Alaska Airlines said Thursday that it will begin flying a daily route between Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Long Beach Airport later this year, the first flight offered by the airline in Long Beach in years.
The nonstop flight will run twice daily starting Sept. 8, using either a 178-seat Boeing 737-MAX 9 or Boeing 737-900ER. A spokesperson for the Seattle-based carrier said that introductory fares will start at $139.
Flights will be equipped with Starlink Wi-Fi, an upgrade being adopted across several major airlines in the next year.
Officials for the city and airline celebrated the announcement, saying it’s been years since Alaska’s planes landed regularly in Long Beach.
The airline ended its routinely scheduled route from Seattle to Long Beach in 2009, amid falling passenger counts that officials at the time said made it untenable. It continued to run occasional flights between the two cities until the carrier withdrew from the airport in 2015, according to city and airline officials.
Other carriers, including Frontier, Horizon Air, JetBlue, Allegiant and American Airlines, have ended routes through Long Beach over similar demand concerns.
When asked why Alaska decided to return to the airport, an airline spokesman said the route is geared for the business and tourist crowd.
“This year-round flight provides convenient access to all that southern California has to offer, whether guests are in search of beach time or a theme park,” they said in a press release.
The city airport is predominantly used by Southwest Airlines, which already offers a nonstop route to Seattle. Other routes are offered by Delta and Hawaiian Airlines, a sister company to Alaska Airlines.
According to a city memo released last month, seven carriers, including Alaska Airlines, have been on the waitlist to secure a permanent flight slot at the airport. Darrick Lee, an airport spokesperson, said Thursday the airline was awarded two permanent slots to operate its planes.
City data shows that in 2025, Long Beach Airport had more than 16,700 landings and 3.8 million total passengers, a slight drop from the year prior. A memo from September says the airport expects a 15% drop in scheduled flights this year.
The airport is currently undergoing a major overhaul with $37 million allocated to renovate its concourse and 11 gates. But the City Council in past years has also declined some plans to expand the airport — including a bid to make it international — as a way of ameliorating neighborhood pressures to keep it small and its daily noise below a certain level.