No. Not sure what part of what I wrote would imply that. Way more important to be honest about what Alaska is and is not….Alaska egos have cost us 75 million in unnecessary training costs. Cheerleading will only cost us another 75 million. You don't know it but Alaska is a good fit for a very specific demographic. At 24 plus years it has been a good fit for me. It clearly is a good fit for you. Try honesty, it may help save us from throwing away another 75-100 million just to stroke our egos….

 

Are you a Bay Area local? I’ve seen a major uptick in marketing here in SFO and SJC. (As cringey as the stupid care bear may be it’s still marketing). Try to be more honest dude.

 

Seattle is by far the largest base but the other bases combined are larger than Seattle. A little more than an evening parking lot.

 

Honesty is good….I will revise from zero to 0.00000001245.
It is a point that has been made frequently in my 24 years by Alaska marketing…We are a Seattle company with Seattle customers.
When all the genius pilot airline execs go on about all the ways we should grow and all the bases we should have they neglect to consider that none of that is possible without O&D traffic. We simply are unknown west of Seattle and east of Spokane…Breeze and Avelo are approaching greater name recognition than Alaska…A tidbit from marketing that I found disturbing to say the least

 

When I was hired it APPEARED that Alaska wanted to expand their brand beyond PNW to the lower 48. Base at JFK, bought a company with greater national name recognition than Alaska, going into Deep South cities like ATL, CLT, BNA, MSY, etc. Then came “Most West Coast” circa 2018. Because I didn’t see any marketing in these areas, I posted on the Water Cooler, “Are yall gonna tell people in these cities who you are so they’ll fly on Alaska instead of say Delta?” The response was literally “We have limited marketing funds and we’re using those funds to pursue the Cali market.” In effect.. “No”. And then when they got REAL nervous about Delta marching on SEA, they abandoned Cali and routed everything they could to SEA. Now, years later, after shutting down JFK as a base, throttling back LAX - HI routes, dropping. SFO - BNA, and LAX - JFK… we have “Most West Coast 2.0” SAN - JFK redeyes, and I noticed SEA - BNA redeyes.

And again, most pointing this out aren’t complaining. It’s a good job at a good company. But plans voiced by a recruiter to a potential new hire have decent chance of drastically changing before they finish a cup of coffee. So, if one is being honest with a recruit, it’s best to let them know that the only thing reliably stable at Alaska is SEA and change. EVERYTHING else is optional, changeable, and/or can be farmed out to OneWorld

 

Too little too late. They lost the large part of the pie in the bay area that they overpaid for. That local and corporate contract market went to United years ago. They aint coming back.

 

The discussion was about whether or not there was marketing in the bay. Not about the effectiveness of it. But continue on with the waxing of angry poetic, it’s amusing.

 

Seriously?

The industry changed since 2016. The pandemic didn’t help. But since you’re on this topic, how about you do one for VX? Toronto? Gone. Not enough planes, need to start Dallas instead. ANC? Didn’t work out. When I was hired start of 2012: “plenty of growth coming, 30 new NEOs and 30 320NEOs. About 8 months later, “internal restructuring” which killed our 30 order of ceo to 10, and pushed the 30 NEO orders much further into the future (re: never). In my entire time we got those 10 Buses and then finally managed to lease (at horrendous rates) 10 321NEOs. Those were plagued with engine issues and limited from ETOPs. Going back to that restructuring late 2012, they basically took ~15% of employee holdings and converted it to about 1%. When we IPOed, as a FO I think I got about 1,300 after taxes. Something should have been 15x higher.


It’s an over-used statement, but the only constant is change. So what if AS planned a big most west coast push but then changed with the pandemic? I, for one, hope to be at a company that can last through to 65, paychecks coming strong, and not have to have a hard career reset in the 40-50s age range that so many VXers had to in the post 9/11 world where dozen+ airlines went out of business. Skybus, Aloha, Midwest, ATA, etc.


I have no problem what they decide it takes to make money and compete. They seem to do a good job of it.


I recall seeing an article when then pandemic was starting, around March 2020. It was about how long airlines could survive with 0 govt help, and 0 revenue environment with full 100% costs still going out the door. Part of it was also owning your own airplanes that could be leveraged. More debt obviously hurt.

Result:

American was shortest at 5 days. Delta was about a year, I think. But two airlines were 15 months: Southwest and Alaska.

 

Outdated cynical thinking.

Airlines are too big to fail now. And the government can't appear to play favorites. The culling that occurred post-deregulation was exactly that... a culling. Now the herd is lean and healthy.

The days of bloodletting may not be completely over, but the days of total collapse most certainly are.

 

Mostly. Big four are too big to fail, baring something like a very protracted black swan.

AS and B6 are probably too big to fail. Mostly.