End Of Service Virgin America Fought To Have

Alaska Airlines

could potentially leave Dallas Love Field (DAL) more than ten years after Virgin America, which it acquired in 2016, had entered the airport following a public campaign to lobby Dallas officials to assign gates to the airline.

Potential end

As flagged by Ishrion Aviation, Alaska Airlines has scheduled its last flight from Dallas-Love Field

to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on May 14. So far, data from the aviation analytics company Cirium’s Diio Mi airline planning tool showed that Alaska Airlines is still planning daily flights between the two airports until January 2026.

At the same time, Alaska Airlines’ booking engine showed that no flights between the two airports were available beyond May 14.

The move to end flights from Dallas-Love Field would be unsurprising, considering the airline’s gradual capacity reductions at the airport over the past few years. During the summer months of 2023, the carrier had 20 weekly flights from Dallas-Love Field to Seattle-Tacoma

and San Francisco International Airport (SFO), split between double-daily and six-weekly flights, respectively.

By December 2023, Alaska Airlines removed the Dallas-Love Field to San Francisco route, with its daily itineraries between Seattle-Tacoma and Dallas-Love Field remaining the airline’s only route from/to the Texan airport.

To note, in May, Alaska Airlines scheduled 50 weekly departures from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

(DFW), with 11 weekly flights landing at Portland International Airport (PDX) and 39 weekly flights touching down at Seattle-Tacoma.

Gradual reductions

Alaska Airlines began operating at the airport in September 2017 as the airline, which had finalized the deal to acquire Virgin America in December 2016, began adjusting its post-merger network. In April 2017, the group announced that both Alaska Airlines and Virgin America

were expanding in Texas, including adding flights from four West Coast airports to Dallas-Love Field:

• Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
• San Diego International Airport

  (SAN)

• San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC)
• Portland International Airport (PDX)

At the time, John Kirby, the then vice president of capacity planning and alliances of Alaska Airlines, said that the new routes would offer Dallas’ business flyers complete West Coast utility from one of the fastest-growing corporate centers in the country. Kirby now works for Spirit Airlines

as the vice president of network planning, according to his LinkedIn profile.

However, the same announcement also detailed that the group was streamlining the network at Dallas-Love Field, redeploying aircraft to meet demand in existing and new markets.

This included switching the Virgin America jets with the Embraer E175 on flights from the Texan airport to New York LaGuardia Airport

(LGA) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

(DCA). Furthermore, starting August 26, 2017, Virgin America no longer operated flights from Dallas-Love Field to Harry Reid Las Vegas International Airport (LAS).

“The fleet changes will free up Virgin America planes used in Love Field, to fly new, previously announced long-haul San Francisco flights to Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville, Indianapolis, Raleigh-Durham, and Kona, as well as new flights between Los Angeles and Philadelphia.”

Entering Dallas-Love Field with fanfare

Cirium’s Diio Mi data showed that Virgin America began its first flights from Dallas-Love Field in November 2014, with 84 weekly departures to New York-LaGuardia, Los Angeles International Airport

(LAX), San Francisco, and Washington-National.

The services started once the airline, which tapped Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, to help with its campaign to acquire gates at the airport, had nudged Dallas city officials enough to grant it two gates at Dallas-Love Field. Local officials made a favorable decision in October 2014, and the ‘Free Love Field’ campaign was deemed successful.

To celebrate the launch of its services from the airport, Virgin America partnered with Uber to offer on-demand flights on the ridesharing application, with Branson and Kacey Musgraves, a Grammy-winning musician, entertaining guests onboard.

Since Alaska Airlines had acquired Virgin America and began gradually moving capacity out of Dallas-Love Field, the airport has been dominated by Southwest Airlines. Out of the 1,379 weekly flights scheduled to fly out of the airport in February, the Texan low-cost carrier should operate 1,342 weekly itineraries or 97.3% of the airport’s total schedule.