Having both, an airlines can threaten Boeing and Airbus to buy the other company's jets if the price is too high. If a company only had 100 planes, I think 50 and 50 is not worthwhile. If a company has 150 of one and 50 of the other, that is not a bad idea.

AS should've been shut down after the crash of Alaska 261. This is a cowardly move by AS after all the whining/BS they put up over Delta adding more flights/routes out of SEA.

VX, while not perfect, was a completely different airline providing a unique experience. Unfortunately, "Blah Airlines" has won.

VX also has some very low fares, while AS's Y fares are sometimes upward of AA/DL/UA's F fares.

I haven't found AS fares to be higher. For the last 4-5 trips, I found them to be lower or competitive.

I no longer think of it as coach. It is economy class, ha ha. There are small differences. For example, some 737's have IFE. I usually bring my own work but sometimes look at IFE for half an hour. I do like the maps on most IFE.

Yes one of the reasons I hate Alaska Airlines was the crash of Alaska 261. The airline should have been found criminally responsible for the deaths of 88 people.

Flying out of SFO, this has certainly not been my experience. While I had been willing to pay more for VX, I certainly wouldn't for AS, or any of the Legacy carriers.

I think AA+US merger is worse and they didn't stop that (minus a few concessions).

AA/US had to fight fairly hard and give up quite a bit. I would imagine the DOJ has had enough with airline mergers and will definitely object to this.

I think (hope?) that Doc Savage was being sarcastic.

There is 0 difference between AS and UA/DL/AA, at least out of SFO.

The VX crew sure seem to be loving this over on Facebook. :)

RIP, VX. You were awesome.

Couldn't agree more.

Between them, just pick the most cost effective and convenient one. Same price, then I'll pick UA, if only for Amex Lounge convenience.

"Of course, it’s too early to say how Alaska will value each Elevate point. Currently, we value Alaska miles at 2 cents each (though that’s expected to drop later this month, following the Emirates devaluation) and Virgin America points at a minimum of 1.5 cents each. If points are combined at a 1:1 ratio, Virgin America customers will likely come out ahead, especially due to Alaska’s strong partnerships with international carriers.

Read more: http://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/what-we-know-about-alaska-and-virgin-america/#ixzz44szk8rvG"

So, maybe I'll come out ahead with these points I've been saving for years?

I'm talking about VX fares often being much more than competitors' fares. AS is usually similar to competitors.

As far as coach, the AS crew attitude is a differentiator.

The merger is such sad news. I will never fly Alaska Airlines because of the Alaska 261 crash. Every time I see their planes, I still think of that plane crashing into the ocean...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska...nes_Flight_261

I'm not sure where your routes are, but from SFO - JFK/LAS/ORD routes, VX isn't much more or less than anyone else. There are times when it's more expensive than the others, and other times when they're the lowest.

Gotta lube the jackscrews and use the correct tool to check play....2 hero pilots did everything they could to keep that plane out of the water that day. :(

Finally!I was waiting for this joke of an airline to fold in one way or another.Would have preferred bankrupt,but being sold is also good,it will disappear and stop treating passengers like dirt.

Great news.

Regards,

El Puerco Volante

This could very well be the case but other airlines have crashes that may stick in the mind of passengers....

United: smashing into the WTC and played over and over on TV.
American: It's been a while but their DC-10 was shown crashing at ORD in the late 1970's. Also footage of the AA 757 smashing into the Pentagon.
Delta: LGA accident recently. L-1011 crash at DFW where news coverage, but not crash footage, was shown over and over quite a few years ago.

The last time I flew on VX, they were rude and seized my bag even though there was room in the overhead. They were too cautious but if they thought logically, there was room for the approximately 3 roller bags that they seized for check in. I don't hold a grudge, though.

How are you able to fly on AA, DL, UA, AF, SQ, or any other airline that has had fatal crashes? :(

(or drive down the interstate) :(

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._50_fatalities

or walk to anybody's front door?(Flordida only)
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2016/04/...?spt=sec&or=on

I objected strenuously to the AA merger (and I did so as a long time AA flier) because I was tired of the reduced competition from the mergers of the majors. In the end, the concessions from AA/US weren't that much, and did little to help competition. But the DOJ was right to try and block the merger of two national airlines.

However, even if DOJ does not want more mergers, I don't see the case for blocking the merger of two smaller Western airlines with extremely limited route overlap, especially when neither airline has a controlling number of slots at an airport where barrier to entry is high due to slot controls or gate constraints. I can't imagine DOJ winning a suit to block this, nor can I picture them even trying.

**opinion offered comfortably from my armchair :D

Not the same thing. Alaska should've been shutdown and it's executives jailed.

First SPG is slated to be going away and now VX.. Danm!! My travels for work and pleasure are sure going to suck even more as these two entities go "bye-bye"!

