What's even worse is for the AS elites who now are starting to book on VX and have to put up with subpar service. This is not flame-bait but rather an honest opinion after my first three flights (all on the same day!) ever on VX. Let's start with I have no real love lost for AS. I'm a 75k, but have been supremely underwhelmed by their service/hard product/soft product v American (where I'm EXPLT). But, I travel to Seattle frequently and DL is probably the worst airline I've ever flown (no, I don't fly ULCCs so this is subjective) so AS really is the only other viable option. Despite being a relatively critical 75k on AS, I have to say that in almost every respect the AS experience is significantly better than VX--at least for AS elites. I have to add that qualifier because I noticed a distinct difference in how I--and other AS elites--were treated on board viz VX elites. Things like, having my bag moved to accommodate a late boarding "Silver" (whatever that status means), being absolutely last to select an entr�e on every flight, having to bus my own tray post-meal, etc. I'm not sure whether it's just the FAs being hyper passive-aggressive about the merger or what, but... It was truly awful service. Oh, and I booked into First (no, not an upgrade... full fare first) on all three flights. Needless to say, I regret the four more VX flights I've already booked for the next two months. I fully plan on avoiding VX metal until the merger is complete and the VX metal/crews go away.

Alaska isn't firing the Virgin America crews en masse on some date in the future. That's not how airline acquisitions work... those FAs will be working Alaska flights. If you want to avoid having people from VX crews on your flights, you'll need to stop flying Alaska.

I wonder if VX crews should actually be better under AS since I presume they will get better compensated once the merger is complete. At least the pilots should be getting a better contract now that they are negotiating together with the AS pilots.

I think they will be and comments from the VXCabinCrew poster in the past seem to imply that the VX FAs are looking forward to the integration. I think the biggest problem right now is the state of the hard product and that's not going to change until the cabin updates to the new AS standard are done to the VX metal.

Edited to add: the obvious exception being the new VX A321s, but when those leases are up, they'll be gone.

I'm on another VX long-haul flight - counter didn't upgrade me to MCS but she did block the seat next to me in the exit row. The FA gave me an extra adult-beverage with my order and movies are now free on VX. Our flight is running late due to weather but it seems we aren't going to be horribly late & I'll make my connection.

Used to have the best boarding process in the business, now it's a mess. I used to love how all the 'lower' numbers would try to sneak into boarding earlier and they rejected them routinely bc the system required it. On AA, it seems like the gate agents just go with the flow as its easier then rejecting someone since the system lets them allow anyone to board at any time. It still does that but the tiering is now crap. Now, it seems like Group A is 100 people.