Originally Posted by
OCCP
I hope we succeed too but just haven’t seen Alaska do anything but retreat and sit by and watch other airlines grow in our hubs, particularly Seattle. We have zero brand identity outside of the PNW and there’s only so long we can depend on our west coast vibe and west coast passengers. Southwest has a massive network and is aggressively growing and can really shake up the Hawaii market. Alaska has shown no interest in growing, we just cancelled a bunch of routes everyone else seems to make money on. The only thing they’ve done recently is drum up a lot of media attention about constructing a new building by headquarters in Seattle. Who cares!
I don’t agree with many things AAG does but do you expect them to remain in unprofitable routes? Do you know other airlines financials? How do you know these other airlines are making money on all these routes? I’d rather them fly profitable routes and make money. This will in turn make it easier for us to demand more in 2020. All I’ve seen is a redeployment of A/C, not shrinking. Shrinking would be less airplanes, less pilots, less traffic etc. As far as I know, we’re still taking orders of A/C and still hiring pilots. Maybe you don’t care about the new building in Seattle but it, along with the N satellite expansion, to me, indicates AS plans on continuous growth. As far as other airlines growing in our hubs, that’s the business. Delta’s growth in SEA jump started AS to grow faster than it had in the past. Competition is good. AS has fought many different battles in their hubs. Believe it or not, they fought off WN in SEA a while back. We’re going into CA more than we ever have before. That seems more like AS going into other airlines territory than vis versa. Brand recognition comes up a lot mostly from former VX guys. To THIS I say who cares. Waaaay above my pay grade. I don’t care if someone thinks I only fly in the state of AK, they don’t sign my paycheck. These are things we can’t influence and therefore shouldn’t concern ourselves with. What we can influence is voting on a better contract in a few yrs.