Alaska Airlines is retreating from Washington Dulles, blaming slowing demand and economic uncertainty, but building up its network in San Diego with the addition of three more routes from a station where Alaska is competing with Southwest Airlines for the top market position.

Alaska Airlines Route Shuffle In Face Of Changing Demand

During its earnings calls last week, United Airlines said it is seeing a reduction in domestic economy class demand and would be slashing flights after the busy summer travel season. It appears Alaska Airlines will do the same thing on a number of long-standing routes, though Alaska will also expand service from San Diego to many routes that are already ultra-competitive.

Alaska Airlines Retreats In Washington Dulles, Blames “Economic Uncertainty”

Over the weekend, Alaska Airlines removed four routes from its schedule, including two transcontinental routes from Washington Dulles:

• Washington (IAD) – Los Angeles (LAX) – ends August 18, 2025
• Washington (IAD) – San Francisco (SFO) – ends August 18, 2025
• Chicago (ORD) – San Francisco (SFO) – ends August 18, 2025
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Nassau, Bahamas (NAS) – ends August 19, 2025

The Washington Dulles transcontinental routes date back to the Virgin America days, but have seen a slowdown in recent months as the new administration seeks to cull the federal workforce. Alaska suggests the cutbacks are connected to economic uncertainty:

“We’ve seen a recent decrease in demand on our routes between San Francisco-Washington Dulles and Los Angeles-Washington Dulles, potentially connected to economic uncertainty and a decrease in government-related travel.”

Alaska will continue to serve Washington Dulles from Seattle (SEA) and San Diego (SAN) and offers nonstop service to Washington National (DCA) from both Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Concerning the Chicago – San Francisco cut, Alaska admitted that it was unable to keep up with American Airlines and United Airlines (the latter of which offers up to 11 flights per day between the two cities) with only one flight.

“Other airlines offer a greater frequency of flights on this route compared to our once-daily flight.”

Finally, the Nassau route proved to be a loser (Alaska also cut nonstop service from Seattle to Nassau earlier this year). JetBlue also cut nonstop service from Los Angeles to Nassau, with Caribbean vacations from the West Coast far less attractive than from the East Coast.

Alaska Airlines Builds Up San Diego Focus City

But not all California cities will see cutbacks. While Los Angeles and San Francisco will lose flights, Alaska is growing from San Diego. The carrier announced new flights to:

• Chicago (ORD) – begins October 4, 2025
• Denver (DEN) – begins October 4, 2025
• Phoenix (PHX) – begins August 20, 2025

The Chicago and Denver routes will be operated by Boeing 737s, while the Phoenix route will be shared with Horizon and utilize both 737s and Embraer E175s. Each new route will offer three daily flights and the flights will operate year-round.

Alaska Airlines is also adding frequencies to other San Diego routes, including:

• Las Vegas (LAS)
• Sacramento (SMF)
• Salt Lake City (SLC)
• San Jose, California (SJC)

Every one of these routes has competition: the new Chicago route is also served by American, Frontier, and United, the new Denver route is served by American, Frontier, United, and Southwest, and the new Phoenix route is served by American, Frontier and Southwest.

CONCLUSION

Alaska Airlines is shifting domestic capacity away from unprofitable transcontinental traffic and focusing more on building up its San Diego base. With the new routes, Alaska will serve 44 nonstop destinations from San Diego, more than even Southwest.