HikerT

The way the script is phrased to intentionally mislead speaks volumes about integrity and the direction AS is heading.

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wondrousdevice3.0: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.583 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Pre Sept script perhaps? That's what it sounds like... (TPS report anyone )

ChugiakAk

Amazing what they come up with in the airline business now. My favorite remains the decision by American Airlines to remove the olives from their dinner salads. So petty in the big scheme of things (just like Alaska's decision on the companion ticket). Of course, years after the "olive decision", look where American is heading.

bigbirdwithsilverwings

It sure didn't help American stay out of bankruptcy. No indication Alaska is going to reverse its recent course changes. I am really interested to see if Alaska's recent decisions and its impact on customer loyalty results in reduced revenue. It certainly will from me...

beckoa

Many of us really don't have much of a choice. AS does have a powerful network on the West Coast.

Seattlenerd

I don't think the FT audience is indicative of the general flying public. Keep in mind that roughly half of those flying AS (as I recall) don't belong to its frequent flier program.

And the companion cert changes may result in changes in credit card loyalty and behavior, but not necessarily flying behavior. Confounding the two may lead to poor conclusions.

AS Flyer

You do realize that the whole olive thing happened back in the 80's, right? I certainly wouldn't correlate that with their bankruptcy filing in any way.

Eastbay1K

Remember the size of Portage Glacier back then? It starts with an olive!

ChugiakAk

Exactly! It can take a long time but it is very indicative of the mindset that permeates the industry from the 1980s on. Not only olives but pillows, blankets, baggage fees, charging for food, fees to talk to an agent on the phone, etc. From the olive the road leads to charging for "premium seats", fees to seat families together, and who knows what else. More and more, customer satisfaction is sometimes given lip service in deference to the financial bottom line.

jwright

It is indicative of what the flying public wants: cheap fares. You don't get something for nothing.

AS Flyer

You should probably start at deregulation then, when the playing field was leveled for all airlines and they were forced to start competing with each other for who offered the lowest fare, rather than who had the best inflight meals and most inflight amenities. THAT is when the real backslide started. You can't maintain those amenities while still giving the U.S. traveling public what they want most - cheap, affordable fares.

ChugiakAk

Perhaps it's just the nostalgia in me for the days when flying used to be fun and something you looked forward to doing. Guess I'm showing my age!

FlyerChrisK

Flying is still fun. You just get to fly from point A to B for a fraction of what you used to.

dave1013

True enough. And the fraction for flying to and from JNU may be ~0.95. Or greater.

bigbirdwithsilverwings

Flying is NOT fun. You have to be there 2 hours early. You go through TSA which is slow and often times degrading. You can end up in a middle seat on a 737 flyings across the country which is scheduled to do it in 6 hours (when it only took 5 hours 20 years ago) to pad schedules to show on time arrivals. The flight is uncomfortable and there are no amenities.

Flying was appreciably "better" w/the companion certificate if you used it to book first class which is how I used it. Without the ability to use the companion certificate to fly first class, I gave up my B of A Alaska VISA cards and I'm giving up on Alaska. Still hope that they reverse course but if they can handle a 3 month pummeling and are showing no signs of course changes, I guess it's over.