chrisl137

And which airlines are offering premium service LAX-WAS?

Looks like Delta is the only one offering their high end transcon service LAX-DCA, and that's it. United might have lie-flats, and they might not. They have enough equipment swaps that it can change 3 times between when you book and when you fly.

Yep. Alaska knows their market. Unless I'm on a redeye, there's not much need for a lie-flat, and I avoid redeyes anyway.

And Alaska will check your surfboard as a regular bag, no extra fee. Which means if you have the credit card your surfboard flies free. They were also first among the big 5 US carriers to eliminate bike fees, which is a big deal for a lot of HI travelers, as well as up and down the west coast. PDX even has a place where you can reassemble your bike and store your box at the airport, so you can just pedal out of the airport. Yes it's a PDX airport feature, but AS is the dominant carrier and it plays to their market. WN still charges a bike fee, so that adds up quickly if you travel with a bike regularly. AA and DL waive the fee for most bikes, and UA still charges a huge bike fee. I probably fly with a bike 5-6 times a year on AS.

They also make the details for getting your firearms to Alaska and your game or fish home easy to find on their website and provide more useful detail than other airlines.

OhDoctor

i don't recall ever saying "AS is doomed".

OhDoctor

that's a lot of routes -- HA from LAX, SFO, LAS, SEA, SAN, PHX; and UA as you mentioned from both SFO and LAX. also, i believe DL offers year round lie flat service from LAX and seasonal from SLC

Calculon

Maybe your point is diluted in the posts above, so that I’m not seeing it. What is this meant to be evidence of?

So far the only clear thing that has been expressed to me is your personal seating preference. Which appears to be available on multiple airlines. So I’m not sure why it matters if Alaska doesn’t have current plans to chase your (very thin) slice of the market?

OhDoctor

the point of that, specifically, was that AS is expanding to transcon-length flights, competing with airlines that have life-flat subfleets, with no lie flat/semi private seating option, which means that my (very thin) slice of the market would never fly AS if i had alternatives. (i'd point out here that everyone's slice of the market is "very thin"; it's all about how many of those "very thin" slices you can string together). more broadly, i was reckoning that with a similar route network as B6, and similar expansion aspirations, they could certainly afford to roll out some limited Mint-like seating option, that competes similarly on price. but i suppose if they so starkly expose the mediocrity of their current F product with something more relevant to the 21st century, they'd feel pressure to roll those upgrades out more widely.

finally, i was clarifying that i've never proclaimed AS to be "doomed", and certainly there will always be a place in the market for the Southwests and Spirits of the world.

RAD_PDX

You really don't get it... For the overwhelming majority of routes that AS operates, their F product is far superior to anything offered by AA, UA or DL. As someone who is PDX based, I lump JetBlue in with Spirit, Southwest and Sun Country (airlines that don't offer premium seating on ANY ROUTE out of my airport). If I really want a lie flat on a transcon, I'll fly AA and credit my miles to AS...

eponymous_coward

They’ve been flying transcon routes since 2001. They’re still not anything close to what B6 flies out of JFK/BOS in terms of how important transcon is to their route network.

They’ve given up some market share VX had in that space, but presumably because they’re more interested in other ways to make money than premium transcon.

And then like clockwork, someone comes in and says “but why no lie flats?”, and the cycle of FT starts all over again... nature is healing.

OhDoctor

bringing up routes without lie flight/semi-private alternatives is a nonsequitor. i'm talking about SEA to NYC, HNL, etc.

OhDoctor

forgive my ignorance, but doesn't the hawaii expansion effectively double (triple?) their prior number of weekly transcon-length routes?

eponymous_coward

It’s not the same market. If it was AA would fly lie flats out of PHX (they don’t) and you would see more lie flats to Hawaii than you do (you don’t).

Hawaii is a vacation market for the West Coast, not a “I’m a movie exec commuting between CA and NYC” market. Very different. AS has been in THOSE markets for a long time and didn’t need lie flats to go into them either.

RAD_PDX

But it's really not. You don't seem to understand what a tiny fraction of AS' flights involve these routes.

In the case of PDX, it's ranked #2 for AS passenger movement, so I'd say it's of some importance to AS. As I stated, AS offers a far superior premium product on every route served from PDX.

As for Seattle, AA and UA offer nothing. DL and B6 only have lie flats on a few routes... The demand must not be too overwhelming, or else DL would have DeltaOne on every SEA-JFK flight instead of only a few, right?

ashill

You brought up Alaska suggesting that as a place AS should consider for Mint-like service.

But the majority of the lie-flat service to Hawaii is simply widebodies routed to Hawaii either because they're required for the distance (for any flights from the Eastern or Central time zones) or for capacity (from the west coast), especially since Hawaii peak time tends to be the opposite of Europe peak time, so there's some fleet flexibility. The widebodies all have lie flat seats because they're largely used for intercontinental flights. No airline dedicates lie flat seats to Hawaii like they do for the premium transcons. And when they do operate lie-flat seats, the services (AFAIK) is still standard domestic service; they don't market the lie-flat seats as a premium thing like they do on transcons, more evidence that the presence of lie-flat seats is largely an accident of how the planes are configured. And United has (AFAIK) a dedicated "beach" 777 configuration which, while it does have lie-flat seats, has only 28 on a 772, and they're not Polaris seats; they're in a much denser configuration that doesn't look very private at all. (I could be wrong; I know very little about United's widebody fleet except for a very quick check just now on the ever-reliable SeatGuru, and I don't think I've even stepped foot on a United widebody since 2001.)

So we come back to the main point: there is clearly some market for lie-flat seats on a small fraction of the routes AS flies, but AS clearly has little interest in that market. Things can always change, but I don't see a reason to expect it to with AS, especially not before the market rebounds and anyone has any idea what the aviation market looks like in 2022 and beyond. Fortunately, if you want lie-flat seats on AS routes, there are multiple options (as you have so carefully laid out); go for it! You can even earn AS miles on the AA flights when they return.

OhDoctor

you're right of course. mostly, i was prodded on by the thought that i'm flying B6 to position in SEA for a slew of AS flights, even though AS offers a JFK-SEA nonstop. it seemed like a waste. the idea of a revenue first class ticket on a 6.5 hour flight being a similar hard product (in my mind) to Y in B6 just struck me as so absurd, especially considering that Mint on those same dates was $20 cheaper than AS in F! so i was compelled to ask out loud (and on here) -- who, aside from people who just need to credit their flights to AA or vie for status, would choose that hard product willingly over Mint?

RAD_PDX

Sorry, I must have missed the point of your original question. If you’re asking if people would pay the same or more for a flight on AS vs a competitor with a lie flat, that’s a legitimate question. That may elicit different responses than making the generic claim that AS’ hard product is no good and/or that AS is in line with WN or NK...

I’ll add that in my experience, AS F is often much cheaper, usually less than half the price, especially when booked several months in advance. I’m not sure how COVID has impacted this.

anteater

Do any other carriers run lie-flats in 737-7/8/9? If so what is their seat layout?

It’s hard to imagine that being economical for AS given that it would reduce the number of available FC seats, unless they encroached on MC space.

If AS could retrofit 737s to fill a premium route I could envision it being discussed but if they needed a wide body plane such as A330 then I would think not.