Alaska Air keeps up cross-country push, adds three more transcontinental routes.

© David McNew/Getty Images An Alaska Airlines jet passes the air traffic control tower at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) during take-off on April 22, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. David McNew/Getty Images

Alaska Airlines announced three new cross-country routes Wednesday, keeping up its aggressive push to add more coast-to-coast services to its route map.

The latest transcontinental routes will operate from the company’s hubs in Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles and will be on a mix of aircraft flown by both Alaska Airlines and merger partner Virgin America.

From Portland, Alaska Airlines will start nonstop service to Detroit on Aug. 30 and to New York JFK on Nov. 6. The carrier will fly one daily round-trip flight on each route with Boeing 737 aircraft. Once the flights begin, Alaska Air says it and Virgin America will fly non-stop from Portland to 58 destinations – the most of any carrier at the airport.

In California, Alaska Airlines will connect its Los Angeles hub with Philadelphia. That route will start Sept. 1 and will be flown with Virgin America's A320 family of jets.

The Philadelphia service restores a route that Virgin America flew from April 2012 through October 2014. The airline said then that it was “suspending” its Philadelphia service to free up aircraft so it could begin using new gates and landing rights it acquired from American Airlines for flights New York LaGuardia, Washington Reagan and Dallas Love Field.    

Once the Philadelphia service returns, it will give the combined carriers a total of 28 non-stop destinations from Los Angeles.


By Ben Mutzabaugh.
Full story at MSN News.