Things in the Sky

On Wednesday, Alaska announced some pretty interesting changes to its route map.

First, the airline has announced a 37% cut in Mexico capacity starting July 2. The timing for this seems a bit off to me. Last week, other airlines announced capacity cuts in this focusing on May and June. US Airways actually announced that it hopes to have a full schedule to Mexico again on the same day. I’m sure there’s a reason, but it just seems a bit weird to wait to cut capacity for so long.

But, Alaska is finding other things to do with those aircraft when it trims its Mexico flying. That’s good, because according to this post on PlaneBuzz, Mexico makes up 8% of the airline’s passenger revenue.

The Hawaii flights will be getting a nice boost. On July 2, the Seattle-Honolulu route will receive its second daily frequency. Previously, the airline announced Portland-Maui service, with three flights a week starting August 7. That route will now start three times a week on July 2, and move to daily service on August 7. Finally, in November, the airline will fly four times a week to Maui, and three times a week to Kona from Oakland. That makes sense, considering that Oakland lost a lot of Hawaii service when ATA and Aloha folded, though Hawaiian has picked up the slack a bit with a daily flight to Honolulu.

Later this year Alaska will also be adding a couple of new cities to its system. On September 23, one daily flight to Houston Intercontinental from Seattle will be launched, and on October 23 Atlanta service from Seattle will begin, also with one daily flight. While there’s nothing mentioned in the press release, I wouldn’t be surprised if these flights could open up some possibilities for some codesharing with Continental or Delta.