Alaska Airlines announces Milwaukee service

Alaska Airlines announced its entry into Milwaukee Tuesday morning through an expansion that is adding three new destinations from the airline's Northwest hubs.

The expansion is through a partnership with SkyWest Airlines and will allow Seattle-based Alaska to begin offering daily nonstop flights between Seattle and Milwaukee starting July 1, 2015. It also will be adding flights between Seattle and Oklahoma City and between Portland, Ore., and St. Louis.

The only other nonstop Milwaukee-to-Seattle flight is offered by Southwest Airlines.

Alaska's trips will be flown on new Embraer E175 jets featuring 12 seats in first class and 64 in coach. One-way introductory fares on the new routes have been set at $119.

"The E175 is new for the Alaska brand and fills a specific need to serve 'long, thin routes' -- destinations that are too distant for our regional aircraft, but currently don't have enough customer demand to fill a mainline jet," said Andrew Harrison, senior vice president of planning and revenue management for Alaska Airlines, in a news release.

The Utah-based SkyWest has purchased seven E175 aircraft to fly on behalf of Alaska under a capacity purchase agreement. The first three aircraft will arrive in summer 2015, and the remaining four will be delivered in early 2016.

(Rob Gebelhoff - Milwaukee Business Journal)