Most people flying out of the Seattle area never give Paine Field a second thought. The small airport in Everett, about 25 miles north of Sea-Tac, handles a sliver of the region's air traffic from a terminal with just a handful of gates. Alaska Airlines clearly sees something in it, though, because it plans to grow its seats there by 50% between this fall and summer 2027.
What's Changing
The biggest addition is a new route. Horizon Air, Alaska's regional sister airline, will launch twice-daily flights to San Jose next April 14. Those flights will use 76-seat Embraer 175 regional jets and give travelers north of Seattle a direct line to Silicon Valley.
Los Angeles is moving to two flights a day, both on Boeing 737s instead of the smaller regional jet now used on one of them, and Portland is also going to twice daily. San Diego and San Francisco are getting more seats as well, with schedule data showing the San Diego flight switching to a larger 737 in November. Once San Jose starts, Paine Field's network will reach 10 cities, all on the West Coast or in Hawaii.
Route Changes
Alaska Airlines at Paine Field
Contrail
Who Uses Paine Field
More people than you might expect, though nowhere near as many as Sea-Tac. Paine Field reopened to passenger flights in March 2019 with a brand-new terminal, and it handled about a million passengers in its first year. Sea-Tac set a record of more than 52.7 million passengers in 2025, which puts Everett's traffic in perspective.
Paine Field is also unusual in how it's run. Snohomish County owns the airfield, while a private company called Propeller Airports runs the passenger terminal. Travelers share the field with Boeing's huge Everett factory, where test flights of brand-new jets are a regular sight.
Its reputation has done a lot of the marketing. Monocle named it the world's best regional airport shortly after it opened, and The Washington Post has ranked it among the five best airports in the U.S. Much of the appeal comes down to size: the terminal has a stone fireplace, a single security checkpoint and gates just steps from where you clear it.
I'm a good example of how easy the airport is to overlook. Last year I was a loyal Alaska elite flier who connected through Seattle constantly, and I never once flew out of Paine Field. That's partly by design, since its flights serve people who live north of the city rather than travelers passing through it.
These days it's effectively an Alaska airport. Frontier tried low-cost flights to Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix in 2025 but pulled out in January.
Why Alaska Is Doing This
Alaska hasn't said much beyond calling Paine Field an important part of its Puget Sound network, but a few things make the move easy to understand.
With Frontier gone, Alaska has the airport to itself. There's no rival undercutting its fares on these routes, and anyone in Everett who wants to fly without driving to Sea-Tac has one choice. An informal comparison by the family travel site ParentMap found that nonstop fares from Paine Field sometimes cost double the same trip from Sea-Tac, which shows what some travelers will pay for convenience.
Bigger planes are the other piece. The terminal only has a few gates, so the simplest way to add seats is to put more people on each flight rather than squeezing in more flights. A 737 carries roughly twice as many passengers as the 76-seat jets Horizon flies, and that's largely how Alaska can grow by half without needing much more room.
The move also helps Alaska protect its home market. Seattle is Alaska's biggest hub, and a convenient Paine Field gives customers north of the city one less reason to shop around at Sea-Tac, where Delta also runs a large operation.
Snohomish County is on board too, within limits. The county has approved plans to grow the terminal, and a long-range plan envisions about 4 million passengers a year by 2040, four times the 2019 figure. Its executive, Dave Somers, has also been clear that Paine Field won't become another Sea-Tac.
Who It Helps
The clearest winners are people in Snohomish County and north Seattle, who can skip the long drive south to Sea-Tac. The San Jose flights give the region's northern suburbs a direct link to Silicon Valley, while bigger jets on the Los Angeles route should make seats easier to find at busy times.
The catch is price. With one airline and a limited number of flights, Paine Field can charge for its convenience, so it's worth comparing fares with Sea-Tac before booking. For travelers who can make the numbers work, 50% more seats means more chances to fly from an airport where the trip from the curb to the gate takes a few minutes.
