Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
The Alaska deal is "unfair." So's my marriage. At the moment I hope both deals continue. The reason being that we are getting something that we could not get by ourselves. While we do put more people on Alaska than they do us, the numbers per segment would not support mainline equipment, or even RJ's. Networks are critical.
True. To a point.
DL is never going to fly to Prudhoe Bay or Kotzebue Alaska, Kelowna, Canada or Pullman, Washington. Ever. Certainly not on a mainline sized jet and likely never on a DCI jet or prop, no matter how low the provider bids. Even adding 50 seats a day to some of their routes would be in the red forever.
You could even argue that some frequencies AK offers to routes DL does (or used to do), like SEA-ATL or SEA-BOS might make sense as long as DL metal isn't being adversely effected. But getting shut out of basically the entire west coast is unacceptable. How many thousands of seats a day between LA and SEA and
zero on Delta metal or even 2 flights a day BOS-SEA again zero on Delta metal...unacceptable.
I'm not saying we should pull the entire agreement and give up the added network. But right now the "marriage" is a one way street and we lose far more than we gain from it and they gain far more than they lose from it. If my wife gets to have a top 5 list of celebrities she can sleep with, I should certainly get a top 5 list as well. Actually since girls have it way easier to begin with, I should get a top 500 list just to make it equitable but I digest.
Right now our "marriage" with Alaska says that all our stuff is "our" stuff but all their stuff is their stuff, we can sleep with Whoppi Goldberg, Sally Fields or Rachael Maddow the fifth tuesday in any March and they can sleep with Justin Timberlake, Tim Tebow, any 3 of the New York Nicks and the entire cast of "Thunder From Down Under" and/or the "Blue Man Group" (all of them) in Vegas whenever they want.
The deal's gotta be fair and this one is not.