Go Back  FlyerTalk Forums > Miles&Points > Airlines and Mileage Programs > Alaska Airlines | Mileage Plan
Reload this Page >

Costa Rica - what's the point for PDX customers?

Community
Wiki Posts
Search

Costa Rica - what's the point for PDX customers?

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old May 22, 2015, 1:39 am
  #31  
Ambassador: Alaska Airlines
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: ANC, SAP
Programs: AS MVP Gold, Priority Pass
Posts: 1,863
Frankly, this flight would make much more sense as a red eye departing lax, arriving CR first thing in the a.m., and an early am flight CR back to LAX. Better for connections at LAX, and also for onward travel out of SJO at least.
ANC RED-EYE is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 2:19 am
  #32  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Portland
Posts: 11,571
Originally Posted by ANC RED-EYE
Frankly, this flight would make much more sense as a red eye departing lax, arriving CR first thing in the a.m., and an early am flight CR back to LAX. Better for connections at LAX, and also for onward travel out of SJO at least.
Not if the goal is to capture the business travel market in addition to the leisure market.
rjque is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 2:28 am
  #33  
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: SEA
Programs: AS MVPG
Posts: 117
Originally Posted by mczlaw
{snort} Well stated.

Yes, any discussion about crappy PDX service inevitably devolves to unsubstantiated claims by the usual coward(s) regarding profitability and ad hominem attacks on Portland and Portlanders. Tiresome but predictable.

I don't mind connecting through Seattle for my AS travel if I have to (and the extra 1,000 miles is great), but a 2:30 am arrival with 4 hour middle of the night layover is a deal killer. Hey, but you Seattle folk enjoy your time in Costa Rica. I think I can figure something else out.

--mcz
Pointing out that PDX is not the most important hub for AS is not an ad-hominem attack. You are way overestimating the value of PDX connections. AS has clearly decided that the value of daytime flights to Costa Rica is higher than the value of timing for PDX connections.

You're making a lot of unsubstantiated accusations and showing quite a persecution complex over this. Try not to take such personal offense to what ultimately amounts of a business decision aimed at achieving the highest profits. Can't really fault AS for that.
Sounder is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 2:59 am
  #34  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend, Moderator, Information Desk, Ambassador, Alaska Airlines
Hilton Contributor BadgeIHG Contributor Badge
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: FAI
Programs: AS MVP Gold100K, AS 1MM, Maika`i Card, AGR, HH Gold, Hertz PC, Marriott Titanium LTG, CO, 7H, BA, 8E
Posts: 42,953
Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Originally Posted by rjque
Originally Posted by ANC RED-EYE
Frankly, this flight would make much more sense as a red eye departing lax, arriving CR first thing in the a.m., and an early am flight CR back to LAX. Better for connections at LAX, and also for onward travel out of SJO at least.
Not if the goal is to capture the business travel market in addition to the leisure market.
Aren't most other flights from the US redeyes? Perhaps a different segment of the population will react positively to a daytime flight. Obviously these folks aren't from ANC
beckoa is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 3:45 am
  #35  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot
Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite
Posts: 20,392
Originally Posted by DuckFlyer
It's the anti-Portland drivel like this from the Seattle crowd that makes me root vehemently against all Washington sports teams.
Good for you.

Originally Posted by mczlaw
I don't mind connecting through Seattle for my AS travel if I have to (and the extra 1,000 miles is great), but a 2:30 am arrival with 4 hour middle of the night layover is a deal killer.
And if AS thinks nobody wants to fly a redeye PDX-LAX or a 6 am LAX-PDX except for a handful of SJO connections... they should run it anyways because Portland?

(I'll just say this: one of SEA-LAX-MEX is a kind of similar route, an overnight redeye through LAX, though the redeye's going the other way to MEX. AS loves that route so much they're giving it up to AA.)

Last edited by eponymous_coward; May 22, 2015 at 3:53 am
eponymous_coward is online now  
Old May 22, 2015, 7:41 am
  #36  
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Upper Left Corner of the Map
Programs: AS MVPG & Board Room, Marriott Silver, Global Entry
Posts: 2,203
They should time the flights to connect to BOI and GEG, too.
98103 is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 7:44 am
  #37  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Programs: Alaska MVP Gold
Posts: 917
Originally Posted by 98103
They should time the flights to connect to BOI and GEG, too.
Can't believe you forgot Juneau. Won't somebody PLEASE think of Juneau!!!!
Calculon is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 8:54 am
  #38  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Programs: AA
Posts: 14,738
Originally Posted by beckoa
Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)



Aren't most other flights from the US redeyes? Perhaps a different segment of the population will react positively to a daytime flight. Obviously these folks aren't from ANC
To SJO? Was just there this weekend and all the options were daytime flights. We were late, arriving at 10:30 instead of 8:30, and the airport was fairly empty other than us.
wrp96 is online now  
Old May 22, 2015, 11:25 am
  #39  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Hyatt Contributor Badge
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: QLA
Programs: SBUX Gold
Posts: 14,507
Originally Posted by Sounder
Pointing out that PDX is not the most important hub for AS is not an ad-hominem attack. You are way overestimating the value of PDX connections. AS has clearly decided that the value of daytime flights to Costa Rica is higher than the value of timing for PDX connections.

