Originally Posted by
Bluedriver
So JB staying small/independent and just trying to grind it out against these giant airlines, one of which is actively trying to snuff the airline out entirely, I don't think is a viable plan. The mergers have given those big airlines the scale to lose money intentionally on routes they compete with JB, because they can just make it up on all the routes they have a virtual monopoly on in their fortress hubs.
Agree 100%, the question remains how do we truly compete against that? NK merger will be a drop in the bucket when you look at the global alliance networks we will be facing. I still think our best bet is to saddle up with oneworld/AA and leverage our BOS/JFK presence to expand into non-oneworld hubs where NK already has real estate (DTW, IAH, ATL in particular). The oneworld carriers feeding our BOS/JFK hubs would be massive. I also feel AA has seen the value in offloading some of their domestic feed to a separate entity like JB since they won't have to pay/manage a regional carrier on the routes. This could be expanded to ORD/DFW type of flying where NK also coincidentally has bases.
Over time (another 5-7yrs) we have developed a more mature Europe network and join the AA/BA/oneworld TATL JV. After that point we start looking at the Eskimo and hula girl.