AS Plans to Launch in 30 More Markets by 2018
 

https://skift.com/2017/07/27/alaska-...rkets-by-2018/

Alaska Airlines Plans to Launch in 30 More Markets by 2018

Alaska Airlines, the fifth-largest carrier in the U.S., said Wednesday it will launch in 30 more markets in the next six months.

That expansion comes on the back of launching in 20 markets in the past nine months — plus inheriting other routes after completing its acquisition of Virgin America in December.

The Seattle-based company says its expansion is going well. Out of the 20 markets the Alaska Airlines brand launched in the last nine months, 15 are already profitable.

Chief executive Brad Tilden said on a quarterly earnings call with investors that he is “disappointed” in the “friction” that has come up in the integration with Virgin America.

But he says he does not expect the company’s projections on the pace and financial benefits of the deal to change from what it has forecast before.

The two brands have moved on to a unified revenue management system.

The next big project is to move both carriers’ passenger service systems (PSS), or software that stores nearly every ticket, onto a unified system, where every reservation will be in the same place and coded under Alaska’s single airline code.

The executives hope to make that switch by spring 2018.

The company has already stopped selling tickets for the Virgin American brand for reservation dates after June 2018 as a precaution.

The IT change is necessary but also risky. A botched merger of United’s and Continental’s PSSes in 2012 led to customer service snafus for months.

Yet industry-wide, airline tech teams say they have learned from past experiences. Last fall’s integration of American Airlines’ and US Airways’ system, managed by tech vendor Sabre, caused hardly a ripple.

On Wednesday during a call with investors, Alaska Airlines executives promised a seamless migration with the help of Sabre.

They say that, unlike as in the migrations that other airlines have done, they’re not trying to take ticket data out of one system and transform it to make it compatible and sync up nicely with the data from the other carrier’s system on a single “cutover” day.

They’re instead doing that work in advance so that there is little risk of data being mismatched or lost on the final day when Virgin America’s system is turned off.

Another merger issue that still causes friction is a spike in poor on-time performance by the combined operation. Tilden told investors, “It seems like overnight we’ve gone to having a lot of air traffic control and airport gate restraint issues… We need to learn how to handle that better, … especially in San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

Yet another merger issue: Alaska Air’s fees for checked bags are higher on average than Virgin America’s, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The company’s executives plan is to bring Virgin America’s fees up to be in line with Alaska’s until the Virgin brand is dropped by 2019.

One decision that Alaska hasn’t made yet is if it will operate an all-Boeing fleet in the future or stick with its current mix of Boeing and the Airbus aircraft that it inherited from Virgin America.

Executives say the question isn’t urgent because the leases on its Airbuses don’t start to expire until 2019. Some industry followers believe Alaska’s Seattle neighbor Boeing will win the day because of the possible operational efficiencies of having a single type of aircraft.

POSITIVE FINANCIAL GROWTH

For the second quarter, Alaska reported net income of $296 million on revenues of $2.1 billion. Its passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) — a closely watched metric that shows much much money an airline makes for each seat it flies on mile — increased 1.3 percent.

That was in line with promises that Alaska executives had made earlier this year that PRASM would rise.

Alaska Air declined to speculate on the degree to which their company has recently benefited from the introduction of basic economy seats by competitors Delta, United, and American.

Its executives say that the larger rivals have kept their existing lowest fares but added restrictions on them via the new “basic economy fares.” That means that Alaska’s full-featured-yet-similarly-priced economy tickets look more attractive in comparison.

Yet executives said they couldn’t put a number on how big the shift in market share may be.

i find this very skeptical and also wonder the motives behind such an announcement...if completely true with no ulterior motive, how on earth would we even begin to think of staffing such an expansion....

AS Plans to Launch in 30 More Markets by 2018
 

I wonder what these markets are

AS Plans to Launch in 30 More Markets by 2018
 

Skywest is hiring like gangbusters.

good point...forgot about our new slogan..."proudly mostly skywest."

