Eastbay1K

Um, not quite. I flew on a VX plane in June, and (1) there was a full PDB service, there was the old VX safety video, there was no AS magazine in the (non-existent) F seat pocket, the serviceware was VX. The only thing that was not VX-like (other than the gate area) was when I asked if they still had the cookies from the back, the FA snapped at me, got them, and admonished me never to ask for them again.

fly18725

ChugiakAk

Just returned from a RT Anchorage-Denver trip two days ago in first class. Alaska seems somewhat out of sync right now. Our airbus flight from Denver to Seattle two days ago was "insufficiently catered" with water and beverages in short supply. Didn't even get a preflight bottle of Dasani. We were given a $50.00 "sorry about that" voucher.

Flying for Fun

I am not disagreeing with you. Transitions are difficult but the reality is, Virgin America no longer exists, it is defunct, gone, dead. Let it go! If AS is not viable for you with the loss of a PDB, there is nothing stopping you from going to Burger King down the street or Taco Bell around the corner and order early because the may run out.

I don't profess to be a CEO, not even from my armchair, so whether AS Management does or doesn't have their head buried in the sand and how deeply isn't something I will comment on but I will add that AS is more encompassing than those narrowly focused just on the SFO perspective. The bigger picture adds a SEA of complexities. Let's focus on SFO, create a sub-fleet of lie-flats and serve Dom before departure. Everyone in SFO content? Wonderful! Hey, home come our Hawaii Numbers are down? Well Sir, WN started flying to Hawaii while you were busy focusing on getting that sub-fleet going in SFO. Damn!, cancel the red-eyes and double up the Dom order. We need those lie-flats for Hawaii.

James

steve64

I'm not sure how lie-flats got into this conversation. Isn't that already discussed in other threads ?
And PDB doesn't mean "Dom".

VX is history. I get that.
As time goes on, the service on Alaska's Airbus flights will match that of the 737s more and more. I get that.
Aligning service between the 2 fleets doesn't always have to be to adopt the "AS" way. In fact, Alaska's "new" catering (IMHO) is more "VX" than it is "AS".
This thread is about another step in the alignment. It seems the Airbus PDB policy has been aligned with the 737 policy. It could've easily been the 737s aligned to match the Airbus. This would not only align the PDB policy within Alaska's 2 fleets, but also align Alaska with the industry. I think that's the point of this thread.

dmodemd

Use "Alaska Listens" on this, folks. Especially you paid F flyers. I remember all my United surveys asking me if I was served a PDB...

Flying for Fun

That was June, this is August and the loss of a PDB commenced August 1st so your June PDB is irrelevant. Should AS have cleaned out the VX warehouse and sent it all to the dump for a quicker transition to AS catering? Should they have paid out supply contracts and not taken delivery of goods rather than letting them continue until their termination? The VX Glassware now adorns more than one "collection!" Theft? Technically, yes!

AS has about 1200 flights a day. Lets say 75% have F and we use 12 seats as an average. If only 75% of those consume a 50 ml mini and we estimate a very low $2.00 per unit cost with mix, glass & cleaning we are looking at $5,913,000 annually for a single round PDB service across AS operations. If you go out for a few beers on a Friday night, your tab isn't all that much, however if you are the Boss and are picking up the tab for the table while your shareholders are looking for better performance, higher yields and dividends, what are you going to do?

James

Often1

It is time to stop talking about VX. If it had been financially viable, it would not have been eaten by AS. It is gone. People spent years whining about NW, US, and CO. But, it did not unwind the relevant acquisition.

AS has adopted the business model of a LCC and not the benefits of one, e.g. "low cost". It would be better from a branding perspective, if AS abandoned F and simply came up with some nice term which made it clear that it is a better seat with a few cubes of cheese.

For sophisticated fliers on routes where there is competition, if you are still flying AS, it is proof certain that AS's strategy works. Writing to AS is meaningless. If you want an impact, stop flying. If enough people stop, the issue may be revisited.

Flying for Fun

Welcome to Alaska Airlines. Perfectly said & Enough said!

James

Eastbay1K

I am simply explaining the post-merger experience that many people have had (with accompanying expectations) only to have it immediately change.

Further, your PDB cost estimate is way off. Your're at least double the actual, as there's no glassware, the minis are about 50¢ a piece, and also, not every seat would get a water, if choosing an alternate beverage.

n7371f

You're referring to any airline that flies a narrow body except the 757 which boards through 2L.

What makes it worse for AS is on the 738/9 there are always 2 flight attendants in the forward galley just chatting away. And given that AS wants you in your seat 45 minutes before departure, it's an even worse showing.

Poor showing for AS but it's saving $ and trying to appease investors. See the other takeaways.

VXforever

Alright, time to blow the sh!t out of "Alaska Listens."

This is a complete farce. While this was an unwritten policy forever, that they're telling this to pmVX FAs means that it's an official policy. Why isn't this advertised? Why is AS doing everything it can to be uncompetitive with DL/AA/US? They're basically like a worse version of Sun Country with a better network.

This probably is the straw that breaks the camels back for me. AS clearly have no desire to pick up even the smallest service features of VX.

VXforever

A complementary upgrade to first is meaningless if the cabin is garbage. I'd rather pay a small upgrade fee to move from Main Cabin Select (now Premium) to a stellar F product than get a comp upgrade to a garbage F product.

This cut can't even save that much money. It's just cheap.

StevieTopSiders

This line gets parroted a lot on this forum: "Alaska knows exactly what it's doing blah blah." I think people underestimate how hard it is to effectively use all of the data your business can collect: you've got to actually track the metrics, warehouse them, build data pipelines, run smart analysis, etc., and there are humans involved in every step of that process. Which means that you may still be in the process of doing all this work, your managers may have dumb ideas about what to do/what metrics to track/etc.

I don't buy the "Alaska has perfect information and makes decisions based off that" line, but I don't think a lot of companies do tbh

pcoll