eponymous_coward

sfozrhfco

OAK has seen carriers come and go for a very long time now. In AS's case, they may well make more money by not serving it at all and move those assets to other airports that are more profitable. So it may be best to just accept that limited service is better than none at all. The only carrier that is steady at OAK is WN. Even a carrier like Norwegian has moved to SFO which they feel--despite the higher costs and potential delays--would be more profitable. Don't forget, AS does like to divert planes over to OAK every once in a while which is an added bonus for those in the East Bay. Unfortunately, you can never guess in advance which flights those will be

ucdtim17

With WN's entrance into Hawaii, we may see some action forced upon AS soon at OAK. Given how they've treated OAK in recent years, perhaps the most likely outcome is abandoning OAK-Hawaii and retrenching to just the bare bones PDX/SEA service but it's possible they could finally be ready to actually try to do something positive. It just seems unlikely that they'd undertake a sustained multi-year multi-front war on WN in California but forever give WN free reign at the #4/5 largest airport in the state, in the center of the #2 metro area, where they're spending a lot of money on marketing. That's been the case to date though.

MJMLBBtoCPH

Does AS really keep spare planes at PDX for anything? I thought 90 percent of the time airlines rob Peter to pay Paul when a new airplane is trotted out to replace a plane with mechanical issues.

WN has around 7 flights a day on the PDX to OAK route (and WN is great about providing drink service on short routes - even when it is a little bumpy - whereas AS sometimes stiffs its customers - conveniently claiming lack of time or its "too bumpy" to provide beverage service). While I prefer AS over WN for long-haul flights and AS generally offers great service, if the OP's main set of travels is PDX to OAK, the OP should consider moving some spend to WN.... free drink coupons too after several roundtrip flights

I used to fly LBB to DFW on AA all the time, but AA and its regional carriers love to send broken-down and super late planes to LBB constantly. Despite the relative frequency at LBB, AA is TOTALLY unreliable. I even dread AS codeshare flights, because if the AA flight is late and I miss my AS connection, AA puts me on AA metal in a middle seat in the back. Their Aadvantage program downgrade and their unreliability caused me to leave them. We should not reward airlines for poor service.

MJMLBBtoCPH

I should confess that even though I left AA, for whatever their reasons on their own initiative, AA recently gave me free Platinum Pro status challenge for 6 months. But, I've only flown them a couple of times and I won't meet the necessary minimum flights/spend by May 15 for their crummy status (they are almost always priced higher than AS or WN with less service/benefits, even with my Platinum Pro status).

jsguyrus

AS keeps spare planes at SEA, ANC, and maybe LAX, usually not PDX. QX however, does keep spares at PDX and it looks like QX is the operating the flights with the issues. It would not be unusual for them to switch from a 76 seat E175 to a 76 seat Q400 if needed. And yes, when in the Q sometimes they don't do drink service because of predicted turbulence. I was also on a DL flight this weekend on an E75 and they did the same thing so it isnt just QX. As i rule I get pretty superior service on Q400 routes.

eponymous_coward

They're already committing to that multi-front war SJC and SAN, and with the intra-CA routes, to some extent at BUR, LAX and SFO because WN share in those markets to some extent derives from being able to connect people intra-CA (though AS is probably not into doing suicide runs on markets like OAK/SFO/SJC/SAN/LAX-DEN/PHX where being one of too many carriers is just asking for a license to douse bills in Jet-A and set them on fire).

TBH it's a lot more coherent strategy for being "California's Airline" than VX had- claw what market share you can get in CA in a lot of markets (I never understood why VX ignored SAN and treated SJC as an afterthought while they were screwing around with DAL or YYZ). Yeah it sucks that you're not getting lie-flats in F, but WN's market share in California indicates to me lie-flats aren't the end-all, be-all for market share.

So in that sense you can squint and say 'yeah, I could see OAK-LAX/SAN maybe once they have enough E75s". But that would be adding options on the LAX/SAN side. OAK is #10 for WN at SAN and it's a market WN owns by its lonesome. LAX is the #1 market for OAK (though there is competition). But running some E75s SAN/SJC-OAK-PDX/SEA... you get my drift?

(FWIW I wonder if AS would like to try and knock DL off of SJC-LAS someday with an E75 or two, which is an oddball route for DL.)

wolfpacktrojan

I would love to see AS knock DL off of SAN-LAS.

eponymous_coward

Huh, that one too, I guess. They'll have to build up the E75 fleet some though.

ucdtim17

That's another reason it's strange to continue to avoid OAK - it's one thing to forgo OAK-based business but it's a relatively big destination for places where AS ostensibly does actually want to fight for traffic - SAN, LAX, PDX, SEA; perhaps also BUR, SNA. They have to write off a large portion of their marketing in the Bay Area plus a similar share of their efforts in the other markets to grow their business to still come to the conclusion that the market can be ignored. They keep reaching the same conclusion though.

SEA/PDX are big hubs for AS but WN dominates to SEA/PDX-OAK; you could imagine an alternate universe where AS competes and dominates those routes despite OAK being a WN focus city but that's not the world we live in.

So yeah, I'm not going to hold my breath.

jsguyrus

ucdtim17

eponymous_coward

ucdtim17

Which again makes me wonder about an alternate universe, where WN builds up SJC larger than OAK in the 2000s. Is SJC the WN fortress hub there while WN and AS fight over OAK instead?

WN is a good airline and there are some benefits to having their level of service at OAK but the alternative of two airlines competing for the market is certainly more attractive.

Lake_Hood

I am sure it isn't related to this (as it is Alaska and not Horizon), but this is the thread I thought of when my flight from Hawaii to Seattle later this week was randomly canceled yesterday. More than anything, I am annoyed that I had to find out by checking my app and that I did not receive an email or phone call (still waiting to see if they do something). Unfortunately, I lost my exit row and now arrive at an awkward time, but I am glad they had some space on the evening flight - looks to be completely full.