Any update on this? Looks like WN is poised to make a major CA expansion tomorrow, yet AS hasn't announced anything big since mid-april....

"AS Plans to Launch in 30 More Markets by 2018"

Keyboard being "By". My understanding is that basically all these routes were added this year, and are primarily Skywest/horizon. Just wait till they bring on the MRJ! No scope, no problem with that!

Skywest can't fly the MRJ unless they terminate their relationship with Delta.

Ok, thank you.

Can expressjet fly it after they shift all their Delta flying over to Skywest?

Not if Skywest owns or controls them.

Wrong....reference Republic Airlines which operated at least 3 separate certificates, Republic, Shuttle America and Chitty Kitty. Republic had 190's on certificate which was not allowed per the DAL CBA. Therefore they didn't fly for DAL, the shuttle cert did with the same pilots same contract just separate certificates.

SkyWest is dissolving the ASQ certificate under the DCI brand strictly to use that cerfticate to fly larger (76+ 86,000+) under the AS brand, mark the tapes.

Are you sure? In addition to THE SHAFTs reference, I believe this was also the reason GoJets started. TSA was not allowed to fly anything larger than 50 seaters because of their ASA with AA. So a new certificate was made and they started flying CRJ-700 and 900s for UA.

The first thing to consider is that UAL has the same scope. The Delta language has a exemption provided the aircraft are never flown on any city pair Delta or a affiliate operates and remain under 97 seats. With the route networks today that is impossible to comply with. There is a reason the the major RJ CEO's state repeatedly that they can't go forward with the MRJ or 175-E2 without a increase in scope weights. Section 1 D. 2. C. Defines weight and seats.

Exception: If a carrier or an affiliate of a carrier that performs category A or C operations acquires an aircraft that would cause the Company to no longer be in compliance with the provisions of Section 1 D. 2. c., the Company will terminate such operations on the date that is the later of the date such aircraft is placed in revenue service, or nine months from the date that the Company first became aware of the potential acquisition.

I always get a little chuckle of how amateur lawyer pilots INSIST how air tight their scope clauses are, and brag about the severe penalties that will rain down for disrespecting their authorit-ay. Then in a few years, the real lawyers, who make millions a year to do this, find a loophole, bribe them, or back them into a corner to the scope line moves again. Wash, rinse repeat.

I think the possibility of SkyWest operating the MRJ on the ASQ certificate actually makes a lot of sense. And despite blathering and chest thumping by legacy pilots online, they will most likely get away with it. Worst case scenario, SkyWest tells DAL to pound sand. That relationship isn't the greatest anyhow.

The solution is, and always has been one list for all. No more alter ego, no more 2nd/3rd tier pilots. All branded aircraft flown by pilots on that seniority list.

Unfortunately, this battle has been fought and litigated since the late 90s and instead of the logical, but undesired solution, short sighted legacy pilots keep trying to build higher border walls instead of welcome stations. As long as they keep doing that, management will keep winning.

We will build a wall at AS and make Delta pay for it! Make AS Great Again!

The "walls" you bemoan, ie "scope clauses" are the legacy pilots only attempts to stem the tide of Airline Mgmts attempt to place all flying as at "regional" rates.

US Pilots are expensive.

There's no doubt about it that left to their own devices, airline mgmt would hire regional airline contractors to fly all domestic narrowbody aircraft and would codeshare/JV all international flying.

This would allow them to control labor completely by taking away flying whenever any particular group started to get "too expensive".

That was so dumb it must be flame bait. Yes, I'm sure Delta Air Lines wants to contract its MD/757/767/777s to regionals as it shutters the regionals and flies 717s/MDs and soon CS to all the cities said regionals used to fly to. You're livin' in the 90s man! The cost savings isn't there anymore, and the quality of the product sucks. In house is the mode now.

But JV. Yeah. You guys sure screwed the pooch on that one. You're worried about RJs while Chinese and Mexican pilots are replacing you for less than the senior RJ pilots make. Attaboy Captain. Way to keep your eye on the ball!

