Alaska Airlines will add a non-stop, daily service between Seattle and Pittsburgh next autumn.
This new service is currently the only non-stop flight offered from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Pittsburgh International Airport.
The new route provides a link from the West Coast to the thriving business community in Pittsburgh, which is continuing to grow as more technology companies look to establish a presence in the city.
“Alaska continues to meet the needs of valued Seattle guests with new service to the Steel City,” said John Kirby, vice president of capacity planning at Alaska Airlines.
“We are pleased to add Pittsburgh to our growing list of destinations from our hometown of Seattle.
“With the addition of Pittsburgh, Alaska flies nonstop to 90 destinations, which is more than twice as many as any other airline.”
Cuba
At the same time, Alaska announced that it will end a daily flight between Los Angeles and Havana, Cuba.
The last flight is planned for January 22nd.
The airline will redeploy aircraft used to serve Havana to markets with higher demand.
“Travel is about making connections, and we were honoured to have played a role in helping people make personal connections by traveling between the US and Cuba,” said
Andrew Harrison, chief commercial officer for Alaska Airlines.
“We continually evaluate every route we fly to ensure we have the right number of seats to match the number of people who want to go there.”
About 80 per cent of Alaska’s flyers to Havana visited under a US allowance for individual “people-to-people” educational travel.
Changes to US policy last week eliminated that allowance.
Given the changes in Cuba travel policies, the airline will redeploy these resources to other markets the airline serves where demand continues to be strong.
Alaska started the Los Angeles-Havana flight on January 5th this year.