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Alaska Airlines might add a flight from Juneau to Portland, without stopping in Seattle. It’s one possibility among several changes the airline talked about at a Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday.
Scott Habberstad manages the airline’s Alaska market. He said Alaska Airlines has committed to some changes, including new flights to international destinations, free Starlink wifi for Atmos rewards members starting this year, expansions at several rural airport terminals throughout Alaska and finishing upgrades at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“What we’re doing will help decongest it in our area,” he said about Sea-Tac. “It’s not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be a lot better than you’ve seen over the last year, and I can guarantee and promise you that.”
But one idea is very much up in the air.
“I talked up here last year about wanting to go Juneau to Portland,” he said.
Habberstad said that flight could help travelers skip some of the bottleneck issues at Sea-Tac and offer more connection options, but it presents a hurdle.
“As we dug into it, the challenge is we couldn’t add an incremental flight because there’s not enough demand for it, and so I’d have to take a flight from Seattle to make it work,” Habberstad said.
Angela Rodell, a member of the Juneau International Airport Board, interjected.
“Take off a Seattle route, Scott,” she said.
Habberstad said he wants to, but can’t figure out which regular flight the airline could move from landing in Sea-Tac to landing in Portland International Airport that wouldn’t hurt travelers coming from Alaska.
Alaska Airlines typically runs around 5 to 10 flights from Juneau to Seattle per day — depending on the season — including direct flights and milk runs that stop in Sitka, Ketchikan, Petersburg and Wrangell. Sea-Tac is currently the only airport connecting Juneau to the Lower 48.
Following the presentation, Rodell told KTOO she wants the airline to be serious about trying to make the Portland route work.
“Make it a pilot, make it a test — see how Southeast Alaska responds to it,” she said. “I think they’ll be surprised with the uptake on that, actually.”
Andres Delgado, the manager at Juneau International Airport, said he’s confident it will happen.
“I don’t think that we’ll go without a PDX route for very much longer,” he said. “I think it’s coming, it’s just getting that ball rolling with Alaska Airlines.”
Delgado said it’s not a matter of if, but when.
Habberstad was a bit more hesitant. He said the airline is “always looking” at the possibility. In the best-case scenario, he said Juneau could see a flight to Portland next summer.
