Would they stop at Seattle, though? If they sense Alaska is a weak competitor there, will they attack other Alaska hubs/routes? With the Virgin America acquisition, Delta could perceive Alaska as a bigger threat at SFO now, when they weren't really on the radar here in past years with a couple of regional routes. I suspect gate capacity might be an issue here, though, at least until T1 is fully reconstructed. I know some domestic flights go out of international, so there might be some capacity on that side. The bigger issue might be whether DL thinks they can mount a challenge to UA at SFO, who is the dominant carrier here. That's just not going to happen with the size of the UA operation (makes you wonder if Alaska managers might have said the same thing about Delta at SEA five years ago).

Personally, as an Alaska/Virgin America flyer now, the main item that brought me to Alaska is Mileage Plan. Delta's program is more similar to what I left behind at AA/UA. Mileage Plan is pretty unique right now for a leisure traveler that has airport access in a city with a lot of Alaska/Virgin America flights. If Alaska has to downscale Mileage Plan due to cost-related issues (a biscuit now, frequent flyer miles next?), I'd just bounce back to AA or UA here in the Bay Area, having lifetime status with both. I want Alaska to be successful so I can continue to accrue miles under the current program. I consider those miles my most valuable airline currency.

One reason why Delta is so profitable is because they have very dominant marketshare at many of their hubs (over 70% at ATL, DTW and MSP for example). They have monopolies or near monopolies on many of the regional routes from these hubs, allowing them to charge higher fares. Don't get wrong, DL does run a good operation, which also makes it difficult for anyone to really mount a successful challenge against DL in these markets. But, if DL manages to overtake AS at SEA, then I think consumers will ultimately be the losers in terms of higher airfares.

One the one hand, I think the massive DL expansion has been bad for SEA, as it has turned an airport that was actually fairly pleasant to fly to/from four years ago into an increasingly congested mess. On the other hand, the current level of gate and airspace congestion really prevents DL from expanding much more as long as AS is able to hold its own. If we remain in the current position of having two dominant carriers, consumers will at least benefit from the lower fares and increased flight frequency.

The spat is about SEA, not some desire on DL's part to utterly destroy AS. DL wanted to build up a transpac hub at SEA, and the lead-up to the announcement of those plans makes it seem like they were going to use AS for the bulk of the domestic feed. But then the announcement came, and AS didn't really factor into it. Nobody outside either airline knows exactly what happened, but there's speculation that DL wanted AS to get cozier with them and loosen their ties with other partners, and that AS (understandably) didn't want to be DL's little PNW lapdog. Whatever did take place, DL started building their international hub and began building up domestic feed for it and trying to take market share from AS.

AS isn't a threat to DL at SFO because DL doesn't really care about SFO more than necessary. The only cities they serve from there are their domestic hubs, BOS (a focus city), CVG (a focus city and former hub), and HNL (seasonally). Even setting aside the fact that they'd be fighting UA too, it's a significant market but pretty well-established as such and probably not as ripe for growth as SEA was a few years ago. They don't really have a reason to move in except to spite AS, and even if Anderson were still at the helm at DL I'm not sure if they'd bother.

Sometime around 2030 or so (it is Port of Seattle we are dealing with:eek: ) AS will get several new gates in the N terminal. Construction started last year. This is also an opportunity for them to grow unless they are giving up gates elsewhere at SeaTac.

How many of these threads are required - talk about beating a dead horse: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...station-2.html

Agree. The Seattle Times piece is distressing, because it never makes sense for employees to complain to the press, and when the ship is a happy one (cfr. Southwest) it doesn't happen much. Obviously AS is not a happy ship right now. It just confirms my long-held belief that -- mainly because of the merger, and the merged company's introduction to markets where it is not a parochial / hometown hero -- AAG is due this year for a big dose of welcome-to-the-NFL.

They've never been this big, they've never had to shore up a hub market where the locals are somewhere between indifferent and hostile toward them, and they've never had to compete head-to-head with the majors on grounds other than, gee, support the home team.

The transcon product in particular is wholly non-competitive. But if you are based outside Alaska itself or the west coast corridor, the whole airline is non-competitive. A grim, cramped, often overpriced economy service, flying to too few places, too few times daily. Add a collapse in the service ethic and a (Horizon) pilot shortage and they're in crisis.

Anyone who has studied the post-deregulation history of major legacy carriers moving in on west coast stations, and / or absorbing west-based carriers, knows why that would be a bad thing. It's easier for those airlines to make money in the east and midwest, so they shift assets away from the west. And remember Delta's reason for bulking up SEA was always to feed a TPAC minihub. If that business falls off, count on the DL domestic lift to slack off too.

DL hubs at ATL/DTW/MSP/SLC are very profitable. But their hubs at JFK/LAX which has competition are barely breaking even. I doubt DL will ever achieve monopoly in SEA given AS gate space advantage and hometown advantage. But it might become more profitable over time and AS might become less.

DL is not moving into SFO, because they only make move onto airports dominated by smaller carriers. And they do this like in the case of SEA/BOS with little profitability.

