American Airlines Adds New Nonstop Flights from San Jose to Austin

American Airlines on Tuesday announced a new nonstop flight from Mineta San Jose International Airport, helping to serve even more passengers — especially tech workers — at one of the country’s fastest-growing airports.

Twice-daily nonstop service between Mineta San Jose International Airport and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will begin on April 7, 2020. Customers can start purchasing the flights on Monday.

“We are very pleased that American Airlines continues to grow in San Jose with nonstop flights to Austin, a key tech-sector route which was the original ‘nerd bird’ many decades ago,” said San Jose Airport’s director of aviation John Aitken. “The twice-daily service will be warmly welcomed by travelers associated with growing companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Oracle, all of which have thousands of workers in both cities.”

In recent years, Austin has become a fast-growing hub for the high-tech industry — serving both startups and well-established companies. Many Silicon Valley-based tech companies looking to expand their footprints have grown significant outposts in Austin.

Just last month, Cupertino-based Apple broke ground on a new $1 billion, 3-million-square-foot campus Austin campus. The company employs about 7,000 employees in the city — growing more than 50 percent in the past five years. Facebook, which has over 1,200 employees in Austin, opened a new office building in September that could more than double its workforce in the city. And Mountain View-based Google employs more than 1,000 people in Austin — its seventh-largest office hub outside of the Bay Area — intends to keep expanding within the city.

American’s announcement to offer service to Austin comes as the number of passengers traveling through the San Jose International Airport has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching nearly 15 million passengers in the past year.

Flights from San Jose to Austin will depart at 9:55 a.m. and 6 p.m Sunday through Friday. Return flights will run at 7 a.m. Sunday through Friday, at 6:50 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at 4:30 p.m. on Sundays.

American Airlines — which also operates nonstop flights between San Jose and Chicago/O’Hare, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles and Phoenix — will join Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines in providing flights between Silicon Valley and Austin.

“We added these routes with our customers top of mind to bring them closer to the places they value the most when conducting business,” Vasu Raja, American Airlines’ senior vice president of network strategy, said in a press release. “While it’s not our traditional hub and spoke routing, we understand the importance of travel for the tech community and look forward to offering these new flights to our loyal customers.”

———

©2019 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Visit the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.