Alaska Airlines appears to be pulling out of Dallas Love Field (DAL). The airline has served the smaller of Dallas’ two commercial airports since it acquired Virgin America back in 2018.
Alaska’s Time at Love Field Comes to an End
The news, which was first reported by IshrionA and has since been confirmed by the airline, shows that Alaska Airlines will cease flying to Dallas Love Field later this year. Virgin American operated a mini-hub operation of sorts, connecting passengers between the East and West Coasts (My only flight on Virgin America was from Dallas to Washington-National (DCA) back in 2016).
After Alaska took over the airline and its slots at the airport, it moved most of the flying to its West Coast hubs. However, thanks to its membership in OneWorld and closer partnership with American Airlines, Alaska has been consolidating operations at nearby Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport (DFW).
Alaska Airlines has one remaining route at DAL, operating a single daily frequency to its hub at Seattle Tacoma International Airport (SEA). That service has now been removed from the schedule as of May 14, 2025, ending Alaska’s seven year run at the airport.
What’s Next For Dallas Love Field?
Anybody who has ever been to Dallas Love Field knows that it is dominated by a single carrier, Southwest. It’s as close to a fortress hub (though Southwest uses the term Focus City) as you can get.
One airline that is likely salivating at this announcement is Delta. The carrier has traditionally operated service From Dallas Love Field to it’s superhub in Atlanta (ATL). The carrier also announced plans to add service to Los Angeles (LAX) and New York-LaGuardia (LGA) but has since backtracked due to a dispute over gates. The LaGuardia flights never launched while Los Angeles was cut soon after it started.
The airline and the city were locked in a lawsuit over the airline’s rights to fly to DAL and reached a settlement which allowed Delta to use a gate leased from Alaska Airlines. The battle left a bad taste in many people’s mouths as Southwest and the City of Dallas essentially tried to force out the airline.
Love Field is legally capped at 20 gates and, thanks to its proximity to downtown Dallas, is a popular airport for business travelers. Love Field was my home airport but I frequently trekked out to DFW due to the lack of service from legacy airlines at DAL. Hopefully, with Alaska leaving the airport, Delta or another one of the Big 3 U.S. carriers can move in and provide some competition with Southwest.
It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out but, having control of two gates at the airport would give Delta, or another airline, the ability to operate 14-16x daily flights from the airport depending on their schedules. Could Delta bring back its LAX flying and maybe even pick back up the DAL-SEA route being dropped by Alaska?
Summary
Alaska Airlines is ending all service to Dallas Love Field as of May 14, 2025. The Seattle based carrier will eliminate its last remaining flight to Seattle and consolidate all of its Dallas area operations at DFW Airport. Alaska Airlines currently controls two gates at the capacity constrained airport and it will interesting to see who gets control of those gates.
Perfect timing to go head to head against Southwest at Austin. Throw a 220 on the route 6x daily.
I don’t see any scenario where that happens. AUS isn’t large enough of an operation to demand that kind of flying.
They could do it on O/D alone.
Trump should threaten to bomb Love Field unless they build an additional 15 gates, of which at least 10 gates are for other airlines besides Southwest.
Heck Southwest only has 7x daily as is to DAL out of AUS.
Southwest has connectivity on both ends. Since DAL can’t take international traffic, they funnel lots of Mexico flying through AUS and HOU.
AUS isn’t even in the top 10 domestically out of DAL