Alaska, always the gentleman, has decided to roll out the red carpet for Virgin America’s upcoming arrival in Seattle by announcing a bunch of new flights and double bonus miles. Wait, that’s not very welcoming, is it?

Alaska has effectively decided to turn their Seattle – California services into a shuttle-style operation with flights either on the hour or half hour starting April 27. From Seattle to LAX, southbound flights will depart 15 times daily on the hour (up from 12 daily) while northbound flights will depart on the half hour. Flights to San Diego, Orange County, Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose will follow the same schedule, but they’ll run every two hours.

If the flight times aren’t good enough, maybe you’ll like the mileage promo. Fly twice from March 15 through May 15 between Seattle and LAX or SFO and you’ll get double miles for every trip on those routes from May 16 through the end of the year.

This seems like a particularly nasty response to Virgin America’s impending entry, wouldn’t you say? I mean, VX will have 3 flights a day to SFO and 4 to LAX when they’re at full strength. These moves make the VX schedule look like nothing, but then again it already looked that way before.

Is the demand really there for this? Maybe. I mean, United has pulled capacity in those markets over the last few years, and Delta is only flying RJs, so there isn’t nearly as many flights as there has been in the past. The shuttle-style service will probably be well-received so this could be ok for them, but I’d be surprised.

How are they adding these flights? Well, they’re canceling the Orange County – Oakland route. That competed with Southwest anyway, so it’s probably a better move to cancel those. Whether this is the best use of those aircraft is questionable.

But let’s be honest, they wouldn’t be doing this without the VX threat. These are two of their biggest markets (if not the top 2), and they are not going to let VX establish even the tiniest of presences without a fight. Which once again makes me wonder why VX would bother with a market like this. It’s not like Alaska is a weakling that people hate. VX is just asking for it.

It wasn’t that long ago that I questioned Virgin America’s decision to focus more on short hauls. Well, they’ve announced their latest city, and once again, they aren’t going far.

This time, the winner is Seattle. They start 3 flights a day from SFO on March 18 and then 3 daily from LAX on April 8. LAX will get a fourth flight on May 11.

They’re definitely staying away from transcon flights. Fuel prices are probably making that a tough market for them. But at least LAX-SEA is a longer haul route so people can enjoy the onboard amenities. Only problem? Alaska Airlines.

People in the Pacific Northwest tend to actually like Alaska Airlines. You don’t hear that about airlines very often, but this is an exception. Can VX really go up against these guys? Their biggest problem, as it has been in every market they’ve entered, is lack of frequency. In this case, Alaska smokes them with 12 daily from LAX to SEA and 8 daily from SFO. That, of course, doesn’t include 19 flights to four other LA Basin airports and 13 to other Bay Area airports.

Yes, VX will be dropping prices when they enter, but you know Alaska will match (they probably have already). This one isn’t going to be easy.