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Alaska Airlines has quietly dropped five seasonal Mexico routes that had been planned for late 2026 and early 2027, redirecting some of that capacity toward Hawaii. Where the rest of the capacity will go is yet to be seen.
The routes
The five cancelled services are:
Las Vegas – Los Cabos: Daily service was due to start/restart from 20 November 2026 (route was to be operated by SkyWest using an Embraer E175).
Las Vegas – Puerto Vallarta: Daily service was due to start/restart from 21 November 2026 (route was to be operated by SkyWest using an Embraer E175).
Los Angeles – Cancun: Daily service was due to start/restart from 20 November 2026 (route was to be operated by a mainline Boeing 737-900ER).
San Francisco – Cancun: Daily service was due to start/restart from 20 November 2026 to 5 January 2027 (route was to be operated by a mainline Boeing 737-900ER).
San Francisco – Loreto: Daily service was due to start/restart from 9 January 2027 (route was to be operated by a mainline Boeing 737-900ER).
As far as we can tell, all five routes had been on sale, so anyone who has already booked one of these services will be affected. If that’s you and Alaska hasn’t already contacted you been, give the airline a call to discuss your options asap.
Why Alaska is pulling back
Well, we don’t have to guess or hypothesize because Alaska Airlines told the Las Vegas Review-Journal exactly what’s going on:
“To support increased demand to Hawaii during holiday periods, we are adding flights across California cities to four Hawaiian Islands: Oahu, Maui, Hawaii (Kona) and Kauai. To enable this investment, we have exited some underperforming seasonal routes to Mexican destinations. We will not return winter service from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Cancun, San Francisco to Loreto, and Las Vegas to Puerto Vallarta and San Jose del Cabo. We will continue to serve nine Mexican destinations through our hubs including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.”
That’s a notably candid statement. The Mexico routes were underperforming and Hawaii takes priority. Alaska still serves all four affected Mexican destinations from other gateways, so this is a question of which US cities serve them, not whether Alaska flies there at all.
Thoughts
Alaska is the largest carrier from the continental US to Hawaii, and feeding the islands from the mainland is now a core part of the network strategy to a greater degree than it was before the Hawaiian Airlines takeover.
Hawaii is a market Alaska has a reason to defend and grow while a seasonal winter run from Las Vegas to Puerto Vallarta on a regional jet operated by SkyWest is not.
To a degree, we’ve already started to see what Alaska Airlines told the Las Vegas Review-Journal taking shape. According to Cirium schedule data, Alaska will increase seats to Hawaii from the continental US by 6% in Q4 2026 compared to Q4 2025, with Lihue seeing a particularly sharp jump of 28%.
In California specifically, Los Angeles to Maui is being increased to twice daily, San Francisco to Kona on the Big Island is getting additional service, and Burbank to Honolulu has been restored as a nonstop option for the first time in over 20 years – that’s a brand new California to Hawaii route launched at almost exactly the same time Alaska was pulling back from its California to Mexico flying.
It’s worth pointing out, however, that only three of the five cancelled routes were operated by mainline Boeing 737s (the aircraft type that can actually serve West Coast to Hawaii routes). The two Las Vegas routes were operated by Embraer E175 regional jets which simply don’t have the range to reach Hawaii from the mainland.
Presumably, those aircraft will be redeployed by SkyWest on other regional domestic routes, not to Hawaii. That raises an obvious question: if two of the five cancellations had nothing to do with freeing up Hawaii-capable aircraft, the “supporting increased demand to Hawaii” reasoning only tells part of the story. Retreating from routes on which Alaska Airlines was struggling to compete tells the rest.
Las Vegas to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos are not natural Alaska strongholds, especially with Southwest adding Mexico service from Las Vegas — including Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, and Los Cabos — from June 2026 onwards.
San Francisco to Cancun is a tough place for Alaska to make a stand when United is so dominant at SFO and when United will offer 15 weekly flights between SFO and Cancun in November 2026.
Los Angeles to Cancun is another logical route cut as with United, Delta and American Airlines offering approximately 28 daily flights between them on this route in November 2026, Alaska had its work cut out making any inroads there.
In addition to all of that, it’s also worth noting that this continues a broader pattern of Alaska pulling back from Mexico. The airline had already ended its summer season Los Angeles to Cancun service early (in May), and it discontinued San Jose to Los Cabos, San Jose to Puerto Vallarta, and San Jose to Guadalajara around the same time. Viewed through that lens, seeing these winter routes not returning is not particularly surprising.
Related: Alaska and Hawaiian push past 150 aircraft in their Starlink rollout
Bottom line
Alaska Airlines has cancelled five planned seasonal Mexico routes for winter 2026/27, redirecting some of that capacity to Hawaii. The airline continues to serve all four affected Mexican destinations from other West Coast gateways, and for travelers in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco who’d been counting on those routes, alternatives do exist.
