Alaska Air already expanding at Virgin America's S.F. hub
Alaska Airlines wasted little time announcing new routes as part of its merger with Virgin America.
Alaska Airlines revealed three new routes from Virgin America’s San Francisco hub, announcing them the same day it officially closed on its acquisition of the California-based carrier. Now, the carrier has followed up with the schedule details for those routes.
The routes to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Orlando and Orange County, Calif., will launch this summer and will be flown on planes under both the Alaska Airlines and Virgin America brands.
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Alaska Air’s regional affiliate SkyWest will fly the Orange County and Minneapolis/St. Paul routes on its 76-seat Embraer E175 jets. The Orange County service begins June 15 with two daily round-trip flights, though that will increase to four daily round-trip flights on July 18. Alaska Air’s twice-daily San Francisco-Minneapolis/St. Paul service starts July 18.
Virgin America will operate the Orlando starting June 14, operating one daily round-trip flight on its 146-seat mood-lit Airbus A320 aircraft.
Once the new routes start, Alaska Air says it and Virgin America will be flying to 20 of the 25 most-popular air destinations from San Francisco.
"We're excited to grow our San Francisco hub by adding service to three of the most requested destinations by fliers," John Kirby, VP of capacity planning for Alaska Airlines, says in a statement. "Through the combination of Alaska Airlines and Virgin America, Bay Area fliers can now enjoy 113 daily flights to 32 destinations from three Bay Area airports giving our customers even more opportunities to both earn and burn miles as part of the nation's most award winning loyalty program."
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