Source: TPG

I've been covering the airline industry since 2002 and have covered more storylines than I can remember. I've enjoyed most of them, but few are as fun as a good old-fashioned turf war. Some turf wars are a straightforward tit-for-tat back-and-forth, but the best ones are those where one airline makes completely over-the-top retaliation to a rival's unwelcome incursion.

The 2000s and early 2010s may have been the high-water mark for these aviation grudge matches. Many of them involved Northwest, perhaps the most vicious of the day for retaliating against carriers adding new routes to its hubs.

We don't see those as much these days, but one new route that woke up some echoes came after Alaska Airlines announced new nonstop service between San Diego International Airport (SAN) and Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International Airport (IAD). The latter, of course, is a hub for United Airlines — and it didn't wait to respond to Alaska's encroachment.

United already served the route with three daily flights of its own, but — just a week after Alaska's announcement — United said it would add a fourth daily flight on the route. That's not all: United decided to fly that additional IAD-SAN flight with a 364-seat Boeing 777-200. That's the highest-capacity plane in United's fleet, and using it for the extra flight is a surprising choice for sure.

Normally, this route wouldn't make my list of most exciting new routes, but the palace intrigue behind the turf war was enough for me. I'm curious to see how this competition plays out in 2024.