buzglyd

ahh. I don't remember Jet America airlines but I was still a youngster in the 80s.

qukslvr619

As a native San Diegan living in STL, these flights are a welcome option for a nonstop vs flying WN. Put simply, I want an assigned seat, the option to buy/upgrade to F, and to avoid the entire WN experience. The whole "free bags", open seating, corny FA spiels, etc. is fine if you are an infrequent traveler, but for the travel I do all of the touted "advantages" really are negligible:

Free Bag? Have credit card/elite status and rarely check a bag so no benefit

No Change Fees? Elite status combined with SDC typically makes this easy to get around

Open Seating? No thanks I'll take the option to book Y+/exit row and not have to worry about paying for early boarding etc.

Lower Fares? Umm, not really whenever I checked.

Ok so now that my rant about WN is over....the challenge for me will be trying to figure out how to transition from UA MileagePlus since I'm sort of entrenched. AS will work flying to the west coast, but anything east of STL if I want to stick to MileagePlan would probably put me on AA. The problem I have with that though is that AA/AS Elite reciprocity is limited to basically Main Cabin extra and no F upgrades.

Here are a couple of personal observations about the AS SAN operation.
-Even with all of the flights/destinations, they still only rank around #3 (11%) of all flight ops and I think the peak schedule is somewhere around 40 flights. I actually expected it to be much larger, but since a lot of the cities out of SAN other than SEA/PDX are served about 1x daily (EWR,BOS, etc.) its clear that AS is focused on capturing more of the local traffic out of SAN component vs WN that seems to try and have a local/flow mix.

-I'm confused that for as much as AS has focused on SAN, they haven't opened a Lounge. While the initial thought I had was they are waiting for a new T1, the old UA Club, while small, could easily be renovated in the interim without AS having to invest money in building a club from the ground up and then having it torn down. The only other thing that I can think of is that perhaps either they will be relocating to T2 or they are cautious of the SAN operation in general. Granted they have added flights etc, but a lot of their mainline flights (Hawaii/Mexico) are to leisure destinations and the regional feed could easily be shifted somewhere else if there is a downturn in the economy etc.

By no means am I suggesting that AS shouldn't expand SAN (I would gladly like to see AS overtake WN as the dominant carrier), I'm just trying to understand their reluctance on trying to have a more dominant presence. Maybe its a slow cautious approach, but I think that SAN (and a lot of WN markets) present the opportunity to offer a superior product offering to captive WN flyers and establish a stronghold. SAN is unique in that there is a lot of frequency in markets but also a very large O/D component compared to traditional Hubs offering the same frequencies where its mostly flow. If AS could model their current operation into a more traditional hub, I really think they would be able to support flights to more cities that typically would as a nonstop not be strong (fewer PDEWs). For instance BNASAN on its own would not necessarily be a strong market let's say 20 PDEW, but BNAOAK (connecting over SAN) might be somewhere like 65 PDEW (not actual just a number). Granted their are limits geographically to what SAN can serve because it is so far south and it wouldn't make sense to fly someone INDOAK connecting over SAN (I kinda visually think that SAN serves as a good connecting point for cities south of STL) I think there is still a lot of opportunity.

diver858

There appear to be several of us in similar situations. As a LT AA PLT, I will continue to favor AA for most travel to the eastern half of the US (and of course PHX) and beyond, except when AS offers nonstop service, AA required a connection. Periodic flights to Hawaii, EWR and MCO - several with paid F - on AS will earn enough miles for MVP status, which will result in upgrades to Y+ and the occasional F (YES - F upgrades for lowly MVPs DO occur between SAN and KOA, MCO and SJC).

Will be interesting to see how AS grows SAN. Would like to see CUN next...

eponymous_coward

They would need a lot more space to run a hub operation, and a lot more frequencies. At a single-runway airport where their terminal space is limited, as well as headlong into WN when they're already in the middle of fights at SEA/SFO/LAX/SJC with DL, UA and WN... I wouldn't hold my breath. I'd enjoy the P2P out of SAN and look for accretive adds as time goes by that serve SAN O/D.

diver858

Based on my casual, unscientific surveys, I question how many of the typical AS customers to Hawaii and Mexico have Board Room or Priority Pass memberships, would be willing to buy a one-day pass.

For those more knowledgeable than I, would there be any benefit in a Flyertalk-group effort to approach the proper decision maker at Alaska, encourage them to make a deal with the airport authority for the former red carpet lounge space?

I posed a similar question earlier in this thread; to enable legal connections, it would likely require AS to push back most of the Hawaii flights to allow connections from the east, move new incoming nonstops to early mornings - does not appear to be a viable option. If my memory serves, HNL is the only current AS flight from SAN (11:50 am departure) that could make sense; AS is smart enough to sniff out any such travel patterns, respond accordingly.

I have historically seen a fair number of inbound passengers from SEA and PDX to SAN, connecting with afternoon flights to SJD; AS appears to be adding more SJD nonstops, should reverse this trend.

qukslvr619

For 600+ flts/day using a single runway, I can't think of a time in the roughly 30 years I've flown out of SAN where I have encountered any departure delays in excess of 10-15 mins. I've always scratched my head about this especially with the 0630 launch of the first departures....somehow they manage it very well. And yet here in STL with plenty of runways and gates to spare....from pushback to wheels up it seems to take forever!

