April was horrible for B6--no question about that though if earnings were calculated from May to July, they would have been profitable and AS would have been more profitable as well. An arbitrary three month period does not tell you much anyway--and one day later as you see in the stock market--the stock price is higher than it was 2 days ago.

B6 is about to undergo the biggest transformation of any airline in the US over the next few years. Short term pain of being overstaffed and keeping slack in the system for big potential long term benefits. AS is planning for stagnation for at least the next 18 months. Their fleet size will be barely changed from 2016-17 to the end of 2023. B6 on the other hand will jump to twice the size of the AAG.

In addition to doubling in size through their own organic growth and by absorbing Spirit, they are also expanding further into continental Europe and gained permanent LHR slots, building a whole new terminal at JFK, moving into brand new terminals this year at MCO and EWR, and greatly improving their network breadth throughout the US--including a much bigger operation at LAX and LAS which will help them with expansion in the West and access to new assets middle of the country to expand there--while solidifying a strong position in Central/South America and the Caribbean.

AAG and B6 are in 2 totally different places right now and although the challenges may be great, if it works, B6 will be a much bigger force. I would much rather be an airline that has a vision for the future that is bigger than just trying to keep the status quo in Seattle.

Supposedly VX was purchased because AS feared a B6 expansion into California. NK is three times the size of VX and has a large fleet of A320 family aircraft plus a large order book of new aircraft coming. This will give B6 the ability to be a much stronger competitor in the West than it ever would have been combined with VX.

AAG still has not articulated any kind of growth strategy. That may be fine for people in SEA but they are not going to gain any relevance elsewhere if they don't grow the size of their fleet. QX/OOs future with AS is still very much in question as well. Scope clauses will be in the next pilot contract. Whether that freezes things as they are now or goes further is anybody's guess.

Even AS's management team on the latest earnings call basically said it can't get much worse for them in California. Once SEA is maxed out, what are they going to do? That is the question that has been asked for 6 years now and we are still not any closer to getting an answer from the AS management team. Maybe once the competition increases they will finally realize they need to figure that out sooner rather than later--unless they want to keep themselves as a small regional carrier biding time until a larger airline buys them out at some point in the future.