Up to two weeks ago, staffing was the biggest problem at Alaska. ALPA, for the first time in my tenure here was finally in a position where the company knew it needed to start to listen.
Then came Putin and Oil quickly became the serious issue. Alaska has some of the best hedges in the industry right now, that allows us to probably comfortably handle the next 6 months as long as $200 oil doesn’t happen. Three or four days ago $200 oil seemed eminent.
Training is way behind, we are still losing pilots, and staffing is still a concern. Revenue has not tapered over the last few days, it has remained very strong.
Alaska biggest concern is $6 gas taking a significant bite out of the average Americans wallet, leaving little or no room for discretionary spending. This is the largest concern right now, staffing will become the concern again only if the economy holds. If $100-110 oil stays for a significant period of time, we are headed for a recession and Alaska will slow its growth plan. I think we will still grow through the downturn, but not at the rate we planned only a short few days ago. There is already talk of pulling some to most Airbus capacity in the next 6 mos.