Originally Posted by
GreatBigSea
Southwest is a real airline because they've aggressively grown to over 700 aircraft in 50 years and take care of their pilots. When Alaska decides to actually grow by airframes and not seat count, places those planes at Alaska and not horizon/skywest, and chooses to grow instead of rely on codesharing for 'growth', then they'll be a real airline. Right now they're a glorified travel agent who sells tickets on other airlines, who happens to operate a small handful of a/c regionally in the PNW. If they could get away with it they'd ditch he planes and just sell tickets as long as it brings money in for the investors.
Well, I guess 130 aircraft could be considered "a small handful". And I suppose flying those 130 aircraft from bases on the west coast to Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, Cuba, the east coast and lots of places in between could be considered "regional" if you define your region as the western hemisphere or maybe the Americas. It certainly doesn't fit within what the Pacific Northwest is generally considered to be.
Whatever.
So it seems that your definition of a real airline, which is notably different from Yeti's definition of a real airline (which appears to be an airline that operates multiple aircraft types) is one that increases headcount without regard for how that affects profitability. I'm pretty sure there have been airlines like that in the past. There's a reason why they're in the past.
You are aware that the company has a fiduciary duty to shareholders to try to operate the company profitably, right? If dumping the planes and selling tickets like a glorified travel agent is the most profitable way to go, then that is what I as a shareholder would expect them to do. People who own stock in airlines own it because they expect to make money, not because they want to be in the airline business.