Back in the old days, Alaska did a bunch of advertising in the LA and SF markets differentiating themselves from the other airlines. For example, their catering was superior to regular coach tray meals. "At Alaska, you just get more...." was the tagline.

One particularly memorable commercial showed two guys in airline business attire reading a handwritten letter under a sign that said "Airline Consumer Complaints" or some such. One says to the other "I had better food in..... In..... What's this word?" and the other guys looks hard at the letter and says "Prison!" "Yes," says the first guy, "Prison!"

Then some announcer pointed out the virtue of Alaska's better meals for the same fare.

So Alaska USED to be a better class of airline, in my ancient memory. Maybe they can catch some of VX's innovation? They're stuck with the seatback TV, satellite service, purple lighting and so forth on 60 airplanes, maybe this will cause them to step up their game.

The last few years it seemed to me that Alaska sort of abandoned the Bay Area, except for their expanded services from all three airports to Hawaii, which has been a godsend given the withdrawal of AA (and DL's attempts to fly people on red-eyes back to SJC).

I'm sure the VX evaporation will raise Hawaii fares for us, but then again maybe not: WN may someday give the islands a shot, and Hawaiian has certainly upped their game with widebodies to all three bay area airports.

I'll just miss the quirkiness of the Branson influenced program: it certainly didn't hurt to hire all new staff and let them build something, too. Of course, as a shareholder in VX, I enjoyed the buyout premium, too. Maybe enough there to get a cheap ticket to HNL, no?