Southwest Airlines has turned its slots at Paine Field over to Alaska Airlines. At the beginning of the year, Southwest claimed as many as five flights a day at the Everett, Wash., airport north of Seattle, which next year will open to commercial passenger service for the first time. Southwest cited "business considerations" in transferring those slots to Alaska, which boosts Alaska's planned service from the airport to 18 daily departures, pending government approvals.
Alaska on Thursday began selling tickets for Paine Field service, slated to begin Feb. 11. Its service will be operated by Horizon Air on Embraer 175 aircraft, connecting to Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Orange County, Calif.; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; San Francisco; and San Jose, Calif.
United Airlines also plans service out of Paine Field to Denver and San Francisco but has not yet announced a start date, a spokesman said.
Southwest's Plans
Southwest, meanwhile, has turned its attention to boosting service out of Nashville next June, including new daily nonstop service to Burbank and San Jose; new seasonal service to Omaha; increased service to Boston, Detroit, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Diego and St. Louis; and resumed seasonal service to Seattle and Norfolk, Va. With those additions, Southwest will have 124 daily weekday departures out of Nashville and 133 on Sundays.
Other new daily routes Southwest will add in June include between San Diego and Omaha; between San Francisco and Ontario, Calif.; and between Austin and Raleigh Durham, as well as new seasonal international service between Baltimore and Grand Cayman and between Houston Hobby and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.