Things in the Sky

United announced last week that would come back to Anchorage after leaving in 2008. In the past, United flew there year-round with an increase in service during the summer, but in 2007 it said that the city would only be a seasonal destination. A year later, the decision was made to cut all service entirely.

But after a year hiatus, United will come back with the same destinations it had when it left: its Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco hubs. All will have daily service, though Chicago gets an extra frequency on Saturdays. The Saturday-only service to Chicago starts a couple of weeks before the daily flights, and ends a couple of weeks after.

The routes are already flown by other carriers, so for the heck of it, I played around with some online timetables to see the increase in capacity that the new service would be providing:

Anchorage to O’Hare is interesting, as it is a new route for American this summer as well (like United’s, the service is seasonal). One benefit for American’s new service, is that because of their partnership with Alaska, their new Chicago service carries Alaska’s code.

What I found to be very interesting, however, is the new San Francisco service, just from a scheduling perspective. The Denver and Chicago flights are timed pretty close to those of the competitors, but San Francisco is different. Alaska’s current nonstop service takes place overnight,  while United’s is during the day. That might just be the best way it fit into the schedule, as it appears one 757 flies ORD-ANC-SFO, while another flies SFO-ANC-ORD. I guess I’m wondering if the different timing will give one airline an advantage over the other.

But Anchorage has certainly been getting some nice boosts in service of late. Awhile back US Airways announced seasonal service to Philadelphia, and last week Continental announced seasonal service to Portland.