That's not entirely true; while the Alaska Airlines name and brand will remain, the AAG executives plan on spending considerable time learning more about the VX brand and determining what elements of it might be carried forward.

Maybe so, but we all know what the conclusion will be. Seems like a gesture to try and temporarily smooth things over while the deal becomes final.

As in exactly none, except maybe JFK-LAX/SFO.

Shouldn't they have done their homework BEFORE they bought the airline? $4B seems like a lot to spend for something that you don't know much about.

Looking at their combined map and it really makes no sense for AS to spend all that money on a handful of cross country routes. Seems to me like they could have just added flights without acquiring a whole airline.

Dream on. Alaska has not been a low fare operator for years. The oligopoly keeps growing. As for the VX shareholders, they are primarily institutional. They have never had an interest in the future of the operation, beyond cashing out. Alaska's clean balance sheet, and Tilden's finance background, suggest they don't throw money around. They paid whatever they had to. They will now have nearly half the California market.

Well, I'll be burning the strip on the Comenity card this afternoon. I'll keep the card on paper for a while (almost exclusively for use on VX purchases) but I plan to make about $0 in other purchases with it going forward.

By the way, anyone up for making a dark parody of the merger site? A word also beginning with "F" which is not "fly" comes to mind...

(And yes, this is my reaction to my preferred outcome of the two options.)

Edit: And yes, I'll take a photo (editing out the three-digit code and any PII) of the burned strip for all to see.

This is not, at all, welcome news. I've been leaning on VX more heavily since AA cut ORD-SFO flights and been in a better mood for it due to the experience and consistently friendly crews. Time to burn up the points I guess.

Say goodbye to the 8-seat configurations in domestic First Class soon. :(

Some words from Richard on VX:

https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/virgin-america

Just got an email from Alaska saying that there would be 'complimentary West Coast-based networks'. Does this mean that all flights will be free from now on in? ;)

http://flyingbettertogether.com/ is the merger website

CBS radio news reports that the immediate effect is that VX stock is ^ 40%.

Why would Sir Richard Branson agree to sell VX?
 

VX is not doing well financially?

VX has posted their own announcement on the deal:

https://www.virginamerica.com/cms/ne...-airlines.html

"Once the airlines are combined, the overall company name will be Alaska."...In case there was any doubt...

He can't do anything about it.

https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/virgin-america

I expect a bit of a run on the Elevate bank over the coming months, before AS announce how Elevate points will convert MileagePlan miles. There's still some sweet spots in the Elevate international partner airlines award chart, including Emirates that we was recently devalued by AS.