How much would the proposed [NOW ANNOUNCED] VX/AS Merger Affect UA at SFO/West Coast?
 

It seems Alaska is in talks to buy Virgin America. Is that a good thing or bad thing for UA?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel...rica/82560936/

For whom -- UA or UA's customers?

For UA, I suspect quite good as it implies more capacity discipline out of SFO and LAX -- I could even see AS redeploying assets to SJC as it builds more presence there. I also imagine this could be a pre-cursor to an AS/B6 tie-up.

For travellers, I suspect folks will find AS a surprisingly strong offering out of SFO but fares will be higher.

Long story short, who knows.

Well, I would hope the merger would encourage UA to improve its service on its transcons -- not just the EWR flights, but also those out of DCA/IAD!

I'd say minimal effect, if any.

If it makes AS/VX a stronger competitor from the Bay Area, that has to be a good thing. Even if B6 were added at a later date, however, the three combined would still be relatively marginal compared with UA, AA or DL and would have effectively no international presence. So they would remain a marginal player for the foreseeable future.

Will be interesting to see what happens at SFO.

On the one hand, VX will presumably lose much of its coolness factor, and that could cost it business here. Will also be interesting to see how they handle the physical integration . . . AS and VX currently fly out of separate terminals, with VX having far superior space in T2.

OTOH, AS is generally viewed as having the best FFP, while VX's sucks. Being able to accrue valuable miles and meaningful benefits on VX could draw additional pax away from UA.

I don't think there will be any effect with an ASVX merger (maybe higher prices in the west coast due to the reduced comp). B6VX would've been more interesting IMO but doesn't look like that's gonna happen now.

deleted.

United competes on the west coast?...20 years ago yes...today...no

I'll give you one real MAJOR benefit for UA frequent flyers if AS acquires VX... the ability to interline to VX's (soon to be former) route network during irrops/VDB, etc.). UA and VX do not have any interline agreements in place..but UA and AS do. Opens up a lot more options when needing to make changes..

It would be nice if UA elected to compete on SEA-LAX. However given that DL and AA are on the route, I doubt it.

Will definitely make UA look more attractive to Bay Area travelers. Not all that much difference between the UA and AS products. Definitely no cool factor. Many people flying VX don't like UA but AS is not all that attractive either and UA will have a superior network, frequent flyer plan, etc.

ever heard of
 

The San Francisco hub? That's what United is doing on the WEst Coast. up to 15 flights on SFO-LAX. Multiple flights SFO-SAN, SFO-SEA, SFO-LAS, SFO-PDX. Those are all competitive routes. So yes, UA is competing on the west coast.

If you happen to be going to / coming from SF, then I agree. If you happen to not include SFO on your intra-west coast journey, then I strongly disagree, both absolutely as well as relatively compared to, say, 10 years ago.

You do not want a stop on this journey. Full stop. This would be like, say, having to stop in IAD to get from BOS to MIA. Compared to a non-stop offering (which, does UA even do?), the one-stop option almost doubles the transit time. No thanks.

Do not get me started on coming from various regional cities.. that market was ceded to AS with the dropping of the skywest partnership throughout much of the west coast, and virtually forces a double connection now where a single connection was possible not too long ago.

I would never
 

advocate taking a connection if there's a nonstop available. That's just silly. and not an effective use of anybody's time.

that said, United has decided that it doesn't have to be all things to all people and would rather focus its resources on being very strong in what is arguably one of the richest travel markets anywhere. United has decided to focus on SFO, AA has decided to focus on growing LAX, DL is growing LAX, etc.

Any business only has so many resources and it is up to them to manage them efficiently. UA has chosen to focus on maintaining a dominant position in SFO rather than fragment them across the region. Again, they realize they cant be all things to all people and that's fine. They're focusing on serving demand to/ from SFO, which is strong with high yields. United is NOT hoping to fill up their planes with tons of people going SEA-SFO-SAN, PDX-SFO-LAX. They make more money and higher yields carrying local O/D on SFO-SEA, SFO-PDX, SFO-LAX, SFO-SAN, etc, rather than carrying those connections over SFO. And they're stronger for it. and that's the better thing to do.