At the time of writing, this is what the planned schedule looks like:

AS194 PDX 12:10 – 20:29 TPA (Mon, Tue, Thu & Sat)
AS195 TPA 08:00 – 11:00 PDX (Tue, Wed, Fri & Sun)

This route will be operated by a Boeing 737 aircraft (more on this aircraft later).

Portland – New Orleans

Between 16 December 2021 and 18 April 2022, Alaska Airlines will operate a 3x/week service between Portland and New Orleans. At the time of writing, this is what the planned schedule looks like:

AS385 PDX 12:00 – 18:30 MSY (Wed Fri & Sun)
AS384 MSY 08:00 – 11:10 PDX (Mon, Thu, & Sat)

This route will be operated by a Boeing 737 aircraft (more on this aircraft later).

This is what Brett Catlin, vice president of network and alliances at Alaska Airlines had to say about the new routes:

“Since March, our bookings for leisure travel have exceeded what they were before the pandemic. For many of our guests, there’s an increased confidence that comes after being vaccinated. They were cooped up for well over a year – now they’re ready to relax, enjoy and explore. With these new routes, we can whisk them away to destinations that have a warm sparkle in the wintertime.”

While I can see the reasoning behind the routes out of Portland and San Francisco (sun-seekers escaping the winter), I don’t know why Alaska Airlines is linking Palm Springs and Austin. I’m sure that the airline has a very good reason, I just can’t imagine what it may be.

The Aircraft

Alaska’s new routes between Palm Springs and Austin will be operated as Horizon Air using the Embraer 175 aircraft, a jet aircraft that Alaska Airlines boasts has only window and aisle seating – no middle seats.

The First Class cabin offers seats that are 21″ wide and that offer 37″ of pitch (legroom), the “Premium Class” seats offer a little over 18″ of width and 34″ of pitch, while the standard Economy Class seats offer an impressive 18″ of width but a cramped 30″ of pitch.

The other three new routes that Alaska Airlines has announced will all be operated by Boeing 737 aircraft and if the current schedules are to be believed, they will be (mostly) operated by the -900 variant.

The 737-900’s First Class cabin offers 16 seats that are 21″ wide and that offer 41″ of pitch (legroom), the “Premium Class” section in the Economy Class cabin offers 24 seats that are 17″ wide and that have 35″ of pitch, while the rest of the Economy Class cabin offers seats that are 17″ wide and that have 31″ of pitch.

Bottom Line

Alaska Airlines has announced that it is adding four new routes from the West Coast to its winter schedule with Portland getting two of the routes and San Francisco and Palm Springs sharing the other two. All the new routes are now loaded into the Alaska Airlines schedules and can be booked online.