You're making a lot of unsubstantiated accusations and showing quite a persecution complex over this. Try not to take such personal offense to what ultimately amounts of a business decision aimed at achieving the highest profits. Can't really fault AS for that.
+1

As an outsider, I'm not really sure PDX is on most people's radar as a hub or a destination.
IceTrojan is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 12:11 pm
  #40  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: DCA
Programs: UA US CO AA DL FL
Posts: 50,262
Here's an entire thread with not one piece of useful data, criticizing a for-profit business for making business decisions based on millions of data points.

If someone has the data to suggest that AS has this wrong, they should put that into a proposal for consulting services to AS and submit it to outsource AS' RM/IM operation.

Otherwise, just a lot of complaining w. zero facts.
Often1 is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 12:16 pm
  #41  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Over the Bay Bridge, CA
Programs: Jumbo mas
Posts: 38,633
Originally Posted by Often1
Otherwise, just a lot of complaining w. zero facts.
Why should this post be any different than 10+ billion other FT posts?
Eastbay1K is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 1:48 pm
  #42  
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: TUS/PDX
Programs: WN CP/A-List, AS MVPG75K
Posts: 5,798
Originally Posted by Often1
Here's an entire thread with not one piece of useful data, criticizing a for-profit business for making business decisions based on millions of data points.
This really sounds like Portlander's attitudes.
tusphotog is offline  
Old May 22, 2015, 7:27 pm
  #43  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Programs: AA ExPlat, AS MVP Gold
Posts: 909
Originally Posted by tusphotog
This really sounds like Portlander's attitudes.
Don't make me come down there...oh wait, I will be down there this fall. The kid is thinking about of U of A.

Look for me. I'll be wearing Birkenstocks and making fun of the Huskies.

--mcz
mczlaw is offline  
Old May 23, 2015, 8:26 am
  #44  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: London
Programs: DL FO, BA Bronze, Avis Preferred
Posts: 851
Originally Posted by VNAFlyer
I wouldn't call 600+K population for Portland (and ~4mil for the entire State of Oregon) heavily populated.

I think catering to the 10 mil population of Los Angeles County (and not including surrounding counties) is the more business-sound decision.
I know the PDX area isn't nearly as large as Los Angeles, but there are two million people living in the Portland metropolitan area, not just the 600,000 living in Portland proper.
PDXNRTLHR is offline  
Old May 23, 2015, 3:24 pm
  #45  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Programs: AA ExPlat, AS MVP Gold
Posts: 909
Originally Posted by Sounder
Pointing out that PDX is not the most important hub for AS is not an ad-hominem attack. You are way overestimating the value of PDX connections. AS has clearly decided that the value of daytime flights to Costa Rica is higher than the value of timing for PDX connections.

You're making a lot of unsubstantiated accusations and showing quite a persecution complex over this. Try not to take such personal offense to what ultimately amounts of a business decision aimed at achieving the highest profits. Can't really fault AS for that.
Read the actual words. Someone pointed out correctly that AS's SJO service is horribly inconvenient for PDX flyers. SEA flyers respond with gratuitous criticism of PDX flyers and Portlanders in general. This has played out repeatedly in multiple threads...and invariably it's the same know-it-alls offering the same criticism. It's tiresome and kind of obnoxious, but be assured I haven't lost a wink of sleep over it ..and I continue to fly AS regularly. (Right now, I'm just killing time on AS #788, SEA-MSY.)

I'm actually somewhat ambivalent about AS's PDX service deficiencies. AS can do whatever it wants and if it works for me, great, if it doesn't, I fly with someone else--these days usually American. No big deal...I can cross-post the miles in either event.

As for AS's profit and routing strategies, the most annoying thing is when posters substitute their speculation for factual knowledge. Anonymous posters with strong unsubstantiated opinions are a dime a dozen on internet forums. Moreover, just because some guy in the executive suite wearing a fancy suit gets to make decisions doesn't mean he makes the right call all the time.

PDX has been growing rapidly and all predictions are that it will continue to do so. As others have noted, PDX (the airport) already serves over 2 million. Maybe AS is savvy to all this and has it all factored into their long-term planning, maybe not. I don't claim to know. But there is something to be said for currying favor with the local populace (and governments) as a long-term strategy even if it might not optimize short-terms profits.

So, there you go. Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler.

--mcz
mczlaw is offline  


Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.