TProphet

Frequent flier partner relationships with reach to less frequently visited European cities hardly represents an existential risk to Alaska. Most Americans are visiting the same handful of western European cities, and Alaska's current partners reach all of these cities.

Additionally, without adding any partners at all, Alaska could do away with its "one partner plus Alaska" rule to extend its European reach. It's possible that Alaska is contractually prohibited by its partners from doing this, but it probably isn't.

eponymous_coward

You seem like a pleasant person. Welcome to Flyertalk.

Just for an example of why this isn't as easy as you think it is, the Lufthansa Group is indeed in a transatlantic joint venture with UA and AC. Why would an LH group airline enter into a partnership with a direct competitor for what is in effect their own business?

If you exclude KL, AF and LH Group airlines it doesn't leave you with as many options for airlines. Some of the remainder like SK probably don't mix well with existing partners like AY. Some of the remainder like AZ are bad jokes. Some of the remainder after that aren't full service airlines but are ULCCs (like the LEVEL incarnation of IB).

B6 lost an AA partnership over 36 months ago, to an even more severe extent than AS did (AS is still codesharing and interlining with AA after 12/31).

Tell me, are they still a going concern? I'm keen to find out.

Seems about right to me. And DE has some decent reach, though it's a lot of leisure markets, but AS is kind of giving up the game on corporate/premium markets by deciding "well, let's bag the VX product on TCON and pitch ourselves in below the premium California-NYC products". That was seemingly what those investor presentations were about, leisure enthusiasts (we'll find out if that was marketing delusion or an actual real strategy). Between BA/DE/FI/AY it's not horrible, anyways. Add in someone like EI and it's, well... OK if not as nice as having AF/KL (I think they're actually weaker in Africa minus AF/KL because there's not as much AY/DE/FI backfilling on that, though good luck on THAT... I dunno, maybe ET). I'm sure in a perfect world they'd like their cake (VX) and to eat it too (a deep DL and AA partnership, AF, KL, and buying the world a Coke while being Airline Alliance Switzerland). They don't get to though. Oh well.

jinglish

Thirding this. When my friends and coworkers go to Europe, it's almost always to places like London or Amsterdam or Barcelona--very rarely east of Budapest.

But I disagree with the claim that AS is terrible for much of eastern Europe too. Want to visit Moscow or Kyiv? The AF/DL/KL losses don't help, but BA will still get you there and back. One of options I pondered for getting back from the latter last year (before the AS partnership began) was DE, with the initial KBP-FRA segment on LH. DE/LH and AY can fly you to VNO. You're out of luck for MSQ, but none of the recently/soon-lost SkyTeam carriers flew there anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

pineapplejet

I fly a LOT on AF/KL in paid J, I credit some of the flying to AS and others to DL and FB

At this point, should I move half of my AS credited flights to *A and pick up their status or double down on FB or DL?

VladQ

I travel regularly to Eastern Europe (SOF mostly) and AF has been the only global airline that effectively served my destination (a few times I was able to use AZ but that was in the past when DL was a partner). BA schedule does not work for me (17-18 hours layover) while AF CDG connection schedule and fares have been pretty good. The loss of AF/KL coupled with those two switching to revenue-based FF program is a serious blow for me. ATH is pretty much in the same boat despite being much more popular with US travelers

diver858

DL offers highly coveted frequent flyers credible options to the "combined" AA/AS network (reciprocal elite benefits, earning miles), the latter are simply less competitive separately.
AA ceding West Coast service to DL is one of many threads detailing some considerations.

Eastbay1K

While I'm not in the "will be missing" AF/KL crowd, I'm in the "already and will be missing" DL/AA/AM crowd. I've pretty much decided that going forward, I'll probably be mid-tier in AS and DL. Check with me in a year to see how that plays out I'm 75K and DL GM for 2018.

mczlaw

I see what you're doing there. Give yourself a gold star.

"Easy?" Nope. That's a convenient strawman, so well played. But certainly not your "hot and cold running caviar" (though who wouldn't want that ?)


Gosh, I don't know, Mr. Coward, sir. I'm just a newbie here. And AS and B6 are nearly identical, aren't they?



Believe you've stumbled on the new Alaska Airlines marketing slogan: "North of Not Horrible." Another gold star for the maven.

eponymous_coward

It’s a straw man to suggest that Lufthansa (and their subsidiaries) is probably not interested in sabotaging their own JV with United by steering passengers away from it by a partnership with Alaska.

OK.

3Cforme

AS and B6 aren't identical, but B6 is arguably the most comparable of the major U.S. carriers to AS. It's about the same size in Revenue Passenger Miles. It has a low degree of fleet complexity (just two mainline types). It's not a national carrier but a super-regional, up and down the East Coast the way AS is up and down the West Coast and to major destinations from select West Coast origins.

I don't think J and F partner carrier award redemptions to 3rd tier European cities is top among Alaska's concerns with Mileage Plan. Passengers will need to accept paying BA's $ component, the way other programs may demand more miles.

eponymous_coward

Or flying some of DE/FI/AY.

"Well, what about the 75Ks who clock most of their miles on partners like AA/KL/AF, do we want them to walk?" seems a more legitimate concern, but it's still all fallout from buying VX and betting that expanding their domestic service dramatically in CA is worth the tradeoff of making themselves more of a competitor to AA, and losing some partnerships as DL nudges their partners and goes "wow, they really annoy us, can you NOT be their buddy?" I suspect AAG figures that being able to grow the airline in VX hubs and in CA overall is worth throwing that overboard and losing some elites to AA/DL or Flying Blue (you can't get 6% annual growth by pumping more nonstops out of SEA/PDX forever). Might be the wrong choice or a poorly executed strategy, but it does seem to be what they have chosen.

nomiiiii

Honestly, award availability on AF/KLM is so bad that its not a huge loss. If this encourages alaska to add AerLingus or someone with better availablity, then that's great.

VladQ

It’s not simply about redemption options (although, it is possible with flexibility to redeem AS miles for AF J at lower number of miles than FB offers the same flights to their members), but mostly about earning MP status miles on revenue flights operated by AF/KL. That is a bigger loss than redemptions IMHO.

CDKing

Sure is, For those of us on the east coast this can be a big one. TATL from BOS is around trascon length so i would never redeem an award and am more likely to pay cash for the ticket

mczlaw

Yes. That's an important element, too.

Honestly, I want to see AS succeed. Hell, they're easily the biggest and best from PDX and all things equal, I fly AS. But the series of stumbles in recent years have literally driven me (and presumably many others) toward the competition. I'm flying a lot more with AA and Oneworld, usually paid J with the occasional redemption. The belief that AS does not have the most talented or farsighted management in the biz seems to be well-supported in the aviation and frequent flyer media. There are only so many marketing gimmicks you can pull out of your ... (ugly sweater day promotion?). It's a brutally competitive industry. Not a lot of room for miscalculation. He may be gone, but Richard Anderson may yet get his wish.