Air service as HQ2 bellwether: Alaska Airlines on Wednesday announced they will launch new flights from Seattle to Columbus, Ohio starting in March. The Buckeye state’s tech-friendly capital city is on the short list for Amazon’s HQ2. Non-stop daily flights to Seattle (as well as New York, San Francisco/Bay Area, and Washington, D.C) was a requisite for any bidding city. This isn’t the first city on the list of 20 to get a new connection to Amazon’s home port. Pittsburgh wooed Alaska earlier in the year last November to a flight as part of its own bid.
Amazon’s promise of 50,000 jobs for HQ2 is not only a potential boon for the winning city, but its region’s airports. Amazon shot up the rankings as a top buyer of corporate travel, now the 19th largest in the U.S. The company didn’t crack the top 100 five years ago and it’s one very big reason Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is busting at the seams. – J.O.
