CDKing

The FA rumor mill over at B6 is they are going to announce merge with UA

However, there is also allegedly a hiring freeze on pilots and flight attendants and suspension of schedule FA classes. With the diminished AA partnership could this spell a possible AS merge attempt with B6? Makes sense to combine the best east coast and west coast carriers.

eponymous_coward

Trying to do another merger when you are barely into your current merger is a recipe for disaster, aside from the fact that AS just wrote a check for 2.6 billion. So I call BS.

robsaw

Why does anyone think that FA's have access to confidential, executive-level, corporate information?

beckoa

I'm sorry, I cannot answer this question. It is confidential

eponymous_coward

Bex is a flight attendant?

Baze

Only took 11 days after the announcement but I just got the email with the announcement.

BearX220

If you live outside the SEA/PDX/SFO zone, the merger plus subsequent partnership losses have given Alaska net lower relevance and utility. Ironically, without AA and DL, AS emerges as more of a niche proposition than before. Sad.

Baze

Different benefits and/or loses depending on your location and needs. So I stick to my statement for my needs and location.

BearX220

I'm not challenging your statement at all. Simply responding that in 45 or 46 out of 50 states, things get net-net worse for Alaska.

Points Scrounger

This was a second, followup email for me

eponymous_coward

How much of AS's existing customer base lives outside Alaska/Washington/Oregon/California?

OK, you. OK, some other FlyerTalkers.

So... imagine this conversation about the VX purchase in AS HQ:

"We can't buy VX as a way to expand in California, we'd risk the AA partnership, and when combined with how the DL partnership is breaking down, we'd lose our customers in PIT and CHI who credit 50% of their AA/DL flying to us."

You can probably see why this isn't likely to be a convincing argument to an airline that's already getting a squeeze play in SEA, doesn't really have expansion possibilities in PDX/ANC, and is tired of the slow slogging and additive growth in SJC/SAN/LAX (the latter carefully tiptoeing around AA and DL on routes like NYC/ORD/DFW-LAX). Especially when they see that WN, B6 and VX do just fine without having anything like the partner reach of AS.

At this point, "Swiss neutrality" and "we love our partners" didn't stop DL from coming in like the 800 lb gorilla and sitting wherever it wanted to. It didn't stop the merger environment from getting to the point where the majors barely needed AS. I think they did what they did knowing there might be repercussions, but WN did very nicely expanding in California over the years. We'll see if AS is ready to play in the big leagues, but it seems like they decided it was time to go big or go home.

PVDtoDEL

I think the real mistake was that AS didn't jump on oneworld membership the day the DL partnership fell apart. If AS was joining oneworld when the VX acquisition happened, there would've been too much inertia for the AS-AA relationship to fall apart.

dayone

Membership in oneworld would require an invitation from a sponsoring member.

BearX220

Too few. Which is one of their big problems. They're bulking up lift but narrowing their value proposition and not making enough of a relevance argument beyond those states.

Irony is, this is not going big. They have gone from a SEA fortress airline with domestic alliances that could take loyal customers anywhere in the US, no matter where they lived... to a marginally larger but less dominant airline, bereft of meaningful alliances, fighting pressure at SEA and SFO (the latter hub being indifferent to the AS brand at best), that can take loyal west coast customers to far fewer US stations.

There is more to "going big" than painting up some more airplanes.

eponymous_coward

Since when is ~50% market share a "fortress"? You seem to have confused SEA with MSP or IAH. AS has NEVER been dominant at SEA.

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1

Feel free to go in the way back machine if you would like and check my work. I checked 2007. It's the same as now, AS is around 50% market share. As it is today.

Being the favorite airline for FTers who live nowhere near an Alaska hub, and want a mile earned for a mile flown, and on their cheap Y fares isn't going to cut it in a world where you have four 800 lb gorillas as airlines and a few rabbits. AS management apparently decided they would try and replicate what WN and B6 did (grow new markets), with a somewhat different product mix (and more partners). It may be the wrong decision in the end. But you aren't going to grow the company and the dividends indefinitely playing Oliver Twist with cap in hand and begging for the scraps falling off of AA's table, while DL entrenches in SEA, and letting B6 cut you off at the knees in California.

In the end, I don't think they need AA or DL any more than WN did in the 80's and 90's. They may fail to execute, but it's a viable plan to try and chase CA market share for a decade or two.