safari ari

Maybe they'll resurrect Denver from anywhere but Seattle. A boy can dream.

beckoa

From ANC?

rustykettel

The ended codeshare routes, yes, since that was required as a condition of the merger. The ending of domestic AA earning & elite benefits could just as well be due to AA not wanting a back door to their then new PQD requirements & spend based RDM earning scheme.

jinglish

AS had already seen changes to AA earnings by that point--down to 25% on the lowest Y buckets. With rates like that, qualifying for status while flying mainly AA would probably be even harder while crediting to AS than with AA.

The only conditions placed on AS and AA for merger approval were the codeshare drawdowns. The loss of elite benefits and domestic earnings was probably due to AA now having a semi-competitor in AS.

ashill

What about AS's strategy is returning to being a small PNW airline? As noted, they have about the same capacity and serve more markets out of SFO than VX did. And they certainly have roughly the total operations of pmAS + pmVX, ie they're an appreciably bigger airline than they were before the merger no matter how their assets are deployed.

This has been said many times, but I don't get the complaints about AS's ex-SFO network in comparison to VX's network. VX's ex-SFO network was fairly weak, and so is AS's. They've moved assets around a bit, but neither pmVX nor present AS were/are capable of being all things to SFO-based travellers who fly to a variety of places. That's not necessarily an unviable position, but it certainly is a challenge. But unless you specifically rely on one of the handful of markets that AS has dropped (DEN, FLL, and CUN, according to @AS Flyer above), I don't how anyone could claim that AS's network is appreciably worse than VX's.

ashill

That was due entirely to AA switching to a revenue-based frequent flyer program; they weren't going to let people earn far more miles by crediting AA flights to AS. What AS could have done (but didn't) was retain 100% EQMs on all AA fares, as AA did for their own flights, or at least the 50% earning that AA now has for all partner-marketed discounted (even slightly) economy tickets. But that had nothing to do with the merger, although that's kind of irrelevant to the customer: either way, you're absolutely right that the value of AA as a partner plummeted for that reason alone for many customers, including me.

I fully agree.

Eastbay1K

Good luck. I booked a MEX/SCL for December (8 months ago) figuring SFO/MEX would eventually open, or then SFO/LAX/MEX. Now I'm rather escrewed with my MEX/SCL award unless LAX/SCL opens. Yay.

N830MH

I think it will be A321neos. They do have more range, more capabilities, and more fuel-efficient, as well. If they fly LAX-LIM nonstop by operated 737-MAX9 or A321neos.

Erasmus

sfozrhfco

I would guess DEN to MAD with a stop in MEX...LOL..Don't see anything from DEN--too much competition everywhere for a carrier which can't even make SFO-DEN work.

milypan

sfozrhfco

Precisely because I am based in San Francisco and care about the competitive environment at my home airport. I lived through a very long time when UA was the only game in town and it was quite difficult to avoid them. It wasn't long ago that there was no B6/VX or even WN at SFO. F9 was the only alternative carrier from SFO to LAX before VX came along. Having a disruptive carrier in the name of VX come in totally changed the competitive landscape at SFO bringing in MUCH lower fares and way better breadth of service, a much broader network, and lay flat seats at a much more reasonable price to multiple markets which never had them.

AS is not terrible by any means and I never said I would never fly them. The majority of time they either don't go where I want to go or offer a product that is substantially better than the multiple other offerings that are out there. I would like nothing better than having a large competitive force at SFO offering a substantially better product but sadly that has not happened with AS and seems very unlikely to happen in the near future.

Rather than being in denial and constantly trying to prove how in some random market AS offers the best service, it may be wise to listen to people that are actually from the areas that AS is struggling to be competitive and profitable in rather than pretending everything is peachy. The drag in profitability from California is also impacting their traditional strongholds like in PDX so it is not like the negative impacts of California don't reverberate through the rest of the company. I hope they turn things around but management seems to still be in very deep denial at this point as are many AS fans.

safari ari

Can you say, 797 launch partner right there.....

northwesterner

I'm LAX based (live & work closer to BUR).

Born and raised in Seattle, I go up for a visit every 8-10 weeks. Much prefer flying BUR-SEA than LAX-SEA.

With the VX purchase I thought, great, I can just fly Alaska everywhere from LAX (or with a quick one stop in SFO).

Sadly though, the frequencies just aren't enough from either. I'd like to go to Boston on a Wednesday night after work on a red eye so I can be there first thing Thursday morning in October. The LAX-BOS red-eye is gone which means I have to connect in SFO or SEA. The only connecting flight LAX-SFO leaves at 1630. That's an awful early departure when you're planning on taking the redeye. Might as well just take the whole day off and fly non-stop first thing in the morning.

Have to friends I'd like to see this fall in Chicago. We're down to a single daily LAX-ORD.

MEX bites the dust, again.

Etc, Etc, Etc.

If it wasn't for that one BUR-SEA flight, I'd be over to Delta.

AS Flyer

AS isn't going to go to lie flat seats or 7-8 flights a day from SFO-JFK/BOS/FLL - beyond that, what exactly should Alaska do? They're competitive in the majority of transcon markets. So yeah, "listen to the people from those areas" - what else is there to learn from them? That's your biggest gripe? Is AS not competitive to RDU, MCO, BNA?