Upcoming AS Route Cuts
Mar 9, 2018, 6:41 am
#256
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Portland, Oregon
Programs: Hilton Platinum, Alaska MVP Gold
Posts: 2,363
STS is also affected (like the rest of the network) on the AA partnership falling apart. Easy connections at LAX to AA's network are gone. Connections via any of the destinations to AA for Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, etc. are now all gone.
Mar 9, 2018, 9:44 am
#257
Join Date: May 2006
Location: TUS/PDX
Programs: WN CP/A-List, AS MVPG75K
Posts: 5,798
"Alaska Airlines already cutting back in California" https://www.sfgate.com/chris-mcginni...a-12736805.php
#mostwestcoast
"There has been low-demand for these flights and we need to utilize aircraft elsewhere on the route map," said Oriana Branon, Alaska Airlines's Director of Community and Public Relations for the Bay Area. "This change is indicative of how we are looking across the network and making decisions to ensure we are running as efficient of an operation as possible."
Mar 9, 2018, 12:16 pm
#258
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: YYF/YLW
Programs: AA, DL, AS, VA, WS Silver
Posts: 5,950
"Alaska Airlines already cutting back in California" https://www.sfgate.com/chris-mcginni...a-12736805.php
#mostwestcoast
#mostwestcoast
But
The flights to Chicago, Denver and Fort Lauderdale were among Virgin America's core routes from San Francisco before its takeover by Alaska, but business travelers were known to complain about the sparse frequency of the flights.
Mar 9, 2018, 1:13 pm
#259
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2003
Programs: B6 Mosaic, Bonvoy LT Titanium (x SPG LT), IHG Spire, UA Silver
Posts: 5,844
Not really. For FLL the relatively recent introduction of Mint just killed the AS/VX flight--especially as AS cut the frequency. For DEN, AS reduced the frequency which made the timings unworkable for many people which then was a slippery slope to irrelevance. You can't cut the schedule on route which demands several flights a day to work. They did and the results were that they were just picking up the scraps. ORD is also the same. You can't compete with one flight a day from SFO to ORD. ORD and DEN are not stations from SFO with a lack of service so you either need to go all in to compete or just leave. AS just did not have the resources to compete nor the product with enough differentiation to make it worthwhile for people to be inconvenienced by the poor schedule. So, the result was pretty predictable.
Mar 9, 2018, 1:49 pm
#260
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: SFO
Programs: BART Platinum, AA Plat Pro
Posts: 1,158
Not really. For FLL the relatively recent introduction of Mint just killed the AS/VX flight--especially as AS cut the frequency. For DEN, AS reduced the frequency which made the timings unworkable for many people which then was a slippery slope to irrelevance. You can't cut the schedule on route which demands several flights a day to work. They did and the results were that they were just picking up the scraps. ORD is also the same. You can't compete with one flight a day from SFO to ORD. ORD and DEN are not stations from SFO with a lack of service so you either need to go all in to compete or just leave. AS just did not have the resources to compete nor the product with enough differentiation to make it worthwhile for people to be inconvenienced by the poor schedule. So, the result was pretty predictable.
Mar 9, 2018, 4:32 pm
#261
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2003
Programs: B6 Mosaic, Bonvoy LT Titanium (x SPG LT), IHG Spire, UA Silver
Posts: 5,844
It is really difficult to figure out what the true story is. If they are just speaking about cutting unprofitable flights then several SFO-LAX-SFO flights a day should be axed as with the very low fares offered up until departure time, there is no way they are making any money on those. Maybe ORD is not worth it and they can just serve a few random Midwest cities with less competition with a single flight a day instead.
Mar 10, 2018, 10:29 pm
#263
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: San Diego, Ca
Programs: AA 2MM LT PLT; AS MVP Gold75k; HHonors Diamond; IHG PLT
Posts: 3,502
Mar 11, 2018, 9:38 am
#264
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Portland, Oregon
Programs: Hilton Platinum, Alaska MVP Gold
Posts: 2,363
Who really knows what is happening at Alaska with it's Virgin addition right now.
