Southwest’s impressive Dominance from the Bay Area to Greater Los Angeles

On the day used for this data, 8/8/23, 153 flights between the two largest metro areas in the Golden State operate between 8 airports with 8 airlines. Southwest Airlines largely dominates this service with the most flights, 85, most airport pairs, 12, and most seats 12,859. In perspective, Southwest operates 55.6% of the flights and offers 63.9% of the seats - impressive measures in a market with 8 airlines. Second to Southwest is United, offering 22 flights with 2,813 seats to 4 of the Los Angeles area airports from their San Francisco hub. Third place goes to Alaska for flights, 17 with 1,406 seats, however, Delta offers more seats, 1,607 across 15 flights. The remaining airlines, American, jetBlue, JSX, and Spirit were all much smaller players between the two cities each offering 3-4 flights. Most shockingly, is a lack of service by the world’s largest airline, American. Just 4 flights on regional jets totaling 293 seats, the second least with only JSX having fewer, is a drop in the bucket for this competitive market.

Overall, when looking at airports pairs SFO-LAX is the busiest route with 36 departures across 6 airlines. Every airport pair has service except for SFO-LGB. LAX has the most total flights (67), seats (8,946), and airlines (7). The Bay Area airports come in at 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for most flights, seats, and airlines. The majority of options between the two metro areas are overwhelmingly Southwest. The airline flies 12 of the 15 city pairs while United offers 4 options, Alaska and Delta with 3, American and Spirit with 2, and the remaining with 1. The main reason for the disparity here is the hub and spoke strategy that American, Delta, and United use versus the point-to-point strategy Southwest uses which makes plenty of sense.

All of United’s Bay Area flights to LA fly out of their SFO hub while American and Delta both only serve the Bay from their hubs at LAX. While this aligns with the airlines’ strategies, is there an opportunity for the airlines to cater more to their frequent flyers in each respective metro area by offering more options? Several of the routes have no first-class option because they are only served by Southwest. OAK-LGB, OAK-ONT, SJC-BUR, SJC-LGB, SJC-ONT, and SJC-SNA are all Southwest only and OAK-SNA is served by Southwest and Spirit. While some of these airport combos make sense for budget airlines, some could use an E75 service from American, Delta, United, or even Alaska to offer more options. Specifically routes like SJC-SNA, SJC-BUR, and OAK-SNA could provide more convenient options to these airlines’ Golden State-based frequent flyers. Lastly, United offering LAX-SJC seems like a no-brainer given their presence in the Bay area and at LAX.