Originally Posted by 9mikemike

Outlook for clear skies and smooth sailing. No merger anywhere in the forecast. Amen. Alaska will continue to do what they have always done. It works, they are comfortable with it and it is durable. Returning to single fleet is like hiring 500 pilots. Competing in a volatile furl market with only NEO/MAX creates higher profitability than flights flown…More pilots not needed. 190 seats instead of 150 seats is again many pilots not needed. The ability to profitably throttle expansion back to idle and coast is exceptionally durable. Alaska does not need or want to ever do any East coast flying or East coast to mid con flying….They do not want or need to have a hub off of the West coast. They make staggering profits of the CC program…Profitability that requires no pilots or airplanes. The cost for another airline to attempt a hostile take over is far beyond the value they would gain. Seattle is not that important to anyones operation except Alaskas. The four Major airlines in the country are not interested in the merger game. JetBlue does not have the horsepower to attempt a merger and Alaska has zero interest in them or their type of operation. Spirit/Frontier will be years in the process of cleaning up the mess they have created. Sun Country-not a chance. It brings nothing….Hawaiian-not a chance. Alaska has no use for what they are. And no desire to again spend hundreds of millions getting rid of an entire Airline worth of airplanes…..
If anyone at Alaska is foolish enough to be hanging on hoping for a mythical merjer….Sad times ahead for them.

Originally Posted by 9mikemike

Outlook for clear skies and smooth sailing. No merger anywhere in the forecast. Amen. Alaska will continue to do what they have always done. It works, they are comfortable with it and it is durable. Returning to single fleet is like hiring 500 pilots. Competing in a volatile furl market with only NEO/MAX creates higher profitability than flights flown…More pilots not needed. 190 seats instead of 150 seats is again many pilots not needed. The ability to profitably throttle expansion back to idle and coast is exceptionally durable. Alaska does not need or want to ever do any East coast flying or East coast to mid con flying….They do not want or need to have a hub off of the West coast. They make staggering profits of the CC program…Profitability that requires no pilots or airplanes. The cost for another airline to attempt a hostile take over is far beyond the value they would gain. Seattle is not that important to anyones operation except Alaskas. The four Major airlines in the country are not interested in the merger game. JetBlue does not have the horsepower to attempt a merger and Alaska has zero interest in them or their type of operation. Spirit/Frontier will be years in the process of cleaning up the mess they have created. Sun Country-not a chance. It brings nothing….Hawaiian-not a chance. Alaska has no use for what they are. And no desire to again spend hundreds of millions getting rid of an entire Airline worth of airplanes…..
If anyone at Alaska is foolish enough to be hanging on hoping for a mythical merjer….Sad times ahead for them.

Originally Posted by 9mikemike

Outlook for clear skies and smooth sailing. No merger anywhere in the forecast. Amen. Alaska will continue to do what they have always done. It works, they are comfortable with it and it is durable. Returning to single fleet is like hiring 500 pilots. Competing in a volatile furl market with only NEO/MAX creates higher profitability than flights flown…More pilots not needed. 190 seats instead of 150 seats is again many pilots not needed. The ability to profitably throttle expansion back to idle and coast is exceptionally durable. Alaska does not need or want to ever do any East coast flying or East coast to mid con flying….They do not want or need to have a hub off of the West coast. They make staggering profits of the CC program…Profitability that requires no pilots or airplanes. The cost for another airline to attempt a hostile take over is far beyond the value they would gain. Seattle is not that important to anyones operation except Alaskas. The four Major airlines in the country are not interested in the merger game. JetBlue does not have the horsepower to attempt a merger and Alaska has zero interest in them or their type of operation. Spirit/Frontier will be years in the process of cleaning up the mess they have created. Sun Country-not a chance. It brings nothing….Hawaiian-not a chance. Alaska has no use for what they are. And no desire to again spend hundreds of millions getting rid of an entire Airline worth of airplanes…..
If anyone at Alaska is foolish enough to be hanging on hoping for a mythical merjer….Sad times ahead for them.

Originally Posted by ShyGuy

I think people got riled up about mergers because of the Spirit/Frontier announcement. It's the aviation industry and of course anything goes, but IMO (not worth much) I don't see an AS merger anytime soon.

Originally Posted by nene

Reminds me of a Poli sci professor asking the class how many think that the US will be here forever (or at least till the end of humankind).....almost everyone raises their hand, then he shows a chart basically showing that 98% of the known "nations" of the world that have ever existed, cease to exist. How many Romans thought they had the world by the shorthairs? Everything has a first and last time.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

US will likely be around in some form (perhaps by another name) for a very long time. We have vast resources and very wide moats... and they'll seem even wider when your naval forces are getting picked off by attack submarines. If push comes to shove, imagine what a resistance/insurgent movement would look like in the inter-mountain west, deep south, Texas, etc That has held true through the revolutionary war, civil war, both world wars, and the cold war. Closest we came was brits trying again in 1812.... unless you count Hitler's attempt to talk Mexico into invading the US


Same reason Iranian people and society have existed continuously for millennia... hard to dig them out from behind the Zagros mountains. North America, even more so.

The Roman Empire actually existed in some form, name at least, until the late 18th century... it actually slightly overlapped the foundation of the USA.

Originally Posted by ShyGuy

I think people got riled up about mergers because of the Spirit/Frontier announcement. It's the aviation industry and of course anything goes, but IMO (not worth much) I don't see an AS merger anytime soon.