Alaska Airlines plans to increase the number of seats on flights from Paine Field in Everett by roughly 50 percent beginning in fall 2026 and continuing into summer 2027. The main new development will be a twice-daily nonstop route to San Jose, along with more flights or larger aircraft on existing routes to Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego and San Francisco. For residents of the northern Puget Sound region, this means more than a few new lines on the timetable: It further establishes the small airport near Boeing’s factories as a genuine alternative to the crowded Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Paine Field has always had a dual identity. Founded in 1936, the airport is primarily associated with Boeing: Aircraft have been built, tested and serviced there, while passenger service remained little more than a possibility for many years. Regular commercial flights began only on March 4, 2019, and the terminal — with its relatively short walk from the entrance to the gate — quickly became especially convenient for residents of Snohomish and northern King counties.
Now Alaska Airlines, together with its regional subsidiary Horizon Air, is betting on that advantage. The most concrete part of the expansion is this: Beginning April 14, 2027, Horizon is expected to launch Paine Field–San Jose service. Two daily departures will be operated by Embraer 175 regional aircraft, which seat roughly 75 passengers. The route will connect the northern Seattle metropolitan area with San Francisco’s South Bay, where technology companies, business travel and family ties remain concentrated.
The changes will also affect the familiar network. Los Angeles will receive two daily flights, both operated with larger Alaska Boeing 737s. The carrier also plans to fly twice daily to Portland. On routes to San Diego and San Francisco, the company promises to add seats, although the exact combination of frequencies and aircraft types has not yet been disclosed. Importantly, the stated 50 percent increase refers to available seat capacity, not necessarily an equally sharp increase in the number of takeoffs and landings: Some of the growth will come from using larger aircraft.
For Alaska, this is not an attempt to create a second major hub, but a way to fill out the regional map around its main base at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Paine Field serves a different, more local traffic pattern: passengers for whom the trip south to Sea-Tac is often longer and more tiring than the security screening itself. In that sense, flights to Portland, Los Angeles and California cities are particularly logical routes, where time, predictability and the ability to depart close to home matter.
The airport also has physical limits that give the announcement particular significance. Paine Field’s passenger terminal was built as a compact facility with several boarding areas, not as a terminal-sized metropolis. In April 2025, before Frontier Airlines arrived, terminal officials said the airport handled nine or 10 flights on a typical day. Frontier later left, and Alaska and Horizon once again became the airport’s only scheduled passenger carriers. That makes Alaska’s expansion not simply an addition to an already competitive market, but a decision that will shape Paine Field’s entire commercial future.
Local plans, however, have long anticipated growth. In its airport master plan, Snohomish County projected more than 1 million passengers in 2025 and about 1.53 million by 2030. The document assumes that regional demand for air travel will continue to grow, while Sea-Tac’s capacity will remain limited even after planned improvements. Alaska’s expansion fits precisely into that logic: not replacing the region’s largest airport, but relieving some of the pressure where possible.
The changes will begin to emerge gradually in fall 2026, and the schedule will take its clearest shape the following spring with the launch of San Jose service. Passengers should expect new options to appear in booking systems well before the first flight, although the final picture will depend on seasonal demand and the airline’s operational schedule. For now, Paine Field has a rare opportunity for a small airport: to grow not through promises of someday building a vast terminal, but through concrete seats, aircraft and destinations.
Based on: Alaska Airlines plans to increase Paine Field passenger capacity