Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines on October 31 will start flights between Los Angeles and Costa Rica.

The airline will have four flights a week to San José, and four to Liberia in the Guanacaste tourism area.

Nearly one in five Californians has expressed interest in visiting the country, according to the Costa Rica Tourism Institute.

Costa Rica will be Alaska Airlines’ third destination outside the United States, after Canada and Mexico.

Alaska, the seventh largest airline in the United States, will use Boeing 737 aircraft with capacity of up to 181 passengers.

Parent company Alaska Airlines Group, based in Seattle, Washington, in 2014 had net earnings of $605 million on revenues of $4.7 billion.

For its part, Southwest Airlines plans to offer flights from Houston to San José, starting in October.

Southwest last March started flights between San José and Baltimore.