Originally Posted by
tsquare
Yeah I guess. The main thing we would get from them we could get on our own anyway really. From our perspective it would be a nice shot of adrenaline to get them instantly, but like Seattle, if a HNL hub made sense, we could go in there tomorrow and start a "Win in Honolulu" type buildup. You are right though that getting access to HND and the 330/717s would be a nice shot, but the geographical puzzle piece is easy to get without leveraging ourselves.
True, we could do it on our own. But [spastic endless growth mode LCC ambitions notwithstanding] Hawaii margins are razor thin and a glut of capacity there would cost us (and everyone else) quite a bit. Even if we overpaid a bit for them, not having to dump capacity would be a huge advantage. We could then rationalize any excessive overlap and redirect resources west.
I have no idea about the real estate situation there, which would play into it as well. Are there lots of gates available if we were to consider doing it "organically"?
I'm not pulling for it to happen nor am I predicting it will. But it makes sense on some levels. They are definately in the top 3 or 4 potential merger scenarios for us still. And the seniority it takes here to have a good narrowbody line in some bases is more than enough to be a 330 CA there. It may or may not happen, but we can't let it sandbag us if it does because its well within the envelope of realistic possibilities.