Alaska Airlines Shifts West Coast Focus With New San Diego Pilot Base
New Pilot Base Coming To San Diego In 2026
Alaska Airlines will open a new Boeing 737 pilot base at San Diego International Airport (SAN), with operations set to begin on June 1, 2026. The move comes as Alaska continues to grow its presence in San Diego, which has become the carrier’s fastest-growing hub.
Bidding for the new base will run from December 15 to December 28, with results announced on January 6, 2026. In the first phase, Alaska plans to staff the base with:
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80 captains
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70 first officers
for a total of 150 pilots.
Later in 2026, the airline plans to assign another 100 pilots to San Diego, with those transfers expected to take effect in the fall. Some of this growth will be driven by pilot displacements from Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO), where Alaska is trimming pilot staffing by roughly 25%.
Why San Diego Fits Alaska’s Strategy
Unlike most large US airlines, Alaska’s network has always been a bit unconventional. The carrier’s core hub is Seattle–Tacoma, with Portland acting as a secondary hub and Anchorage anchoring its Alaska network. The California hubs at LAX and SFO were inherited from Virgin America and have proven challenging due to intense competition.
San Diego, however, gives Alaska a different kind of opportunity:
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It has strong local demand, but
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Far less head-to-head competition than Los Angeles or San Francisco
Based on San Diego International Airport data, approximate market share looks like this:
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Southwest Airlines – 34.1%
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Alaska Airlines – 19.2%
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United Airlines – 12.5%
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Delta Air Lines – 12.4%
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American Airlines – 10.4%
Southwest is still the largest carrier at SAN, but Alaska is a solid number two and enjoys a reputation for high customer loyalty. With Southwest under pressure financially and strategically, Alaska sees room to grow and capture more of the San Diego market, especially on routes where its network and brand resonate with West Coast travelers.
The new pilot base is also a practical move. By basing 737 crews in San Diego, Alaska can:
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Reduce hotel and repositioning costs
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Improve crew scheduling and reliability
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Support further route growth from SAN as opportunities arise
What It Means For Alaska’s California Hubs
Alaska’s experience in California has been mixed. Virgin America struggled to make money at LAX and SFO, and many of the same structural issues remain today:
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Los Angeles (LAX) is a brutal competitive arena, with American, Delta, Southwest, and United all fighting for share at similar scale.
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San Francisco (SFO) is dominated by United, which combines a massive domestic operation with a huge long-haul network, especially to Asia.
In both markets, loyalty programs and co-branded credit card economics heavily favor the largest incumbents. That makes it difficult for Alaska to win high-value customers at the same level, even with a strong product and loyal core following.
By contrast, San Diego leans more toward point-to-point, origin-and-destination traffic with fewer mega-hub dynamics. That plays directly to Alaska’s strengths:
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A strong West Coast network
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Solid brand loyalty
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Competitive, customer-friendly service in markets that don’t require massive connecting banks
Shifting pilot resources from LAX and SFO to SAN signals that Alaska increasingly sees San Diego as its primary battleground in Southern California, rather than Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Bottom Line
Alaska Airlines is opening a new Boeing 737 pilot base at San Diego International Airport in June 2026, initially staffing it with 150 pilots and growing to around 250 by the end of the year.
The move both supports Alaska’s rapid growth in San Diego and reflects the carrier’s evolving strategy in California. Instead of trying to out-muscle larger rivals at LAX and SFO, Alaska is betting on San Diego as its most promising West Coast growth story, with a new pilot base providing the backbone for future expansion.
