That falls under "parochial emotional investment".

Alaska’s attempt to aggressively take on Southwest in California a couple of years ago was about as dumb of a management decision as they come . There was no way WN was going to let that happen and the results, along with their bad purchase decision of VX, will put them in a world of hurt with California and Hawaii when COVID comes to an end.

Alaska blew the merger on day 1 when they kept the Alaska brand. Then they alienated the high yield California people by killing everything those people flew Virgin for. You can't keep California with a PNW strategy, the people are just too different.

If they find themselves in a long-term "shrink to success" model, ceding to SW in CA and who knows who in the PNW, then the management team will have get out of their PNW shell. Or the board will find someone who will, probably someone who already has an airline and has a bigger picture outlook.

But COVID might actually afford an opportunity, if the big three are flailing badly enough.

Assuming Hawaii stops dithering in August...

I haven’t seen any indication that the board is anything but enamored with Brad and Ben though. They seem to be just as happy staying close to their regional roots as well.

As long as it works. If they get pushed out of CA and have another enemy inside their fortress walls, it will be time to rethink. I doubt the board will go along with retreat to success, it's been tried and has never worked with airlines, and everybody knows that now. B&B are on the board... they might try to stick to their paradigm as long as they aren't getting their lunch eaten but at some point they're not stupid by any means. If confronted with an existential threat, I'm sure they'll do something.

Good points...hope you’re right. Past performance and their current knee-jerk reactions don’t exactly inspire confidence ha

Exactly.
I'm sure they would have preferred not to have bought VX when they did, for the price they did, but the ramifications of JB or another carrier doing so, was just a little too close for comfort.

I hated the VX acquisition from day one and wish it never would have taken place. Having said that...they should have resurrected the Jet America name. Pretty sure Alaska still owns the rights to the name. It encompasses the whole country (instead of just one state) and would have been a nice nod to Virgin America (and a middle finger to Sir Richard).