{"id":304734,"date":"2026-05-07T19:27:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/304734\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:27:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:27:25","slug":"alaska-airlines-adds-3-sonoma-routes-returns-to-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/304734\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Airlines adds 3 Sonoma routes, returns to Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has only been a month since Southwest Airlines’ first planes touched down in Sonoma County, but an airline turf battle is brewing in California’s wine country.<\/p>\n

Now, the region is getting three new routes from Alaska Airlines, its longest-serving carrier.<\/p>\n

Alaska on Thursday announced it’ll launch service this fall from Sonoma to three western cities: Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho.<\/p>\n

Each of the new routes will begin on Nov. 1<\/p>\n

The move comes just weeks after Southwest Airlines launched service<\/a> from Santa Rosa and mirrored Alaska’s long-standing “wine flies free” policy<\/a>. The policy allows flyers to check a case of wine (up to 12 bottles) for free \u2014 a setup clearly meant to benefit tourists visiting Sonoma wineries.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sonoma County, California. STEVE PROEHL\/THE IMAGE BANK\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Here’s the rundown of Alaska’s three new routes from Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport (STS), each of which will be seasonal service that will run during the winter months.<\/p>\n

RouteDatesAircraftSTS to Boise Airport (BOI)<\/p>\n

Nov. 1 through April 19, 2027; “up to daily” service<\/p>\n

Embraer 175<\/p>\n

STS to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)<\/p>\n

Nov. 1 through April 21; daily service<\/p>\n

Embraer 175<\/p>\n

STS to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)<\/p>\n

Nov. 1 through April 21; “up to daily” service<\/p>\n

Embraer 175<\/p>\n

Fast air service growth in Sonoma County<\/p>\n

Even before Alaska’s expansion in Sonoma County, the airport had seen a notable increase in air service this year.<\/p>\n

During the first half of 2026, the total number of departures from STS was set to be up nearly 20% versus last year, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.<\/p>\n

Come November, Alaska will link a dozen cities to Santa Rosa.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\"\"Alaska Airlines’ planned route map from Sonoma County as of November 2026. CIRIUM<\/p>\n

Southwest \u2014 which didn’t fly there until April \u2014 now has nonstop STS service from Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego and Burbank, California.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, if you want to visit Sonoma (or even Napa Valley) and skip the traffic of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose or Sacramento, there’s a rapidly increasing number of flight options from which to choose.<\/p>\n

Alaska returns to Long Beach<\/p>\n

Alaska also had route news in Southern California this week.<\/p>\n

The Seattle-based carrier on Thursday revealed plans to return to Long Beach for the first time in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 8, Alaska will launch nonstop service from Long Beach Airport (LGB) to its Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) home base.<\/p>\n

\"\"Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-900. SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/p>\n

Alaska last flew to LGB in 2015, per Cirium.<\/p>\n

The service will offer a key link to Hawaiian Airlines, now part of Alaska Air Group, which flies from Long Beach to Honolulu and Maui.<\/p>\n

Alaska will operate its SEA-LGB service with one of its Boeing 737s.<\/p>\n

Bottom line<\/p>\n

Alaska’s new routes bolster its long-standing West Coast network. But the reveal comes just about a week after the carrier took the latest step toward becoming a true global airline with its first service to Europe.<\/a><\/p>\n

Related reading:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has only been a month since Southwest Airlines’ first planes touched down in Sonoma County, but an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-304734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}