Best comment thus far:

Modern-day Alaska Airlines is a tale of two non-compatible strategies: on one hand, they want to be considered a national brand, with big airline ambitions, big airline marketing and, critically, big airline executive & upper management compensation & shareholder returns.


On the other hand, Alaska wants "team-player" employees who will step in to help during tough times, who will do more with less to make things happen, and customers to think they're doing the right thing by helping a small, local company.


Alaska execs frequently cite local companies like Costco as "inspiration" for what they'd like Alaska to be: loyal customers, loyal employees and solid products. What Alaska doesn't get, though, is that Costco intentionally invests in providing a consistent, reliable experience for customers and leading the industry in employee pay. Those are costs, costs that eat into Costco's wealth, costs that could go to shareholders, instead, but don't, because Costco believes in running a good business, first, and shareholder value second.


What Alaska is saying is that they want all the benefits of a unicorn but without the costs of the unicorn. They want the runaway executive compensation and they want to squeeze as much out of their customers and employees as possible to transfer that wealth to shareholders. And they have largely viewed frontline employees as easily replaceable cogs who, with enough mandatory in-person Kool-Aid sessions, will feel a sense of duty to bail out management's poor planning and decisions.


Alaska has relied on pliable and loyal labor for years, but they've burned bridges too many times. Executives have cried wolf about the operation with such regularity that it's now a routine way of doing business, because employees, time after time, bailed out failed executive decision-making. It sounds like that death-spiral "strategy" isn't working as well, anymore. There is no longer a deep well of mutual trust to draw from.