Alaska Airlines entered 2025 with aggressive international ambitions, expanding beyond its traditional West Coast strongholds and experimenting with thinner leisure-focused markets across Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and now Europe. Yet behind the carrier’s headline-grabbing expansion lies a more complicated reality: several newly launched international routes struggled badly to attract passengers, with some flights departing barely half full.
According to US Department of Transportation data covering March 2025 through February 2026, Alaska Airlines transported more than 3.5 million international passengers. Traffic increased by 6.8% year-over-year, partly boosted by Hawaiian Airlines-operated services from Seattle to Asia. However, available seat capacity grew even faster at 11.2%, dragging the airline’s overall international load factor down to 82%.
That figure may still appear healthy on the surface, but several individual routes performed far below network averages. Some failed so dramatically that Alaska has already abandoned them, while others continue operating despite persistently weak demand.
The data paints a revealing picture of which international experiments succeeded, which failed, and where Alaska Airlines may rethink its long-term strategy.
St. Louis To Puerto Vallarta Became Alaska Airlines’ Worst International Performer
The weakest-performing international route in Alaska Airlines’ network was the seasonal connection between St. Louis and Puerto Vallarta. Over the analyzed 12-month period, the route recorded an extremely low 52.6% seat factor, meaning nearly half the available seats went unsold.
Only 2,622 round-trip passengers traveled on the route during the reporting period, an underwhelming result for a leisure-focused market aimed at winter sun travelers. The service, launched in January 2025, covered approximately 1,328 nautical miles each way and represented one of Alaska’s more unusual network experiments outside its West Coast base.
What makes the route’s collapse particularly notable is how rapidly demand deteriorated. Department of Transportation figures showed that in January 2026, just 31.8% of seats were filled across four round-trip flights. That is extraordinarily low by industry standards and left little doubt about the route’s viability.
Although Alaska briefly resumed flights between January and March 2026, the airline quietly shortened the operating window and adjusted schedules. Even those changes failed to improve performance meaningfully. No flights are scheduled for 2027, effectively ending Alaska’s short-lived Missouri international expansion strategy.
The St. Louis experiment highlights the challenges airlines face when attempting to stimulate entirely new international demand from secondary US cities without strong connecting traffic or established brand loyalty.
Kansas City Routes Also Delivered Disappointing Results
Kansas City emerged as another weak point in Alaska Airlines’ international network. Two separate Mexico routes ranked among the carrier’s lowest-performing international services.
Kansas City to Puerto Vallarta posted a 54.4% load factor, the second-worst in Alaska’s network. The route carried only 1,161 round-trip passengers before being discontinued after just a few months of operation between January and April 2025.
Meanwhile, Kansas City to Cancun achieved slightly better numbers but still underperformed substantially, recording a 65.5% load factor with 7,233 passengers carried. That route survived somewhat longer, operating until March 2026 before Alaska removed it from schedules.
The disappointing Kansas City performance illustrates a broader issue facing Alaska Airlines during its rapid expansion phase. While the airline possesses strong customer loyalty along the Pacific Coast, it lacks the same recognition and feed traffic in many Midwestern markets.
Without a robust domestic hub structure in cities like Kansas City, Alaska struggled to consistently fill flights, especially on low-frequency leisure routes competing against established operators.
New York JFK To Puerto Vallarta Produced Surprisingly Weak Demand
Among the most intriguing entries on the list was Alaska Airlines’ New York JFK to Puerto Vallarta service. Unlike the carrier’s Midwest experiments, this route connected one of the largest aviation markets in the world with a popular Mexican beach destination.
Even so, the route generated only a 66.3% seat factor.
That result becomes even more striking when compared to JetBlue Airways, which previously operated the same market before ending service in April 2024. Since launching JFK–Puerto Vallarta flights in 2022, JetBlue had carried more than 154,000 passengers while filling approximately 75.3% of seats.
Although the comparison is not perfectly equal due to differing schedules and market conditions, Alaska’s performance trailed JetBlue by roughly nine percentage points.
The route nevertheless remains active, suggesting Alaska may believe the market still holds long-term potential. The airline could also view JFK service as strategically important for brand visibility and future network development in the Northeast.
Still, consistently operating transcontinental international routes with one-third of seats empty places pressure on profitability, especially amid rising operational costs and intense competition from larger carriers.
Several West Coast Leisure Routes Quietly Disappeared
A large portion of Alaska Airlines’ weakest-performing international flights originated from West Coast cities traditionally considered strongholds for Mexico leisure travel. Yet even these routes struggled to gain sufficient traction.
San Francisco to Mazatlán recorded a 67.2% load factor before Alaska ended the service in April 2025. Sacramento to Los Cabos performed similarly poorly, filling only 67.6% of seats despite carrying more than 15,000 round-trip passengers.
Seattle to Nassau also ranked among the weakest routes, posting a 68.5% seat factor before being discontinued. San Francisco to Loreto achieved only 71.3%, while Los Angeles to Kelowna recorded 71.5% before termination.
In many cases, Alaska’s strategy appeared centered around niche seasonal flying aimed at underserved vacation markets. However, smaller leisure routes can be highly volatile, particularly when economic uncertainty affects discretionary travel spending.
Competition also remains fierce. Airlines including Southwest, American, Delta, United, and various ultra-low-cost carriers aggressively target sun destinations during peak winter periods, making profitability difficult even when aircraft are relatively full.
Las Vegas To Puerto Vallarta Defies Logic By Surviving
One of the most surprising entries in the rankings is Alaska Airlines’ Las Vegas to Puerto Vallarta service. The route filled just 71.4% of seats during the reporting period and carried fewer than 5,000 round-trip passengers.
Under normal circumstances, those numbers would likely trigger cancellation. Instead, Alaska plans to continue operating the route during the winter 2026–2027 season.
Even more remarkably, the airline intends to increase capacity by over 25%.
The decision strongly suggests the route generates attractive yields despite mediocre load factors. Airlines do not rely solely on passenger counts when evaluating profitability. Fare pricing, ancillary revenue, seasonal demand spikes, and operating costs all influence whether a route survives.
In this case, Alaska may believe affluent leisure travelers between Las Vegas and Puerto Vallarta are willing to pay sufficiently high fares to justify continued service. The route will operate as a Saturday-only seasonal offering aboard SkyWest-operated Embraer E175 aircraft, allowing Alaska to reduce risk while maintaining market presence.
Alaska Airlines’ International Expansion Enters A Critical Phase
The weak-performing routes emerged during a transformative period for Alaska Airlines. The carrier has simultaneously pursued aggressive growth while integrating Hawaiian Airlines and expanding long-haul ambitions from Seattle.
In April 2026, Alaska launched its first-ever European route from Seattle to Rome. Weeks later, flights to London Heathrow followed, with Iceland service arriving shortly afterward.
Those transatlantic launches represent a dramatic shift for an airline historically focused on domestic and near-international operations. Yet the poor results across several Mexico and Caribbean routes show expansion remains a delicate balancing act.
Not every market can sustain year-round service, especially when airlines rapidly test new destinations without deeply established demand patterns.
For Alaska Airlines, the coming years will likely involve sharper network discipline, more seasonal experimentation, and closer scrutiny of underperforming routes. The airline’s willingness to quickly cut weak flights may ultimately prove beneficial as it reshapes itself into a broader global carrier while protecting profitability in an increasingly competitive aviation landscape.
