Originally Posted by
Legend717
Sure, bad news is bad news, but I'm tired of the doom and gloom. I came to AS from United; I've been through this all before.
But where AS is doing better at that United is SERVICE. While it's been a little rocky with the merger, it's not NEARLY the nightmare that I endured for ~5 years during CO/UA, a merger which, frankly, still isn't done, produced 80,000 .....y employees, saw ~10% more seats crammed into existing fuselages, killed countless dogs, and beat up some weird doctor.
I am in no way required to fly UA. I plan on sampling some DL this year to go with WN- flights are booked. (I regularly fly WN courtesy of their partners- tens of thousands of WN points obtained from renting cars over the years, plus the occasional paid flight too.)
At the risk of triggering a sarcasm detector, I might as well sample (at the low cost of some miles DL showered on me at nearly no cost plus $5.60) the original pioneer of this technique of Basic Economy plus devaluing FFPs to go "you are only worth the fare you paid me today". This airline happens to be hubbed in my home city, and at least THEY aren't trading major network carrier partners for third-rate European LCCs or ripping out their IFE. Oh, and their IRROPS handling apparently doesn't fall apart like wet toilet paper when SEA gets some snow or ATC holds.
I'll likely end up a free agent with some bias to WN, mostly looking at price/schedule/convenience out of SEA, "loyalty" and elite status be damned, pay for what I need, since WN won't work everywhere. AS may win some of those contests, but they will almost certainly lose some business of mine that they get now.
I don't pretend that my business is going to make a bean counter go "naaah, we don't need that hundred million". But I would be a chump to think a business is going to look out for me better than I will, regardless of how much "loyalty" is used in marketing materials.
It may work out well for AS in the end. Certainly it has for DL. But I don't expect that I will be Stockholm Syndrome to an airline that clearly is going towards a direction I'd rather not go towards.