Horizon Looks to Create Small Community Air Hub in San Jose
When I started rifling through the dozens of Small Community Air Service Development (SCASD) grants this year, I noticed an interesting theme. Horizon Air, Alaska's (ALK) regional operator, participated in a number of proposals this year that would bring flights from small cities into San Jose. It looks like Horizon wants to add flights in San Jose to support a new hub for Alaska.
Applications from Carlsbad and Oxnard (California) as well as Medford and Eugene (Oregon) all had the airport looking to attract air service from Horizon Air using Q400 aircraft into San Jose. This wasn't just at the request of the airport, however. Horizon Air wrote a letter of support for each of these communities and that was included in the application. This is definitely a coordinated effort.
Horizon has had good success with SCASD grants in the past, including the program's signature success with flights in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. But this appears to be more than just a one-off attempt to gain subsidies to serve a city. This looks like a calculated effort to keep growing San Jose, something that it and parent Alaska have been doing for some time now. Take a look at the existing route map for Alaska and Horizon in San Jose:
The new routes are highlighted, but even without those, Alaska and Horizon have built a substantial operation while others have retreated. Alaska's partner American abandoned the Austin route and Alaska moved in. American still flies to LAX, but Horizon started that route as well. And Alaska has grown into Mexico and Hawai'i from there too. Now Horizon wants to fill in the short hauls with the help of federal funds.
I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. There's no way the feds are going to approve all of these, but what if one or two gets the nod? Will Horizon look to do some of the other routes anyway? It might be necessary to better utilize the airplanes, and it's entirely possible some of these might work on their own anyway.
But it's really interesting to see Horizon growing San Jose while others have pulled away. San Jose's recent expansion projects have left the airport on the costly side, but that's not stopping Alaska and Horizon. So far, this hublet appears to be succeeding on a limited basis, and now Horizon is looking for federal help to keep it growing.
Related:
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- SCASDP Grants Have Been Awarded