Alaska Air adding new routes from Seattle

Alaska Airlines announced route changes Tuesday, expanding its service from Seattle to Minneapolis and Kona, Hawaii.

It will end nonstop service between Portland and Orlando, and between San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C.

Alaska will not return this winter to three destinations in Mexico from San Francisco. And pending U.S. and Mexican approval, its regional partner Horizon Air will take over some Alaska flights between Mexico and California.

Horizon Air will discontinue nonstop service between Spokane and Sacramento.

Also Tuesday, hundreds of uniformed Alaska Airlines pilots lined up outside the Alaska Air Group shareholders meeting to demonstrate for a new labor contract. They carried signs outside the meeting at the Museum of Flight about the possibility of an Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) strike over job security, health benefits and work rules.

The company issued a statement noting Alaska is the ninth-largest U.S. carrier but has the second-highest pilot labor costs in the industry.

Alaska Airlines said it had proposed an increase in pilots' potential annual profit-sharing during negotiations with ALPA and can't afford to boost the contract's total cost. Negotiations on the contract started in January 2007.

"ALPA's proposals to date would burden Alaska Airlines with the highest-cost pilot contract in the industry by a significant margin," the airline's statement said.

Information from Bloomberg News is included in this report.