I feel your pain. Just used up 120,000 Starpoints on a nice Luxury Collection/St. Regis vacation in Mexico City. Already up to 60 nights so far this year with Starwood. Now I have until the end of the year to burn up my Virgin points. Plus trying out Hyatt with their promo and the status match. Enjoying things while they last. Don't have to bother charging things to the VX comenity card to get to help get Elevate Gold again this year now as Alaska is just marginally more attractive than a legacy carrier, so lots of changes. We will see what happens. Got my jetBlue Mint tickets this weekend for Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas...so that is one thing that won't change...for now.

I doubt it. This will likely be the easiest airline merger in a while to get through any oversight. The Justice department can only object in the event that they can prove a major impact to consumers. Basically if this would give the airline a monopoly over a route or airport, or just produce a massive company with no competition.

Even merged they are only the 5th largest domestic airline. Alaska airlines does not have much of a presence at either LAX or SFO which are Virgin Americas hubs. If anything this merger may be viewed as helping competition since they might be able to better compete against the big airlines.

Is there anything I can do with elevate points besides purchase flights? I know some other airlines let you use points for other things (cruise, hotel, electronics, cash, etc). Can I do that with Virgin?

VX has good airline partners you can redeem with but not much else.

The only other option seems to be Virgin Limited Edition.
https://www.virginamerica.com/cms/el...edition-redeem

Redemption options would improve (drastically) with AS.

Is that you Rainman? They don't even use that plane anymore

I would hope not. Not many planes that catastrophically crash are brought back into service.

It is true, AS hasn't flown the MD-80 since 2008.

I do hope the culture around maintenance has been corrected since the crash though.

Clearly it has not, which explains the frequent crashing of planes since that accident!

Wasn't the MD-80's fault, it was Alaska's cost-saving maintenance procedures. Mechanical faults can still happen with them, even with their 737's.

Wait. What? There have been fatal AS plane crashes since AS261?

Forgive me for posting on this emotional subject. I flew Virgin America yesterday for the first time. My experience with them instilled much anger into me, although the flight attendants were gracious.

I paid for a First Class flight but received notification that I would be moved down to Main Cabin Select for reasons they said they were not allowed to state but with a refund of the fare difference (which in reality was $0 - in other words, it was bait and switch), although they placed money in my newly established "bank". After an exchange of emails asking for specific explanation for why my First Class booking was not being honored, and to which they refused to explain, I cancelled the booking I originally had (I refuse to pay for First Class and only receive Main Cabin Select) and used the "bank" money to rebook in Main Cabin Select. As it turned out, yesterday on my flight 3 people were upgraded (at a cost of $99 according to the flight attendant) into First Class, including the gentleman sitting in my row who was upgraded immediately before the door was closed. All I can say is I'm glad this company is being bought out. I'm very angry regarding how they treated me (I showed the flight attendants all the e-mails between me and the company and they were at a loss for why my First Class booking was downgraded to Main Cabin Select).

I understand my situation is (hopefully) unique but any company that treats a new first-class paying customer in this way deserves to disappear. Alaska has never treated me so poorly as Virgin America. (Not even United has treated me this way).

I was on that aircraft earlier the same day. I think of it frequently. After about a year, I started flying AS again. Not on MD80s, but on the airline.

It sounds like (but who really knows, and no one can tell you) that a FAM was assigned to fly in your seat on your flight and then ended up not taking the flight. Not that they handled it well, but that's what it sounds like.

It isn't a unique situation at all. As previously stated, it was a FAM situation, which overrides everyone's seat assignments. Whether it worked out later that the marshal didn't get on the flight is beside the point (and the subsequent upgrade situation that occurred was an offshoot of that). No one at the airline is allowed to tell you why this happens for security purposes, and it's a federal law with penalties attached. There's absolutely no point in getting angry about it or demanding an explanation because you'll never get one. It's also part of the contract of carriage that you're not GUARANTEED your assigned seat due to situations exactly like this. What is standard with VX when this happens (and it happens on all airlines) was that you should have received a credit for the inconvenience as well as a refund of the difference between your original fare and the fare for new seat you occupied. If you didn't get that, call their guest relations line and follow through.

Rick Steves, is that you?

What fatal crash has SQ had? Silk Air doesn't count.

With regards to VX, so sad. I'm based out of ORD so didn't get to fly them much, but I never even considered other airlines when traveling to LAX/SFO. Gonna have to spend my bank of 50k miles.

SQ6 in TPE. 747 attempted departure from the wrong runway and crashed into construction equipment at high speed. Of course, this is nothing like the AS261 crash (I have trouble even calling that an accident because the airline knew exactly what they were doing).

At any rate, the industry-leading VX domestic F product is likely dead. Thank goodness we can have more homogenized crap F products in the US now. :rolleyes::td:

Only hope is that regulatory agencies actually do their job for the first time and block this.

I'll be damned, never knew about that one.