BiggAW

Probably jealousy that AS is so well-liked and DL is a crap airline in comparison.

I'm amazed a market of ~33k people supports multiple mainline jet flights in the first place. There's no room for two carriers. One carrier with high prices is the only way mainline jet service works in a place like JNU.

First of all, anyone in AK probably just goes straight to alaskaair.com anyway, but if they do shop around, they might go on DL once, realize how crappy it is compared to AS, which is a fantastic carrier, and then go back to AS anyway. So any damage will be temporary, as people are reminded how bad DL is.

I'm not sure so sure of that. DL has no identity. They are trying to be everything for everyone, and in the process move a lot of pax with no identity, and no focus. They just sort of diddle around in this and that, and seem to have no focus. They are stretched thin, yet are a massive airline.

ANC is a lot more understandable. Cruises end at Seward and people bus up, people visit Denali, and 300k people actually live there. JNU makes no sense. JNU, FAI, and all the smaller destinations are in AS's domain, and don't have enough of a market to support a second jet carrier.

A hole? They are out of their element going into AS's home turf. AS has a much better brand, and is doing really well in the lower 48. And then DL decides to invade their home turf? That just seems dumb. I'm just trying to figure out how they will even market flights to AK. Anyone who knows AK doesn't go to Orbitz or Travelocity or whatever, they go straight to alaskaair.com to book fights into AK, bypassing anyone else.

Who in their right mind is going to fly on some sh*tty little regional airline CRx when they can go on an AS 737?

DL should stick to what they know. I'm not too concerned about it though. AS will keep serving those markets. They served them before DL started their little experiment, and they will serve them after DL gets distracted by something else and leaves. And their lower 48 transcon service is way better than DL or anyone else anyway if you're headed to the PNW or Hawaii, so there's that too.

Don't give them any ideas. This Horizon airline BS is bad enough.

UAPremierExec

I flew Delta a few times last year out of Juneau and their hard product is YEARS ahead of Alaskas.

And yes, we would pick a crappy CRJ 900 nonstop over a 737 that makes a stop OR be forced to overnight in Seattle. I will miss making Hilton Gold in 2016 or 2017, but I enjoy my own bed & pooch more than I do the SeaTac Hilton or Doubletree

Chugach

You are entitled to your own opinions, but consider this: if AS had applied the same logic you applied to DL to "stick to what they know", AS still wouldn't fly east of SEA or south of PDX.

And get used to flying regionals (aka Horizon) in AK. The combis are about to walk the plank and AS isn't going to start sending the 739ER to BRW and PSG. I think the era of 737 passenger service to rural Alaska is about over within five years.

UAPremierExec

I think the only "milkruns" that will exist in 5 years will be on the 737-700 CARGO airplanes. Apparently Alaska-Boeing have received FAA approval to start converting a few airplanes to all-cargo. NOT combi.

eponymous_coward

I'd say some Q400's based in the region (perhaps even rotating to ANC) for intra-SE Alaska travel + E175s for nonstop to SEA (that get upgauged to 738s during peak season) might work pretty well as a combination.

Competition for your custom isn't bad, folks.

dave1013

Disagree. Your amazement might be somewhat tempered when you consider that there are only two ways to access Juneau - via plane or via ferry. The latter is subject to so many breakdowns and IRROPs, and now budgetary constraints, that it has been rendered practically unreliable.

There may be room in the sandbox for two.

Chugach

My guess is JNU will maintain 738 and above to ANC and SEA and become something of a regional connecting hub for the smaller SE communities, sans KTN which should be able to maintain service to SEA on its own. The JNU-KTN flight will probably also go to Q400...I think AS has a federal contract (Forest Service?) to keep flying that one.

Not sure how SIT will fit into that during the winter...I could see 1 or 2 Q400 flights to JNU and a Skywest nonstop to SEA in the winter, or 3+ Q400 flights to JNU and that's it.

CBear

That would be the dumbest move ever.

Frequency in the summer time increases significantly (5 southbound and 5 northbound between SEA and KTN) and each and every flight is packed to the rafters, both with passengers and freight.

People seem to forget the amount of freight money AS makes in SE AK. The passengers are just the cherry on top.

ETA plus they have a lucrative little thing called USPS contract.

CBear

I'm seeing -800 scattered about for service between KTN and SEA, especially on AS174.

Chugach

Think he was talking about JNU, not KTN. Plus summer and winter are two different animals. Winter, KTN's service to and from SEA is all tied to other communities (64/65 and 62/67 milk runs, and 60/69 tagged with JNU). As combis are phased out, and one would assume the milk runs in their current form would go away as well, that will have some bearing on the winter schedule in KTN.

UAPremierExec

if you read my post, you'll see I was talking about the OTHER 9 months out of the year. If you lived in Juneau, you would be 10000% on board with me: the stop in KTN sucks. Delta is offering us a NONSTOP at 6AM. I can now consider STAYING living in Juneau because my travel schedule won't be so SH*TTY moving forward.

My suggestion is that during the OTHER 9 months when we do NOT have that Alaska Airlines early AM flight.

BiggAW

Less leg room and dealing with DL's shenanigans is somehow ahead of AS? What are you smoking? AS is one of the best carriers in the US. The three legacies aren't even on the list.

I just hope that DL doesn't hurt AS's ability to offer service to SE AK.

There's nothing special about flying in the lower 48. AS just sucks less than the legacy carriers. Flying in AK is a whole different deal.

You really think AS is just going to cut them off of the map like that? I hope that they come to their senses, and if they don't want to operate combis, cut the frequency and use 737-700's instead of cutting service altogether.

On the flip side, since the combi's work now, why wouldn't they replace them with -800 combi's when the -400's are coming up on their service life?

Milk runs will continue on for a long time with regular 737's, just like they do in SE today.

Sure, you have to take a boat or a plane. I get that. But there are only ~33k people there.

What do combis have to do with milk runs in SE? Most of the milk runs are regular 737-400s or -800s in SE. The combis are out in Barrow, Nome, Bethel, Deadhorse, etc. When the -400s go away, they will be -800s or -700s.

BiggAW

What is going on with AS? They are sending passenger 737's up for about half of the SCC-BRW milk runs, and yet they are only flying one or two flights a day between ANC and FAI, one of which is the tail end of a milk run, with the rest farmed out to Horizon. Makes no sense.

dave1013

And those 33,000 people fly a lot. Does that help clear things up?

Your effort to establish a nexus between a community's population and the level of commercial airline service it receives (jet or otherwise) obviously doesn't work with JNU.

Perhaps this debate would be better focused on YAK, CDV, PSG, and WRG. Indulge yourself.

Yes, Horizon service is going expand in Southeast. That will largely address the jet service-to-small-community issue. Jets won't disappear completely but their presence will be diminished.

BiggAW

Of course JNU has a lot of people who fly a lot, and needs and deserves mainline jet service. That being said, in order for the economics for mainline jets to go there, there needs to be a single monopoly carrier who can charge the high prices required to operate the inefficient operation required to serve JNU. That's why the Alaska-only model works. Hopefully DL will realize how dumb their move is, pull out, and Alaska will still be in good shape to go back to being a monopoly and making money again when that happens.

That sucks. Horizon and their stupid little POS turboprops needs to go away completely. Alaska should be providing that service with mainline jets. Yes, they are milk runs, they may not run daily, but those towns deserve mainline jet service more than many big cities that have highways that go other places, since they don't.

What issue are they addressing? They have B737 service today. There is no logical reason not to provide mainline jet service to those towns, since Alaska is a monopoly, and can charge the prices required to bring a B737 in there.