Progrowth

Well, I and most Virgin America customers weren't too thrilled when Alaska purchased VX, and I'm afraid it's worse than we ever anticipated. On a recent trip from Puerto Vallarta to Los Angeles where they fly the old VX Airbus with 2 rows of white seats, the flight was delayed almost an hour for 'lots of maintenance'. Only the maintenance to get us airborne was performed. First class seats were stuck in the upright position. No entertainment system. The food was inedible, and to top it off the First Class FA invited a parade of main cabin passengers to use the FC toilet, resulting in a foul smell as there are only 2 rows. In addition, there is no maintenance being performed on these once sparkling aircraft, paint peeling off partitions, carpets were filthy, this was once honored with best domestic airline every single year when operated by VX. When I protested to Alaska on my return that this was not the first class experience we paid for at $1000, they gave us '3000' award miles, yes you read that right, not enough to get you anywhere, not even in main cabin ... so goodbye AS, I gave you the benefit of proving you would uphold the standards of VX and you failed miserably.

SFO777

I'm going to grab some popcorn on this one. But just be happy that it was an old VX plane with extra recline and legroom vs. a crappy old AS configuration and a parade of Y pax to the F lav.

seahawks10177

Bye

RAD_PDX

Darn, I was hoping there was an actual joke to hear...

LondonElite

tom911

Would you have accepted a 2-3 hour delay to address the other issues? I've probably had a good 25 Airbus flights just this year and the electric F seats seem to be an issue every couple flights and at least one of them has to be manually placed in an upright position. I'm glad to see the new F cabins coming, though it sounds like it's going to be at a glacial pace that will take us into 2020. Maybe come back and give Alaska a try next year.

Progrowth

No, but I find it hard to believe all of these maintenance issues all happened while on the ground in PVR; maybe Alaska paid too much for VA and have no funds left for proper maintenance; but to simply ignore we never received what we paid for with 3000 miles was the last straw. If the airline can't provide what we paid for, they owe us adequate compensation ... but maybe they can't afford that either.

WrightHI

NoLaGent

Well, there's a whole host of issues at play with your experience, but I'll happily discuss a few of them.

1. For starters, it's VX, not VA, and yes, we all knew what you meant.

2. There have been several other threads discussing the state of the Airbii since the merger, and you summed it up pretty well. They're in terrible shape cosmetically, no doubt about that. As much as I loved those gloriously comfy white recliners for many years, they need to be put out to pasture.

3. AS compensation structure is notoriously weak, whether it's for delayed/cancelled flights, service failures, or any number of other reasons. When you consider that they'll give you 2500 miles if a bag is over 20 minutes late (I've collected a # of these, for anywhere from 21 to 28 minutes), giving you just 500 more miles for a flight that had multiple issues (delay, broken seat, broken IFE, etc.) is pretty bad. It's also completely par for the course.

4. Their balance sheet is actually in pretty good shape, so it's not a question of whether they can afford to properly compensate, they simply choose not to.

5. For me in SFO, they're a good alternative to UA in many cases, and for that I'm grateful. Depending upon your home airport, one would assume you have other options as well. However, the grass certainly isn't always greener.

VegasGambler

As someone who flew exclusively in F on VX, I understand where you are coming from. If you are anything like me, you are willing to pay for a premium product, but you are not willing to pay premium prices for a non-premium product. I took one paid F trip on AS, and after that, never again.

My advice is to simply not pay for F on AS. They are a fine economy class airline but they just don't get the concept of first class.

I was fortunate because for the longer routes that I fly often (SFO-NYC and SFO-Hawaii) UA offers a premium (lie-flat) product. I also find the service and food to be much better on UA F than AS F. So I just pay for F on UA for those flights.

I stick with AS for shorter routes because, as I said, they are a fine economy class airline and you really do earn a lot of valuable miles (when it comes to the FFP, I find that AS is far better than any other domestic carrier, and it's not close)

If you can maintain status (even just MVP) on AS they are great for shorter flights. You will generally get premium seats, and tons of miles. For longer flights, find another airline that offers a true premium product along with premium service, and pay for that. Status isn't worth that much when you are in paid F anyway. If you do enough longer flights, you may even be able to maintain status on both airlines.

CatchFlightsNotFeelings

hotelboy

I dont understand the joke.

Often1

The VX model was not financially viable. That is why it was sold off.

AS is a hybrid between legacy and LCC and that shows through, even in F. As to maintenance, it actually makes sense to defer things that can be deferred to a time and place where there is scheduled downtime and your own (contracted) people to perform the rest.

VX is gone. Gone. Gone. Not worth comparing yesterday's apples to today's oranges. Air tickets are, relatively speaking, cheaper over time. This is one of the reasons.

Bretmd

pcoll