In my newhire class in 06' Gregg Saretsky asked us if we would be ready to upgrade in three to five years. Two of us laughed. Both having been furloughed from Majors (NWA, US Air.) He said their 5 year plan was to triple in size. In 5 years they had a bunch of guys on Furlough and Saretsky was fired. He now runs West Jet.

Baja.

He was just recently fired from West Jet too.

Webcasts & events | Alaska Air Group Inc

Baja.

"2000 pilots by the year 2000."

Of course they usually say Shiite like that when they want contract concessions.

That goal was recently updated to 3000 pilots by 3000!

Got my laugh for the day.

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https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/...d-bjs-res.aspx

Those numbers were better than what investors have seen from other airlines, and shareholders hope that Alaska Air will be able to continue its upward momentum and either grow toward gaining greater share of the overall air carrier market or attract a buyout bid.

Please let it be soon

Oh, stop teasing me!

A buyout bid would most certainly not come from JetBlue though. No way they could afford Alaska. Southwest on the other hand....

B6 can afford about 1/3 of AS so they’re out. WN will first try and snuff out AS. Besides, they won’t overpay for anything. Ego driven Angle Lake will look for another acquisition. That’s my bet. I just hope it’s not B6.

B6 could possibly find capital for such a project. Or so could AS. New investors get a stake in the new, larger airline. Could be hostile, or could be a two or three-way deal. Many possible permutations if the new merged airline looks potentially greater than the mathematical sum of the two. In theory, you could be creating value out of nothing, and there are people who do that kind of thing.

Blue hawaskin. That'll be the name of the new three way airline. I just want nothing to do with your management team. (Not that ours is better)

Don't be surprised to see AA make a bid.

I think we are too large for DAL, UAL, or AA to make a bid. I don't think it would get approved. SWA could, I believe, or a merger with either or all of JB, HAL, Sun Country maybe. Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant are too different, in my opinion, for any realistic merger talks.

AA is too big.

UAL is not happening, too much overlap on the west coast.

Not too big for DAL. AA is significantly larger than DAL, adding AS to DAL would not displace AA from #1.

A DAL acquisition would require some concessions to the trust busters. Whether it makes sense to DAL depends on how bad they would want gates and planes (and maybe pilots), and whether they think they can simply crush AS without buying them... risk there is they don't control who would get the gates (and planes). Airports have egalitarian ideas about enabling small competition, so if AS left, the gates might go to some random startup or pesky ULCC.

Concur that JB and HAL are probably the best fits for a coordinated merger. DAL would just buy AS if they thought it would benefit them.

Blue Horseshoe LOVES Anacott Steel.

You heard it here first...thank me later.

-Reg

AA
 

AA is large. But there is plenty of argument they can make to get it though. They are retiring 3000 pilots between now and 2021. They can argue they need us just to cover attrition. Not to mention that puts two major players in competition for the NW (DL and AA). I don't think it's too far fetched. The last thing I'd want is to do with JB. SW would be a much better option. But still not preferable, imo.

Isn’t Delta already bigger in SEA than Alaska currently is?

No, by a big margin. I think we're, (AS), around 51% market share in SEA and DAL is still under 20%. Those are numbers from 2017 but I don't think DAL has captured 30+ % in the last 4 mos....

Delta or SW
 

I would prefer Delta or SW but B6 makes the most sense

It will be NK, if AS goes after anyone.

Jetblue makes more sense to me, considering routes and culture.

We're still floundering our way through the current acquisition/merger. Why is anyone looking forward to another one anytime soon? No thanks

Unless management thinks they can go it alone, it would be better to have your pick of dance partners rather than wait till there's only one left... or none left, if DOJ views things differently than you do.

NK is making a strong push to change public perception and culture.

Jet Blue doesn’t have a contract and doesn’t have scope. They’re right for the picking. Only problem will be their debt. They are identical to Alaska, with the exception of planes.

From everything I see in our company communications they want to do just that and keep it Alaska Airlines without any further blending. Not to mention our newly acquired debt load deters us from buying much and or being bought. Now, that’s not to say they won’t merge, buy or otherwise. It just doesn’t look like it’s in the cards anytime soon. 5-10 years. But what do I know, I pilot, I fly plane.

AK debt to asset ratio is already paid back to a late 2013 level. Management has been aggressively paying it down.

Curious if you can point me to a source for that? I don't really know where/how to follow company finances like that

Why do we set our sights so low? Delta or bust on the buyout!

srsly, if we are gonna get bought out, I hope it's a step up and not back half a step like B6 or NK.

Tell me you are joking. We just paid cash for the biggest turd in the industry. We obviously only buy crap. Every pilot from the “hired land” of Alaska walked back a mile when we bought VX and now your worried about one step back.
Delta buy us, right wake up dude that ship sailed 4 years ago.
Sun country
Frontier
Spirit
Hawaiian
JetBlue
In that order, but nothing anytime soon. It takes a while at the dinner table to choke down a turd.

Biggest turd? If VX was the biggest turd, then why pay so much to keep B6 and DL from grabbing them?

Because if we let B6 buy VX, DA would have bought AS and then BT and BM would have been on the street looking for work. You see it was the perfect sized merger that protected the people that mattered. Never mind it destroyed nearly 4 billion in market capitalization.
Delta played its hand well. It started the auction with no internet to buy and either way they won. Either they got to buy AS or forced AS to buy VX which it knew would screw them up for years to come as they make their push into Seattle.

All these flavors in the world and you choose to be salty. Yes, be mad at the VX pilots and not the wonderful executives in Angle Lake. Lolz

https://media.giphy.com/media/l4Jz3a...UlWM/giphy.gif

I am not mad at any VX pilot, they are just pilots. It doesn’t change the fact that the company they worked for was a piece of crap. That’s not their fault they were just trying to pay the bills, I get that.

Hey man, we are all entitled to our own opinions. I would like it if we can come together and be ready for 2020 and get a nice, solid contract (with scope!!), we are all on the same boat now. We are just pawns in this intricate chess game. Might as well be a united group of pawns and work towards the best we can.

Anyways, I'm off to play fornite. Have a good night!

My opinion is there will be no uniting these two pilot groups. You will have “Alaska Built” and “Alaska Bought” for many years to come. There will be no unity, the VX side fails to acknowledge their windfall. They were never more then corporate pilots unsure if their next check would even come. Thanks to BM on the advice of JK, the VX group honestly believes they were needed, they saved AS from certain peril. They wine and complain about everything. They are like a giant cancer devouring ones body. In their own narcissistic world it is only about them, for they truly are the best, most beautiful, and brightest pilots in the world. There will be no contract in 2020 nor 2021 nor 2022 nor 2023 and finally there will be another merger in 2024. In the end their selfishness will cost us all.

its impossible to acknowledge what isn't real..and a windfall isn't real in this situation. You're company is garbage fueled by propaganda.

My garbage company was actually fueled by cold hard cash, something novel to you I am sure since yours was only fueled by debt. Alaska without question had the best balance sheets in our industry until it paid cash for your company... The company that without question had the worst balance sheets in our industry. You clearly do not have a background in finance only entitlements.

Wow. I’m not even sure Snap-on can build a big enough “tool” box for you.