Cruss74

A quick check of Google Flights shows that route moving from daily to 5x weekly on Nov. 1 and then going away completely after Jan. 12.

Cruss74

LAX-MEX appears to be ending Nov. 6.

Tracer_SEA

Ouch. They've struggled in Mexico recently and have Southwest coming to Hawaii soon plus Hawaiian ramping up A321 service....

sfozrhfco

This was another one that was baffling why they kept it so long. LAS to NY once a day with a weak product/schedule just could never compete with the multitude of other options out there.

be_rettSEA

Ughhh.. Was considering a Mexico City trip for Thanksgiving this year. Alaska keeps making it harder and harder to maintain loyalty, especially based out of LAX. Work is going to start making me fly AA in Oct, so I may as well just give up on my goal of re-qualifying for Gold next year and status match with AA, as sad as that makes me to leave AS, and as much as I truly hate flying AA. At some point, convenience and route availability have to win out.

sfozrhfco

I dare say that more resources kept in PDX would have made better sense both from a network and profitability stand point as they had some pricing power there. Just about everywhere they fly from SFO, AS has zero pricing power and not enough product differentiation to make for a profitable operation. There are plenty more frequencies and cities from SFO/LAX that could be dropped completely if profitability is the goal. They made a strategic mistake thinking they could add a bunch of flights from SFO that would not impact their profits and invoke the ire of Wall Street. Now they are paying the price and backing off. With WN coming to dent their profitability in Hawaii, more pain is likely.

sfozrhfco

Unfortunately for AS, there is a VERY long history of California based airlines being acquired whose networks were completely dismantled over time. AS may well end up with the same fate. They didn't have a network strategy going into the purchase--as they admitted on their earnings call--and now they are realizing that much of the newly acquired route network is dragging down their profitability. It seems given the competition, that they will have to shrink quite a bit at SFO and LAX and figure out what to do with those planes to utilize them on routes with better yields which then comes with its own problems. Their current strategy of reducing frequencies and cities has already made them a less viable competitor.

I am a perfect example. I regularly flew VX before but really have not had any need to fly AS at all this year. Having boycotted UA for nearly 15 years due to their obvious shortcomings, I flew them a few times, have taken WN, use Mint on JetBlue to get to the East Coast, and LH/LX/AV/CM etc for international travel. The only time I have booked any of our employees on AS is to PDX/SEA where AS has the best schedule.

milypan

Chief among them would seem to be SFO-LAX. Two birds with one stone.

Erasmus

Have they fully pulled out of the station? Not quite sure how to salvage my holiday flights to LIM at this point... originally they yanked SAN-MEX, so had to move to LAX-MEX. Now I don't see how I can get to MEX on an AS award to catch my LAN flight.

Anybody have any luck getting AS to combine two partners in one award ticket when they pull service? Seems like the only option, but it's not like AA has any space over the holidays anyway.

beckoa

Maybe AS will contact LA and see if they will open space to fly from the US-LIM?

AS Flyer

PSA, Air Cal and Reno Air - which, arguably, was NOT a California based airline... none the less, they did have a small SJC hub. In any case - yes, their hubs were dismantled by an airline that now has a much larger presences in the State of California then they did at the time they purchased these airlines. You could throw Jet America into the mix, though it's hard to really include them as they had about 8-10 flights a day from LGB and AS continued LGB flying for a long time and then moved it over to LAX where they increased flying. You're comparing these acquisitions with the AS/VX acquisition which has actually seen an increase in the number of markets served at the primary VX hub and a steady number of flights. That said, it's way too early to tell what's going to happen but the reality is that AS doesn't have a diverse network of hubs as did AA when they purchased OC and QQ and when US purchased PS. AS needs SFO and LAX to work for them and have spent the last year or two adding markets and cancelling service in non-performing markets. They're trying to find their niche and have been fairly good at doing that in the past when they needed to. I have no doubt they will here too. The niche they're seeking to find may not appeal to you but there are more people in the State of California than in the entire Pacific NW so I'm sure they'll find a demographic that are happy with what they're offering. It's going to take some time and yes, they probably didn't have a plan when this all went down because I think the acquisition happened a lot faster than anyone hoped for after B6 put an offer on the table. What choice did AS have though? Let B6 get a strong foothold in the California markets - leaving AS to be a small Pac NW airline?

You go on and on about Jet Blue and the amazing transcon products other airlines offer being so much superior to AS. With the exception of the 3 markets (NYC, BOS, FLL), AS offers a competitive First Class product and a very decent and, in some cases, better Coach product. People travel to places outside of NYC, BOS and FLL and leisure travelers often don't care what's happening in the First Class cabin because they aren't buying those tickets. They're buying Coach tickets - and if they are able to score an upgrade a long the way because they're accruing miles in the only decent mileage based plane left in the industry then even better.

You say you used VX often before the acquisition but have moved on to other airlines because of the product - that's a valid choice for you to make if you're seeking a high end First Class product and your travels are regularly to NYC, BOS or FLL. AS probably won't appeal to you - and it seems they are making the choice to not actively pursue the business from your demographic. Honestly, that may not be an awful choice because it really wasn't working out for VX. I have to wonder though - you say you've moved on and don't use Alaska any longer - why are you here? What keeps you coming back here? You don't even want to fly on Alaska. You don't like the product. Is it so you can keep reminding people how awful they are and how the AS product doesn't compare with any other airlines product? Cause that's all I'm getting from what you're posting.

be_rettSEA

Confirmed via Twitter, MEX is out again as of Nov 7.

milypan

Yes. That seems to be the strategy they're falling back to, and certainly it's the one that would be dictated by "let's drop the least profitable routes," so I don't see why it would have been a problem. Certainly could have saved them some money. Let B6 duke it out with UA at SFO and the entire US4 at LAX.

channa

If you want to calculate the true effect, you could list every secondary domestic market that AA serves that AS doesn't.

ucdtim17

This seems like it would have been a much better approach. Let B6 deal with the mess of un- and semi-profitable VX routes at SFO, while building up the areas that made AS as strong an airline as it was. As it is, it appears they just did everyone else a favor by eliminating a airline than competed more directly against UA, B6, DL, AA, WN than it did against legacy AS.