New Route of the Day – Americas (20 August 2025): Alaska Airlines between Phoenix and San Diego
Alaska Airlines launched flights between Phoenix and San Diego on Wednesday 20 August. The 490-kilometre service will be maintained 3-daily. The airline will have significant competition between the two cities, including 32-weekly flights by American, 11-weekly by Frontier Airlines and 59-weekly by Southwest Airlines.
Alaska Airlines to expand San Diego operations
The introduction of Phoenix flights from San Diego is the first of three new routes from the California city. The Oneworld member will introduce operations to Chicago ORD and Denver on 4 October. They too will be served 3-daily.
Starting 26 October, Alaska Airlines will also add flights on select routes from San Diego with an increase in frequencies of over 50%. The growth will result in 6-daily services to Las Vegas, Sacramento and San Jose, as well as 3-daily flights to Salt Lake City.
With the new routes on the combined Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines network, the group will handle 44 nonstop destinations from San Diego, the most of any airline serving the airport, along with more than 90 peak-day departures. This includes flights to the East Coast, the Northwest, throughout California, Mexico, Florida and to all four of Hawaii’s major islands.
Alaska Airlines will be North America’s fifth largest in winter
Alaska Airlines has 30 million seats on the market during the winter fourth quarter of 2025 and first quarter of 2026. The figure represents an increase of 8.6% over the same six-month period during 2024/25. As a result, the carrier will be the fifth largest in both North America and the US, behind American, Delta, United and Southwest Airlines.
It comes as Alaska Airlines prepares to add more long-haul flights from Seattle to its network, including Seoul ICN on 12 September, Tokyo NRT on 7 January, as well as London LHR and Reykjavik next spring. The airline plans to operate a fleet of up to 17 787 aircraft. The carrier plans to serve a total of 12 long-haul routes from Seattle by 2030.
