Major Airlines Match America West Discounts : Travel: The scope of the routes is limited, however. Alaska slashes one-way fares on routes between California and the Pacific Northwest.

The nation’s major airlines on Wednesday matched America West’s reduction on leisure fares while Alaska Airlines slashed one-way fares popular with business travelers on routes between California and the Pacific Northwest.

United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Trans World Airlines and Northwest Airlines matched America West’s most recent fare promotion on competing routes. Phoenix-based America West said Tuesday that it will offer discounts of up to 30% on its lowest leisure fares for travel completed by Oct. 1.

The scope of the sale, however, is limited. “It’s tiny,” Merrill Lynch analyst Candace Brown said, noting that America West flies only 3% of the U.S. domestic route system.

Under the America West plan, a round-trip, San Francisco-to-New York fare is as low as $428, down from the regular fare of $580. Los Angeles-to-Boston round-trip fares drop to $418 from $580.

In the Western United States, Alaska Airlines cut one-way fares between Southern California airports and Seattle and Portland to $159 from $390. The one-way fare to those cities from Bay Area and Sacramento airports is $139.

The new Alaska fares--which have no expiration date and can be purchased on the day of travel--will prove popular with business travelers, who often cannot meet the restrictions of most discount fares.

“It’s a real bargain for the business traveler,” an Alaska spokesman said.

Travel agents said Alaska’s lower prices are in response to new low-fare competitors, such as Reno Air, which sells a one-way ticket between Los Angeles and Seattle for $110. However, all the new carrier’s flights require a stop in Reno, while Alaska’s flights are nonstop.

The lower fares come on the heels of a nationwide 30%-off sale initiated by Northwest, an offer that was extended several times and finally ended at midnight Tuesday.

The 30% cuts this year fell well short of the 50% reductions of last summer.

Discounts are also being initiated at a much higher base price because airlines have raised fares several times since the end of the 1992 summer travel season.

“These sales are nowhere near as extensive as last year’s 50%-off sale, and the fares have gone up considerably since last year,” Smith Barney analyst Vivien Lee said. “The fare base is dramatically higher than it was last summer.”

Last summer, Lee said, a traveler could get a $190 round-trip ticket from New York to Los Angeles. The price this year is closer to $199 each way.