Alaska is the only legacy airline that has no scope, nada, zilch. Maybe you should ask yourself why, instead of making excuses about lawyers and loopholes. At least those "amateur lawyer pilots" at the other legacies got scope passed that restricts weight, seats, number of RJs, furlough clauses that reduce regional operations, etc.

You are right the best long term solution is one list for all mainline and regional operations. You start as a legacy new hire FO on a Q400 or RJ and let seniority work you up from there to bigger planes. But until that day, scope is very important.

Don't worry about it ecam, once cabotage is ever lifted, every american pilot will be too expensive unless they agree to work for a contract company based in Singapore for crap wages.

Thanks Captain Happy Pants.

Hmmm, interesting it seems AS is kind of sitting on their hands, while DL/WN/UA are putting up a big fights in SEA/SAN/SFO/SJC/and CA.

AS needs to respond soon, and I think PDX is a great place to do that... Although AS has most of the PacNW covered from PDX, so they will probably need to utilize some 737s or VX aircraft to add some trans-con flights.

The lawyers at Mitsubishi and Embraer have been all over those scope clauses for the last 5 years and they have not cracked them. The E2 is on hold hoping they change. The MRJ is on the slow boat to China because there is no point in entering production. More important than what you post is that if Skywest wants to operate those airframes they become a competitor and nobody is going to subsidize a competitor by giving them flying. Read the many statements by the CEO's of the above companies on scope and report back what you find.

Didnt expressjet keep their CoEx flying while they operated their own branded flying. And what about Republic with Midwest express?

I'm not saying the MRJ flying will or will not happen, but history isnt in our favor. Lawyers seem to find loopholes in everything.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...r-175s-440874/

"US regional carrier SkyWest Airlines has ordered 25 Embraer 175s, of which 15 will initially be configured with 70 seats."

"It states that all of the jets are due to be delivered in 2018. "

Interesting....

15 to Delta , 10 to Alaska . Great...

Part of that grow the market with RJs.... and then keep the route on an RJ.

10? There goes the 319 fleet.

Scope.... Are you listening, Alaska brothers & sisters???

I won't comment further but I cannot underscore more just how important and critical the forthcoming decision on scope is going to be.

Alaska is getting Skywest to do some CRJ-200 flying on its behalf "temporarily" to fill in the Horizon shortage gap.

Unfortunately the scope Alaska gets after arbitration won'l limit how many 76 seaters get to be at Alaska. Unless we go after all flying, no matter the size of the airplane, the 175's will just keep coming.

What decision? It's it just like a seat limit, not on actual hulls? Lotta good that would do when they have 500 ERJs and 100 737s

All Skywest.

I wouldn't worry too much right now about the 175s. I've heard they are being used to provide feed for Virgin aircraft and to get Alaska into markets they don't yet have the metal for. Mainline flying is increasing so all is not dire yet. Alaska pilots better pray the arbitration panel agrees with them on scope and holds the line at 76 seats.

I thought Alaska bought Virgin? Wouldn't an increase of of 175's to Virgin be an increase to Alaska? I have a lot to learn. I've been worrying about nothing!

Unfortunately you can thank Alaska MEC, their JNC members on that one. Got it straight from the horses mouth, I can't believe the mentality of AS ALPA . 😳😳😳😳

Other than "0" or "there shouldn't be any outsourcing," what is your idea for a ratio?

Please stop discussing any topic pending arbitration, scope especially, until the award is announced.

Adults are talking here. Go to the corner and observe until you're called upon newbie...

Well, I'd gather a list of airlines that Alaska management is comparing us to for pay purposes. Then I'd add up all of the mainline hulls at those companies and divide by the total number of outsourced hulls at those companies.

My point is if they want to include Frontier/Spirit/Allegiant/Jetblue/Virgin rates for our pay comparison, I'd like to include them in the average for what an "industry standard" scope ratio would look like.

Otherwise they can compare our outsourcing to DAL/AMR/UAL only, and I'll compare the pay to only those companies.