Airline Battles in Seattle, Cleveland Benefit Travelers

PHOTO: Cleveland, Ohio. (Courtesy of Thinkstock)

At first, this was supposed to be a nice little Battle for Seattle among two airlines.

As Delta Air Lines created a west coast hub at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, it took on hometown favorite Alaska Airlines for almighty dollar from travelers. It’s not like Delta was entirely new; the Atlanta-based carrier already had the seeds planted in Seattle thanks to Northwest Airlines, with whom it merged. Northwest had hubs in Minneapolis, Detroit and Seattle.

But hang on a second.

As Delta began using Sea-Tac as a hub and as a launching pad for flights to Asia, a third player has entered the market.

China’s Hainan Airlines announced Monday it will begin nonstop service from Seattle to Shanghai beginning on June 22. Hainan will fly two Airbus A330-200s four days a week — Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

That is in addition to Hainan’s current nonstop service from Sea-Tac to Beijing, which will become daily on May 1. China has become a burgeoning business travel market – both ways. In addition to U.S. business interests in China, the Global Business Travel Association says Chinese business travel to the U.S. increased almost 16 percent last year.

In some respects, the same kind of competition is available to passengers at Cleveland-Hopkins, once thought to be left for dead last year when United pulled out as a hub. Since then, Frontier has added flights, JetBlue has added flights, and Spirit has come on like gangbusters.

Spirit today announced it was adding a nonstop flight from Cleveland to Atlanta starting in May. Atlanta will be Spirit’s ninth nonstop from Cleveland, with Dallas, Las Vegas and the Florida cities of Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and Tampa. Flights to Myrtle Beach, S.C. and Los Angeles begin in April.

“2015 is going to be a blockbuster year for saving money on travel with Spirit Airlines,” Mark Kopczak, Spirit Airlines’ vice president of network planning, said in a statement.