The glass houses remark was spot on. AAL produced 14.9B in revenue—Alaska 3.3B. Alaska holds 7B in debt and nearly matches AALs revenue to debt ratio.

Alaska held .68B at the end of 2015. 10 years later after 2 acquisitions (something American also went through) you’ve 10X your total debt—.68B to 6.9B.

FYI at the end of 2021 AAL held 46B in debt with a mainline fleet of 865 mainline A/C. Today 35B with a total fleet of 1,025. That equates to a 30% reduction in debt while simultaneously growing the total fleet by 20%.

Also, both United and Delta have been aggressively growing in the PNW by adding more available seats in SEA/SFO—Alaska’s highest revenue producing hubs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alaska eventually found themselves in the same position as JetBlue.

 

they didn’t make a Q1 profit I said they paid down debt in Q1 and if fuel stays at 4.75 for Singapore fuel which all the HA side uses and 4.55 for west coast fuel we will not make money, past performance doesn’t predict future results

there’s a very real chance we don’t make money this year Shane in the Q1 investor call said fuel could be 1 billion dollar expense this year that’s almost have of all of last year revenue just in 1 added expense. Im not saying sky is falling and furloughs im measly saying in our geographic region fuel is almost a dollar more than our competitors so there’s a good chance we will not make money will the other big three and Southwest will. I like working here. I like Alaska this it’s just an objective truth. We pay more for gas on the West Coast and it hurts our bottom line in our competitors have the competitive advantage of not paying for West Coast in Singapore fuel.

 

I disagree about the Pacific Northwest. Alaska is really built up Portland now and if you look at the seat seats in Seattle from 2015 to now, Delta stayed at about 20% and we’ve grown to just under 60%, including horizon Skywest in Alaska the Pacific Northwest is definitely the moat.

JetBlue’s in a bad spot cause they never had a fortress hub they’re under yield pressure in Boston and JFK and we’re competing with spirit in Fort Lauderdale, although that may become their biggest moat if spirit folds. Seattle, it does seem like Alaska. Has lockdown due to Delta being unable to grow seat share since 2015. During Covid, the door was wide open in Portland, but we just got lucky that Delta never made a play for Portland and that we’ve built it up in our now parking planes at the D gates in Portland, but Portland pure luck that Delta stayed out during the five years after Covid, where it was not built up

 

Correct. Alaska has proven brand loyalty in Seattle. If they achieve the same in Portland it is a very significant moat.

 

I'd say it's been achieved in PDX for a while, don't see a whole lot of any other airline there.

SAN too, but it's split about 50/50 with SWA.

 

yes but that’s why they pulled planes from sfo and lax can’t compete with United in sfo and lax but they know their product does well against swa hence the blitz in San to gain that market

 

These numbers are wildly inaccurate or seem to be disingenuous. Not that I care or have any dog in this glass houses fight.

But applying the logic I think you are, to get to that 7 billion debt number (lease obligations,uetr, etc.) Americans debt or total obligations would be closer to the 45 to 50 billion dollar debt range.

Either way you slice it AAs net debt to EBITDA ratio is worse than Alaska’s. Americans is roughly 4 while Alaska's is at about 3. Saying Alaska balance sheet is the same as AAs isn’t accurate.