Airline Fanatic

Virgin America continued its growth today with the announcement of new service to Seattle, WA (SEA) from its dual West coast focus cities of San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX).  Service from SFO starts March 18th, with follow on service from Los Angeles starting April 8th, 2008.  Fares on the route seem to be very competitve with flight between SFO and SEA starting at $77, and flights between LAX and SEA going from $99.  Even better, First Class seats on the two routes start at $177 and $199 each way, respectively.  For a three hour flight from LAX to SEA that is not too shabby a deal at all.

Sadly, this service starts after both of Virgin America’s promotion codes expire, so you will have pony up the full retail price in order to get on board.  I’m sure VA will come up with something new to give away before then though, and when they do I’ll be sure to let you know.

Ben Mutzabaugh of Today in the Sky has a post up about a report out of Boston stating that Hainan Airlines(which is re-branding itself as Grand China Air) will start nonstop China service from the northeastern city in 2009.  The new service would use Hainan’s Boeing 787 aircraft, so the exact start of service depends on Boeing’s delayed delivery schedule.

Grand China Air’s hub is in the southern city of Haikou, but I highly doubt they would offer nonstop service all the way from Boston to there.  A more likely situation is service from Boston (BOS) to Beijing (PEK), also a city served by Grand China.  The bottom line however is that this is not an announcement, just rumors circulated by a paper, so nothing may materialize at all.  Having said that it does seem fairly reasonable to assume that Boston would get a nonstop China flight sometime in the future.  Sit tight Bostonites!