Delta expands Delta Shuttle service to Seattle

Delta Air Lines is expanding its “Delta Shuttle” brand to Seattle, where it will operate the service on routes to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Beginning Wednesday, Delta will unveil a dedicated Delta Shuttle check-in area at Seattle-Tacoma International for its schedule of eight weekday round-trip flights to the two California cities. Delta says it will add two additional flights on the Seattle-L.A. route on May 23.

BOOKMARK: Go directly to the Today in the Sky homepage

The “shuttle” routes have long been popular with business customers on the East Coast, where Delta and American each offer hourly or near-hourly weekday service on routes connecting New York LaGuardia to Washington Reagan National and Boston. American also offers Shuttle service between Washington National and Boston while Delta added LaGuardia-Chicago O'Hare to its shuttle schedule earlier this decade.

The Shuttle frequencies are marketed toward business fliers, who can easily make same-day return trips or catch earlier or later flights if their schedules change. Shuttle fliers get separate check-in areas, where they can check-in as little as 20 minutes before a scheduled departure.

In 2013, Delta expanded its Shuttle service to California, launching the brand on its high-frequency service between L.A. and San Francisco amid heightening airline competition in L.A. and the West.

Now, with Delta in an increasingly fierce turf war with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, the carrier is expanding the Shuttle concept to its fast-growing new hub in Seattle. Delta's addition of a connecting hub there has increasingly put it into head-to-head competition with entrenched Alaska Airlines.

Alaska Airlines already offers a peak of 14 weekday round-trip flights between Seattle and L.A. and eight between Seattle and San Francisco, according to the carrier. Those flights could become even more frequent if Alaska Air wins approval for its acquisition of San Francisco-based Virgin America, which has hubs at both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Delta also has been increasingly going up against American at Los Angeles, where each of the airlines has a major presence. American's June schedule shows five daily round-trip flights between Seattle and LAX. Overall, LAX remains one of the USA's most-competitive airports, with no single airline having a dominant presence there. Other carriers flying nonstop from LAX to Seattle include Virgin America (3 daily round-trip flights in June), United Airlines (2) and Spirit Airlines (2).

As for Delta, it says its Delta Shuttle branding and check-in areas will open in Seattle on Wednesday (May 11). The carrier says flights operating under the Delta Shuttle brand between Seattle and L.A. will be on a mix of Boeing 737-800 and Boeing 717 jets. Its Seattle-San Francisco Delta Shuttle flights will be on Embraer E175 jets.

“Since the launch of Delta Shuttle service between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2013, we’ve defined what ‘shuttle’ means with a consistent schedule, investments in the product with local West Coast brands, and making it easier, more enjoyable and more productive to do business for customers on the West Coast,” Ranjan Goswami, Delta’s VP – Sales West, says in a statement. “Adding Seattle to our Delta Shuttle portfolio is a major milestone and makes it clear that Delta is focused on West Coast travelers like no other airline.”

TWITTER: You can follow me at twitter.com/TodayInTheSky