Boise Airport to lose nonstop flight in mid-December, ending intrastate connection
The Boise Airport next month will see the reduction of one of its 26 nonstop destinations as its primary air carrier pulls its direct route between Boise and Idaho Falls.
Alaska Airlines’ daily flight between the capital and the state’s fourth-largest city will make its final one-hour trip each way in mid-December. The route, operated by Alaska subsidiary Horizon Air, will only have lasted six months after just launching in June.
“There are a variety of factors behind our decision, including a significant under-performance of the flight, increased labor costs and ongoing regional staffing challenges,” Ray Lane, an Alaska Airlines spokesperson, said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman. “We will work with those guests whose travel plans have been impacted.”
The Seattle-based air carrier’s final flight east will take place Dec. 12 and last trip west from Idaho Falls to Boise on Dec. 14, Lane said. Alaska is the only commercial airline that offers the route at the Boise Airport.
A Boise Airport spokesperson declined a Statesman request for comment.
Alaska will continue to operate to its nonstop route between its primary hub at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Idaho Falls.
The news follows Alaska’s decision to end its daily service between Boise and Austin last month, as previously reported by the Statesman.
However, Alaska will briefly restore nonstop service to and from the Texas capital for about a week around — but not on — Thanksgiving, and then for three weeks between mid-December and early January surrounding the Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays.
The last direct flight between Austin and Boise is scheduled for Jan. 8. Alaska will then reintroduce its daily route to Austin on a seasonal basis starting April 18. That will operate every day through at least Sept. 29, which is the end of the airline’s current booking calendar available online.
The day after Thanksgiving, Alaska also is set to relaunch its winter seasonal flight between Boise and Palm Springs, California. The route is scheduled to operate three times a week through April 17, Alaska’s online booking schedule showed.
In addition, United Airlines last week began to slash a quarter of its flight schedule at the Boise Airport. The airline first dropped one daily nonstop flight each to and from Denver and San Francisco. At the end of the month, United also will drop down to one daily flight between Boise and Chicago’s O-Hare International Airport.
United plans to restore those flights along those three routes on March 3. The airline’s one-daily nonstop flights between Boise and Houston and Los Angeles will go unaffected.
American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, two of the Boise Airport’s eight total commercial air carriers, also are scheduled to cut some flights along its routes in and out of Boise during the upcoming year-end holiday season.
Delta’s second daily flight to and from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, added over the summer because of its popularity, will come to and end after Nov. 27
This story was originally published November 2, 2022 at 2:23 PM.
