As students start hitting the books, more books start flying across the Pacific.
Every week, new books arrive at public schools, libraries and bookstores in Hawaii and the state of Alaska via our Priority Shipping services and partnership with logistics leader Lynden. Many of the books are shipped from publishers based in Nashville (BNA), transferring in Seattle (SEA) or Portland (PDX) to our nonstop flights to Hawaii and Alaska.
Alaska Air Cargo is Lynden Logistics’ go-to for the book shipments because of “service, reliability and cost,” said Matt Wetherbee, manager of the company’s Portland office. He pointed out that our teams have decades of experience working together on shipping solutions. “It’s like working with old friends,” he said.
As the only major domestic airline based on the West Coast, we offer more nonstop flights than any other carrier from the West Coast across the country — and from the West Coast to Hawaii and Alaska. Now flying into the busiest shipping season, through the holidays, here are five ways our network is doing the heavy lifting for your business:
New routes starting October 1
Our new fall nonstop routes increase our cross-country and California opportunities as we serve more than 100 communities across North America.
Portland (PDX) – Atlanta (ATL)
Los Angeles (LAX) — Pasco (PSC)
Los Angeles (LAX) — Reno (RNO)
San Diego (SAN) — Las Vegas (LAS)
Rapidly growing California capacity
Our new schedules starting October 1 add 33% more departures from Los Angeles (LAX), giving us more flights from LAX to West Coast destinations than any other carrier — including 13 daily nonstops to Seattle and eight daily flights to Portland. We’ve also increased flights from L.A. throughout the West to destinations like Boise (BOI), Eugene (EUG) and Spokane (GEG), and we now reach more nonstop destinations across the country from San Diego than any other airline.
Dedicated freighters to the state of Alaska and beyond
We are the only U.S.-based passenger airline with five dedicated cargo planes, which can carry up to 50,000 pounds of freight per departure. Our freighter fleet serves 20 communities across the state of Alaska, connecting them to Anchorage (ANC) and Seattle every day, and our newest fuel-efficient 737-800BCF freighters are ETOPS-certified, allowing us to explore new long-range routes like our seasonal nonstop service from King Salmon (AKN) to Seattle during this summer’s Bristol Bay sockeye season.
Holiday planning: Santa’s new connection to SoCal
Twice a week year-round, our freighters connect Anchorage to L.A. with a stop in Seattle — and this year during the peak holiday season, we will increase our freighter service to L.A. to three times per week. We also keep our LAX station open 24/7 to facilitate drop-offs and pick-ups for cargo on the overnight freighters, as well as belly cargo on passenger flights.
Our longstanding commitment to remote communities
For more than 90 years, our teams have proudly served communities across the state of Alaska that are accessible only by air or sea. We’ve honed our cold-chain expertise to support local economies reliant on air freight, and have forged deep commitments to the places where our teams live, work and fly.
