Originally Posted by
AerChungus
If I were CEO and regulation wasn't an issue, this is the first thing I'd pursue. It feels like the only way to compete in the mainstream market these days is by being huge. Hawaiian and Alaska both have exceptional service and loyal niche passengers, but their loyalty programs can't compete with the network offered by bigger carriers like American and United. In my view, JetBlue, a dominant carrier along I-95 with ETOPS experience, slots in Europe already, yet little presence out West, is a match made in heaven. Keep the A330 leases for European and some Hawaiian flying, put the 787 for the higher volume Hawaiian and longer distance west coast to Pacific, then integrate most bases with dual A320 and 737 fleets to produce some resilience against the next Boeing/Airbus regulatory catastrophe. Overnight, you have a nearly 10,000-strong pilot group with slots from Sydney to Incheon to Paris to Lima. Pair that with a clear effort being made by American to punch downwards into the ULCC market and (to a lesser, shorter-term extent) United having some regulatory headaches, I really think there's an opportunity to compete in the "Big 3/4/5" space
The VX acquisition was purely defensive.
The HA acquisition seems to me to be maybe a little of both, necessary defense to avoid getting squeezed by the big four plus some expansionist, out of the PNW-box, thinking.
A hypothetical B6 merger would be even more expansionist. You can make a reasonable case (that I probably agree with) that it would be necessary to punch at similar weight as the big four in the long run. But it would also be easy to rationalize that HA is "enough for the time being".
Any prospects of a B6 merger would come down to management personalities. I think Ben and Shane are fairly progressive by AS historical standards, but the board matters too. I don't know too much about their thinking other than they apparently ditched Brad, possibly over disagreement about growth/acquisitions.
From a regulatory perspective it would matter very, very much who's in the white house.