That being said, the current T1 banjo setup would not necessarily be good for handling connections. Sure every gate would be relatively close-by but it would be a mad house. B6/NK/SY/G4 seem to be outliers and I would think with some shifting around they could move to T1 (11-18) allowing AS to move to T2 (old West Terminal) but that would probably involve AA having to shift back into the former HP/US gates on T2 (33-34); I think AC and WS pre-clear so technically I don't think they would need to be on T2 although this might be related to having AC with UA and WS with AA. But then again I don't know if 22-31 work all that much better than 11-18 for connection purposes either because the corridor within T2 (old West Term...sorry it will always be that to me) is relatively narrow as it is.

qukslvr619

And you could be perfectly correct about this. In our FT world we all want luxury lounges and 747 nonstops out of XYZ airport.

What would be interesting though is to see if any AS travelers are using the Admirals Club or whatever it is at SAN. I would imagine that it would be a negligible number but before UA consolidated ops into T2, I would go to the RCC in T1 if I got to the airport early enough to at least grab breakfast.

And on that note though....would the typical AS flyer, that also flies AA, find more value in an Admirals Club membership than an Alaska Lounge membership? By that I mean an Admirals Club membership gets you access to AS Lounge + Admirals Club + Qantas + a number of OneWorld carrier lounges......you have a much greater amount of options, and while there are outliers where AA/AS don't operate in the same terminal (namely PHX) or they are in the same terminal but not easily accessible because of TSA checkpoints (think DCA) that an AS Lounge membership would be beneficial, of the AS Lounge membership partner lounges I could only find PHX/DCA/SFO/LAS/MSP where either there was no Admirals Club or it was not within the same terminal/security checkpoint. What I'm getting at is maybe AS doesn't see a need/demand because if they look at whether or not SAN based travelers are buying AS Lounge memberships, they really aren't because they can get a better value with AA (and previously with DL)?

eponymous_coward

AS isn't in the California game to connect people (except maybe a bit north-south to Mexico/Central America); they can serve their current markets where they DO connect through SEA (and to a lesser extent PDX).

VX's game was all SF/LA O/D, not connecting passengers, which meshes in pretty well with expanding P2P out of SJC and SAN as P2P focus cities (with the occasional cheapo from SEA/PDX who wants to connect to Hawaii or Mexico to save $). If you have some decent nonstop coverage SFO/SJC/LAX/SAN, you're covering most of California's top markets. And note that a lot of AS's service has been selected NOT to overlap with WN's markets where you're running into a buzzsaw of frequency and WN mindshare: no SJC/SAN-DEN/LAS, no PHX service announcements out of ALL of California (which I would argue is the major hole in the AS network out of CA, but given WN and the AA partnership... it's kind of logical to wait on that one), only one Texas route that AS has tried before (SJC-AUS).

buzglyd

I've used the Admirals club with my Citi Prestige card but it's outside of security for an Alaska flight and not very convenient to where Alaska's gates currently reside.

buzglyd

I would love to have CUN. In fact I might trade my DCA request for CUN.

The only CUN non-stops right now are all out of LAX. I don't think there are even any out of TIJ.

Orwaid

Hi -

When I have to fly from the midwest to the east coast, I have gone to B6. Mosaics lately are getting free EMS Seats at the gate and the experience is closer to AS than WN.

The combo of B6 Mosaic + AS MVPG/75K covers transcon, midcon, west coast and east coast. .

psa64

I routinely arrive SAN a half-hour before AS boarding, check thru TSA term 2 and pickup Brit newspapers (left over from BA) in AirSpace Club (de facto Admiral Club). Then, return to term 1 to redo TSA (thankful for pre-check) before boarding AS to SEA, BOS, or EWR. AirSpace agents know me and my multi-terminal ways. They've told me that ultimate (2018?) plan is AS relocation to SAN term 2.

beckoa

That would be quite nice if so.

In the meantime if AS were to just open up the old SAN PC for a few hours each day that would be nice

Remember... AS does have a Nice! campaign after all ^

diver858

Sorry - math does not add up. Even under the best of conditions, it takes at least 10 minutes to clear security at T2, 5 mins min to walk to T1. TSA for AS flights is VERY inconsistent, as they often do not offer pre-check, not unusual to in security lines behind kettles, not familiar with current procedures. Even 30 minutes prior to BOARDING is pushing things if you plan on passing through TSA in both terminals.
From personal experience, AS typically begins boarding of full BOS, EWR and SEA 40 minutes prior to departure, like to push back early - particularly when there are headwinds traveling east.

Would require other carriers to move to T1. I could see a SAN Airport Authority moving NK, SY and any other LCCs currently operating out of T2, joining F9.

Fanjet

Why do you get the impression that WN is not already fighting back? After AS's last recent expansion at SAN, WN very much fought back. Which is why they will soon be flying new service to SLC/EWR/SJD/BOI (all AS cities from SAN). And after this new announcement by AS, I think there will be another form of retaliation. Just perhaps not out of SAN. As WN is really gate constrained there. And there really isn't any AS service left for them to go after at SAN except Hawaii or BOS.