Alaska Airlines has submitted a formal application to the US Department of Transportation and the Mexico Direccion General de Aeronautica Civil (DGAC) to reintroduce flights between Seattle and Cancun this winter as it continues to strengthen its operations at its Seattle Tacoma International Airport base. The carrier will already launch flights from Seattle to New Orleans (from June 12, 2014), Tampa (from June 20, 2014), Baltimore (from September 2, 2014), Detroit (from September 4, 2014) and Albuquerque (from September 18, 2014) over the coming five months.
The US carrier plans to reintroduce a daily service between Seattle and Cancun from November 6, 2014, having previously served the route during the winter schedules from 2006/2007 until 2009/2010. Over the last ten years one-way O&D demand on this city pair has reached levels approaching 50,000 passengers, although for the past three calendar years demand has fallen to around 25,000 passengers due to the lack of non-stop air services. This traffic is currently carried mainly by United Airlines, American Airlines and US Airways via other US hubs.
Alaska Airlines introduced service to Mexico in 1988 and operates more non-stop flights between the West Coast and Mexico than any other carrier, flying an average of 1.5 million passengers a year. It already serves six Mexico beach destinations — Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Loreto, Los Cabos, Manzanillo, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta — in addition to Guadalajara and Mexico City.
"As Seattle's leading airline, we're committed to offering the most non-stop service to the popular destinations our customers want to explore, including leisure hotspots like Cancun," said Joe Sprague, vice president of marketing. "Customers taking Alaska Airlines' flight to Cancun will enjoy our award-winning service and low fares."
With all the new flights, Alaska Airlines will now offer 279 peak-day departures non-stop to 79 destinations from Seattle Tacoma International Airport and Mexico is a key international market for the carrier. In the analysis below we look at total annual seat capacity from USA to Mexico over the past ten years. Alaska Airlines was the seventh largest carrier in 2013 offering 887,955 seats, a 6.8 per cent share of the available capacity. Despite its strong position in the US west coast market it has seen its overall capacity share decline from 7.0 per cent in 2012 and 7.1 per cent in 2011.
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