tom911

Not willing to give LAX-SFO-EWR a try? The timing would seem to work with a 9:45am EWR departure from SFO. You could come up on the 6am or 7am LAX-SFO. Might have to walk all of 3-4 gates over at SFO for your Newark flight. Get into rainy season here, though, and you'd probably want the longer connection.

Can't come through SFO on the way back, though, and would have a 7:40am or 9am flight to SEA and then down to LAX from there. Not as easy as the SFO connection outbound and could be a deal breaker. I've had a couple flights from the east coast back to SFO via SEA, due to schedule changes, and it ends up being one long day.

jrl767

well played

this entire discussion comes down to how willing people are willing to put their money (time, butt-in-seat, RDM/EQM accumulation) where their mouth (FT persona) is

985X

As a leisure traveler, this is bad news. No more intentionally buying LAX-JFK which I know they won't operate then rebook via SEA for extra miles!

Eastbay1K

That really depends on whether or not the mouth is filled with a ham and egg wrap, or a filet of actual boeuf.

eponymous_coward

What probably hurts AS more on JFK-LAX is JFK being a spoke, not a hub.There’s very little reason to be loyal to an airline that turns everything east of SAN into flyover country.

See also: WN saying sayonara to EWR, but doing well with enough destinations/slots to be relevant out of LGA.

Visconti

This was about 4 or 5 years ago? I recall pretty vividly my disappointment learning that AS had won over B6 on the BO, a sentiment which I'm sure many SFO based flyers had shared. At the time, I really thought B6 would have been a much better fit. But, OW entry changed all of that, at least for me. As Tack saliently observed, for those of us who find OW status important, the path to OWE is probably one of, if not the, most important drivers in our decision making process. Whenever BOs or mergers occur, you always have to wait a few years, at least, to see how they turn out. While initially disappointed, today I couldn't be happier that AS had won over B6. And, without hesitation for the initial 75K - 100K, they will get the overwhelming majority of my business even without lie-flats or if I have do a layover, schedule permitting, in SEA. Yes, OW is that important to me.

By the way, those numbers & stats Chris posted for SFO is interesting. 90% drop from TPACs! Given that most of SE Asia have given very little indication of backing off from their zero/near zero covid "line in the sand," I don't see this changing anytime soon.

PS - Looks as *if* maybe (hopefully) some SE Asian countries are starting change their tune on that at or near zero covid stance.

a7m

Well, I have tickets for October 8-12. I imagine AS will not officially cancel them till the last moment to keep the $. The itinerary still shows up in my account but I know they don't sell tickets for those flights. AS will be a regional West coast airline quite soon.

sfozrhfco

The flights were removed last night. Feel free to get your refund.

TravelingZoomer

Unless of course, you’re a “coastal elite” and only fly into cities on the coast anyways...

Eurynom0s

Yeah, I'm reluctant to lock myself into SFO connections and having to route through SEA as a matter of course is a nonstarter. When I moved to Los Angeles it was literally "crap, guess I'm a United flyer now" followed by finding out VX also flew LAX-EWR. Willing to do a weird routing if I absolutely need the EQM, but not all the time.

The timing of dropping LAX-JFK shouldn't matter for requalfiying this year. Between work travel next month and flying to see my family in December I should only need one more flight to requalify this year. So this is something I need to keep tabs on for next year more, not an immediate decision point. It's going to come down to what they do with LAX-EWR, if that stays I'm inclined to stay with AS and deal with the inconvenience of a lot of the "AA" flights being B6 metal, otherwise I'm probably going to jump to going with AAdvantage for where I credit everything but flying AS and B6 as much as possible.

eponymous_coward

It’s not a huge market, which is why VX ‘s owners sold out and never really went big time the same way B6 did. Every other airline has action in NYC that helps build their NYC portfolio to make selling $99 transcons in Y bearable (as well as premium transcon that also helps make that bearable).

It seems to me AS is going to try to do at JFK what they did at DAL; they amputate the losers (JFK-LAX, DAL-DCA/LGA) and see what they can make work.

(Fun fact: AS drove WN off of SEA/SFO-DAL- so apparently they can make DAL work. Wouldn’t expect them to drive off B6 or DL, but they might make some routes work.)

cmd320

Well, this is about the least surprising news I've heard lately. I'm honestly surprised they stayed around this long.

simonsuo

i agree with many of the folks here, LAX-JFK is hard for AS to compete. As for EWR, a lounge is deadly needed. Like a zoo each time I was there. With LGA seeing big improvements, EWR clearly the worst one now. Wondering if AS will ever go to LGA.

hpmh

Perimeter rule at LGA would be an issue for AS I would think.

Tack

Tried LGA via DAL, and did very poorly. Agreed on EWR. They’re working with AA to see what they can do to get the AC re-opened. For me, a lounge is a must have in EWR.