Alaska Airlines to Launch New Cross-country Flight This Fall

Alaska Airlines will launch a new flight between Portland, Oregon, and Atlanta this fall, continuing its efforts to expand its network this year.

The Seattle-based airline will kick off daily nonstop flights between the two cities starting on Oct. 1, and will operate the service year-round, according to Alaska. The route will be flown on a Boeing 737-900 aircraft.

“For more than 20 years, we’ve been the largest carrier in Portland – one of our key West Coast gateways,” Kirsten Amrine, the vice president of revenue management and network planning for Alaska Airlines, said in a statement. “We’re always looking for ways to connect the Rose City to other destinations across our network. We believe our flights to Atlanta will be a popular addition for our guests heading to the South.” 

The new Atlanta flight marks the latest effort Alaska has made to expand its network from Portland. The airline will also increase its seat capacity from the city this summer by more than 25 percent. That includes recently-announced flights to Nashville and Miami along with increased frequencies on popular routes like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver.

With the Atlanta flight, the airline will fly nonstop to 54 different destinations from the Oregon city.

In addition to Portland, the airline has teamed up with Canada's Porter Airlines to launch flights between Toronto and both Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Amid all its expansion plans, Alaska Airlines is currently in the process of trying to buy fellow West Coast carrier Hawaiian Airlines, which would expand its fleet to 365 narrow and wide-body aircraft. As part of the sale — valued at about $1.9 billion and subject to government approval — Alaska has said it would plan to maintain both the Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines brands and integrate both into a “single operating platform.”