Alaska Airlines Santa Rosa ridership up in February

March 05--Alaska Airlines' Santa Rosa ridership grew 5.4 percent in February, when 14,996 passengers used Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport.

Flights were 74 percent full, compared to 69 percent a year ago.

Alaska operates five flights a day from Santa Rosa to Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and Las Vegas. It carried 14,225 passengers to and from Santa Rosa in February 2011, according to airport officials.

Alaska will drop its Santa Rosa-to-Las Vegas service June 3 and begin daily flights to San Diego on June 4. The carrier also will add a third flight to Los Angeles four days a week through Aug. 25.

The flights are operated by Horizon Air, Alaska's sister carrier. Alaska handles scheduling, ticketing, pricing and marketing.

The airlines are part of Seattle-based Alaska Air Group. Ridership on Horizon-operated flights was flat system-wide in February, with 512,000 passengers using its service to 39 destinations in the western United States, Canada and Mexico.

Copyright 2012 - The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Calif.