AS have serious issues in SFO, DL is not one of them.

I agree DL won't make a SEA-sized play for SFO. But they are picking up SFO passengers anyway on some of AS's bread and butter commuting routes. I know at least one SFO-based colleague who moved all their SFO-LAX/SEA commute business - with AS losing all lounges in SFO, and DL's shiny new club and better onboard service, about the only reason not to switch is the flexible change policies AS offers.

That's a matter of opinion: YMMV. It may depend on time of day, phase of the moon, and whether Mercury is in retrograde...

Are you high on the legal stuff? [Don't worry, I won't tell Mr. Sessions] As others have pointed out, not having to spend $2K for base status is kinda a big deal to those paying with their own money (or those cost-conscious small business owners). You could achieve MVP for around $1K if you are based in SEA and do the SEA-BOS route four times a year plus a SEA-BLI or something similar. It's by far the easiest elite status to achieve. And don't even get me started about the SkyPeso... (rant here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...l-falls-3.html). That was the start of how they lost my business (except for those routes where there is no other choice).

That thread is about the vague general perception by a customer that AS has gone downhill over the past year. This thread is about AS employees discussing the company's short-sighted cost cutting measures (like depriving passengers of Biscoffs) with the media that are undermining customer loyalty amid intentional slowdowns by disgruntled pilots and Delta upping their game. I fly on my own dime, but my schedule is not very flexible so I have to pay whatever the prevailing fare is, and lately Delta has just been offering more value for less without giving off the whiff of corporate dysfunction.

I've been willing to put up with a certain amount of cheaping out on the food and lack of amenities when they're providing an otherwise exceptional FF program and on-time reliability, but I'm not inclined to give my exclusive loyalty to a company who's employees are making me late on purpose out of spite for their management. With the demise of the DL and AA partnerships taking me out of contention for 75K, it's time for me to spread my wings.

That's great for people who make transcon and west coast trips on only the very cheapest fares and stick to AS metal! But that's not everyone's case, and certainly not mine.

I just cracked open my OpenFlights records and did some math. In 2016, if I adjust flight distances to account for the 500 EQM minimum, I flew 49,912 base miles on AS and partners--enough that I could've easily adjusted things slightly to hit Gold. But my actual EQM count was about 35k, because a number of my flights were on partners' discount economy tickets... and if we hadn't still been earning 100% on all AA economy fares at the time of my UK trip, I would've been down another ~4500 EQM. At this point, QF is the only partner left where you still get 100% EQMs flying in cheap Y, and I don't go to Australia on anything approaching a regular basis.

I really appreciate that AS has kept a distance-focused program, and I've gotten great redemption value for my miles, but as the other carriers have added revenue requirements to their programs and split earnings up into EQMs, EQDs, and RDMs, AS has adjusted by reducing partner earnings rates on those cheap fares. And since (outside corporate promotions and maybe a handful of other edge cases) AS doesn't issue EQMs that aren't also RDMs, I've wound up significantly worse off on the qualification front than I would with DL. Yes, I'll get shafted on the RDMs, but I shouldn't have trouble meeting $3k spend for FO, and I'll actually get 1 EQM per mile flown on all DL and many partner flights--and once I start buying the occasional paid international J ticket I'll probably have a much better shot hitting GM than I would MVPG.

WN Hawaii service is still nothing more than marketing hype, in an effort to keep west coast loyalists from jumping ship to AS. Remains to be seen if WN management is willing to take the risk the late move in to an already crowded market, where AS now has the most flights from the mainland, big 3 plus HA maintain a significant market share. As Hawaii passenger service is primarily leisure, demand will drop dramatically during the next recession / negative world event, history suggests we are due for at least one in the near term, may not be the best time to make such an investment.

Much of the recently added AS intra-CA service is provided by OO, on E175 aircraft --> MUCH lower cost structure, fewer seats to fill. Tilden likely anticipated price pressure from WN, is well positioned to fight it out. AS has developed a fairly substantial intra-CA network to secondary destinations, where WN has little to no presence, including service to PNW, including FAT, MMH, MRY, STS; in most cases, AS has no non-stop competitors.

This may explained WN's late 2017 response: companion pass promotion to retain loyalists, recognizing lower fares would not be as effective, suggests WN recognize AS is not going away anytime soon.

I had the exact opposite experience yesterday. Biscoffs were proactively put on every F seat before boarding - no need to ask. Great (new!) meal, nuts, snack basket offered around a couple of times. And I had one of the best FA's I have ever had on AS (shout out to you Ken); and that is saying a lot because I have had some pretty amazing ones. No disgruntled FA's on my flight and definitely not a race-to-the-bottom attitude. At least on this flight, it was the usual great AS service and then some.

I've swapped a fair bit of my 2018 planned flying over to WN, largely because of the terrible BUR-PDX flight schedules, but I have to say that my last WN flight was really good by comparison to my AS flight. Unlike most of my AS flying over the last few months, we took off on time and landed on time. I can't remember the last time that happened on AS.

As BearX220 points out, AS is trying to be one of the big boys but that leaves little room for the kind of service they are known for.