Mar 11, 2018, 1:18 pm
#265
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: SFO
Programs: BART Platinum, AA Plat Pro
Posts: 1,158
It is really difficult to figure out what the true story is. If they are just speaking about cutting unprofitable flights then several SFO-LAX-SFO flights a day should be axed as with the very low fares offered up until departure time, there is no way they are making any money on those. Maybe ORD is not worth it and they can just serve a few random Midwest cities with less competition with a single flight a day instead.
Keep in mind that the F cabin on VX is equivalent to ~20 Y seats, and the F cabin on AS (738) is equivalent to ~24 Y seats. Overall margins are not high to begin with, so if they suddenly cannot sell F at any reasonable premium because they’re directly competing with Mint, it’s actually a pretty significant problem. But yes, nobody but AS management knows exactly what the numbers look like on all of these routes.
Last edited by milypan; Mar 11, 2018 at 1:24 pm
Mar 11, 2018, 1:53 pm
#266
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot
Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite
Posts: 20,378
I was considering booking an extra ticket for SFO-LAX on Wednesday to protect myself in case of WX delays, and I was pretty shocked to see a bunch of flights still priced at only $50, and the rest at only $100. This is only three days out...it seems like if they want to cut low-PRASM flights, SFO-LAX would be a great place to start.
I would not be shocked to see AS redo things as the acquisition progresses. If they could do Airbus checks in SEA, for instance...
Mar 11, 2018, 5:03 pm
#267
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2003
Programs: B6 Mosaic, Bonvoy LT Titanium (x SPG LT), IHG Spire, UA Silver
Posts: 5,844
I was considering booking an extra ticket for SFO-LAX on Wednesday to protect myself in case of WX delays, and I was pretty shocked to see a bunch of flights still priced at only $50, and the rest at only $100. This is only three days out...it seems like if they want to cut low-PRASM flights, SFO-LAX would be a great place to start.
Mar 11, 2018, 5:09 pm
#268
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2003
Programs: B6 Mosaic, Bonvoy LT Titanium (x SPG LT), IHG Spire, UA Silver
Posts: 5,844
Quite easily. You think AS is making money on all the transon coach seats going for $109? B6 themselves said for years their trans cons before MINT were losing money most of the time. Only after upping the frequency and selling all the seats in Mint turned those into profit making machines. AS cut their frequency and lost most of he premium bookings due to the inferiority of the product and the high fares they were attempting to charge. You can’t make money on a long transcon with few connections on either end and no premium traffic. Selling a bunch of ultra cheap bulk coach tickets to cruise companies or price sensitive leisure passengers is a recipe for large losses. AS/VX don’t have the product, frequency, network, or pricing power to compete.
Mar 12, 2018, 7:09 am
#269
Join Date: Dec 2016
Posts: 1,485
Yep, yields on FLL-LAX/SFO crashed last year after mint entered. About 10 to 25% depending on the quarter you want to compare it again. Hard to give away all the FC seats and expect to be doing well when Y prices are going below $150.
In markets where AS/VX doesn't really dominate on either end, the people that were paying full for FC can easily be persuaded to switch when a better product comes along, which is what happened here, especially since B6 wins point of sale at FLL. BOS-SEA seems to be the market that's doing the best out of AS network since mint entry.
In markets where AS/VX doesn't really dominate on either end, the people that were paying full for FC can easily be persuaded to switch when a better product comes along, which is what happened here, especially since B6 wins point of sale at FLL. BOS-SEA seems to be the market that's doing the best out of AS network since mint entry.
Mar 12, 2018, 8:43 am
#270
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Seattle WA
Programs: AS 100K, Marriott LT Platinum
Posts: 1,828
Has anyone figured out where all these airplanes are going? I see that while some of these routes are dropping at SFO, the cut ones at PDX (i.e. Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha) are re-emerging. But those are Horizon routes. Where are the Virgin America aircraft going? Will we see that on the new Seattle-Pittsburgh flights, for example? In theory, the Airbus planes on the traditional SFO routes should end up somewhere in the Alaska system. I know that Alaska is running a peak PDX-ORD on some heavily traveled days with Virgin America Airbus equipment.
