The AS product needs all the help it can get right now. Laying off 100 people who help plan and execute and take care of things when they go wrong ain't gonna help the onboard experience. It will, of course, help the bottom line.

Well, I understand (and agree with) the argument that VX had a nice product that didn't deliver financial returns and ultimately wasn't sustainable

But if even the current AS product is too plush, and needs to be pared back in order to pass Wall Street's muster.... Well, that's a shame for all of us who live in AS-dominated cities.

In my mind, AS is a good airline that has the potential to be great. But cuts rarely make a product, or airline, better for *customers*

Going outside the scope of the article, but it does sound like most, if not all FA's have completed cross-fleet training this summer/fall.

And February is rumored when one can bid on other stations/aircraft.

it is too bad that the article didn't mention the cuts would happen at the very top, because the very top not the middle management are responsible for the current state of the company, which instead of luring new customers and retaining loyal customers, they try to do everything they could to alineate their long term customer base, and show the new customers that they treat their customers the same way the Big 3 do, except with a much smaller network and higher fare on a lot of the markets.

I have no doubt that the FF program will be revenue based, starting sometime in 2019. PE was the last peg to put into place to make that happen. Then there will be absolutely no reason to remain AS centric unless you live in Alaska. But that is just my humble speculation.

At least you have a running start at 2MM lifetime MVPG 75K

While most of us think of redundancies surrounding VX and AS mergers, but didn't AS already have some redundancies with QX and AS? Why isn't AS eliminating QX altogether?

Could they?

Jiburi

I am not as business savvy as many posters here but as a stockholder it is my understanding that Alaska Air Lines and Horizon are two separate companies under the holding group of Alaska Air group which is the publicly traded stock. Although there are tight ties between both airlines, they hire and manage separately. VX was purchased by the Air Group and their routes (and equipment) became part of the Air Group. As such, redundancy in management would be curtailed as VX is no longer an airline. I am sure someone here will correct this broad statement if I made a mistake.

As they do with pilots, FAs and all the front-line staff, I'm pretty sure they pay QX management employees less than they do for similar positions at AS. So in some ways it may save them money to keep QX with a separate, lower payscale...