I find it interesting that DAL now is code sharing with Alaska on the west coast, especially since Western Airlines had a huge west coast operation...before Delta bought them in 1987.

I went through 727 right seat school back then, just after the merger, and since I was based in BOS for DAL, of course they sent me to LAX for a week to do my 727 sim time, in the Western 727 sim.

At that time Western was using at least 2 complete concourses of gates in LAX, with about a zillion 737's and lots of 727's flying up and down the west coast, an hourly shuttle to SFO, etc. and they had DC10's, flying to Hawaii. Later, DAL had MD11's based in LAX as well. So, at one time, LAX was a pretty good sized base. Not any more.

In typical mo'Ron Allen mentality, he ran away from the west coast when the economy tanked in the early to mid 90's., got rid of just about all the west coast flying Western was doing, got rid of the MD 11's, etc. and started code sharing.

Now it seems the "new guys" in charge want back into the west coast, and Richard Anderson has said there will be more consolidation in the industry. Richard never saw a Code Share he didn't like, so I doubt Delta will see any LAX growth, until after they buy Alaska...then he will shrink it, and code share the flying with the next lowest bidder, again.

Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing new in this industry.