Alaska Fills the Void in the Austin to San Jose Market

(MoneyWatch)  Alaska Airlines announced this morning that it would move into the Austin - San Jose route that American recently decided to vacate. I certainly didn't see that one coming. The nerd bird lives!

On my last post, a reader commented that maybe JetBlue or Southwest would come in to take over the route. I don't think anyone guessed Alaska would give it a shot, but it does make some sense. Alaska has said it will begin a single daily nonstop flight on September 2 (American ends their flights on Aug 25) with a 737-800.

Alaska doesn't have much feed for this flight, but the flight does continue on to Portland from San Jose, so they will get some level of feed. Alaska is, however, also sending a flight from Seattle to Austin, so many connecting opportunities can go through that city.

Alaska certainly has a smaller customer base in Austin than American does, but remember, you can earn American miles on Alaska flights, and those miles are elite qualifying miles as well. So the loyalists should support this flight.

I give credit to Alaska for being quick with this one. It might work or it might not, but it seems like a good place to put a plane these days to see if they can find success.