Pittsburgh Airport has been shedding its image as a deserted hub and has been courting airlines for new routes to the Steel City. They’ve expanded service to the west coast, Caribbean, and Europe. However, one area of the country was missing nonstop service to and from Pittsburgh: the Pacific Northwest.
You can now book nonstop Seattle to Pittsburgh flights starting September 6, 2018. Fares for the initial flights are under $350 roundtrip.
They’ll use a Boeing 737-800 to make the 2,118-mile flights. The flight times are as such:
Alaska 198
SEA-PIT
8:25am – 4:10pm (4h45m)Alaska 199
PIT-SEA
5:20pm – 7:50pm (5h30m)
I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for 3+ years now and have been waiting for this service to begin. In fact, Pittsburgh was the largest market in the country without a nonstop service to Seattle before this announcement. I imagine that tech companies in both cities are excited about this route.
For travel hackers, this new route now gives people in western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas an awesome use of the Alaska Airlines companion certificate! You’ll no longer have to trek to BWI or DCA to use them.
Not only does this connect Pittsburgh to the Pacific Northwest, but it gives Alaska Airlines access to a growing area to which they otherwise didn’t have any service. The closest Alaska Airlines and Virgin America destinations to Pittsburgh are currently Indianapolis (360 miles to the west), Detroit (275 miles to the northwest), Baltimore/Washington (250 miles to the southeast), and Philadelphia (300 miles to the east).
The flight times allow for almost a full day in Pittsburgh before returning to Seattle. I’ve also been able to price out decent connection times via Seattle going from Pittsburgh to Portland, Vancouver, and destinations in Alaska. Going from Pittsburgh to Hawaii would require an overnight stay with these times, but the return flight coming east gives another option for Yinzers to connect off a redeye from Hawaii via Seattle.
