Originally Posted by full of luv

Douche,
It looks like ALK is going to become one single operating certificate as you described by 2018, but it was not out of the realm of possibilities that Alaska Air Group could have just as well decided to run two separate companies if they so chose.
Without scope you are up to the whim of mgmts pocketbook decision. In this case it looks like mgmt decided to fold VA up into AK. Could also have been that Virgin didn't want to sell it's name to a controlling company so that was required as part of any deal to divest of the Virgin moniker.