Originally Posted by
paceflight
Nope, it's a done deal. Bill Ayers just retired from AK and will soon be joining SWA as CEO... SWA stopped all talk about Hawaii and etops as quickly as they received -800's.....why waste resources on that when merging airline already has it down pat!
Your "guess" would be more accurate if you knew the man's name. And my info says SWA found out (too late) that they couldn't make it to Hawai'i with an -800 with 189 full seats...they'd have to leave 20 - 25 seats empty.
The prospect of SWA's 189 seat -800 was exactly why Alaska converted all their -900 orders to -900ERs. 189 seats to compete.
Now, I don't doubt SWA may, in fact, acquire Alaska. Note I said ACQUIRE not merge with. If that happens, AS pilots better take a lesson from what happened to Air Tran pilots or they may find themselves stapled to the list like the F9 pilots were faced with.
Ask the 1100 Air Tran pilots who are looking at DAL Training Center time this year how that's feeling.