How long can Alaska survive?
 

So I've been reading about the air group, picking up pieces of information here and there and decided to ask what you guys think of it.

It seems to me Alaska has been losing space in the market. Slowly and steadily, it feels they're getting squeezed even at home.
Southwest is pushing hard for Hawaii and Delta takes a big chunk of Seattle, it feels they have nowhere to go.
On top of the lack of space to grow, in their SEC filings of February, if I'm not mistaken, they pretty much said they don't know what to do with most of the things they bought from virgin, as well as some of the personnel, which makes us wonder why they bought them in first place.
I wonder how AS will remain competitive with so little room to grow and with competitors like Delta and Southwest.
Would it be crazy to think AS will eventually be bought out?

I'd worry more about being squeezed out than bought out. Alaska could survive if it retreats to the State of Alaska and back to the West Coast. That would require shrinking the airline back to pre-Virgin size.

It almost seems like they are doing that. Breaking up and getting rid of parts of VX they just bought, probably at a premium to their actual value. And even for Horizon, the transition back to jets hasn't gone well. Huge disconnect between aircraft and aircrew availability and Horizon vs Skywest codeshare flying. It's almost like they are banking crews against a huge future expansion at Horizon while at the same time they are limiting growth or scaling back at mainline.

A lot of Alaska pilots complain that AAG acts like a huge regional. Maybe that's the plan - cut back mainline flying and just become a huge regional? Who knows? Right now they are just giving away money to guys on reserve at Horizon that do embarrassingly little flying. Not efficient, not economical, and not good for those pilots career progression either when you struggle to make consolidation in four months.

Either there's something really Machiavellian going on and the Angle Lake Mafiosi are outsmarting everybody, or they are incredibly inept. It doesn't seem like there is a middle ground between those two possibilities.

I guess time will tell.

Not long. In this climate they either need to grow or it will be a slow death.. hopefully a buyout instead

I want to trust they have a strategy behind their decisions, but it's becoming hard to believe that when you see what they're doing with virgin.

To me it's just a matter of time until offers start coming in.

Do you know what it takes to pull off a 50% fleet replacement, or to bring on a new aircraft, or expand an airline during a pilot shortage or hiring for planned attrition?? You don't. Please stop pretending. Stop. Your lack of informed opinion on these boards is getting old.

Watching many other airlines do it with ease. Horizon approaches everything they do by first figuring out how to screw their employees. Second, how to make the employees happy about being screwed and third, see step one....They have no time and very little talent leftover to run an airline....

Yep, they just announced hiring another union buster as "Managing Director of People and Labor Relations", she will report directly to Gary.

It is safe to say something big is about to go down. Mrs Abidoye is an expensive big gun from Ford Harrison and has quite a highlight reel. Mgmt already has the Teamsters over a barrel with the new concessionary contract and the F/A union poses no real threat. As for day to day negotiations, the company knows you don’t need a expensive pit bull like Mrs Abidoye to win a chawauwau fight. Just a bigger chawauwau. My guess is the big news will drop in January.

In my opinion, our current group of Horizon "leaders" have got to be some of the least ethical and honest managers in Horizon history. Here's a short list of what they've accomplished in the last year:

(1) Forced the pilot union to sue the company to gain information on jet deliveries. As expected, some of the jets ended up at SkyWest.

(2) Forced individual pilots and the union to file multiple grievances for contract violations. In some cases, the company has delayed implementing sections of our 2017 CBA ("this stuff takes time, ya know...").

(3) Wasted a lot of time on the part of our union volunteers. The union and company will meet and agree to work up a Letter of Understanding (say, on fatigue). A few weeks later? The company backs out or wants to cherry-pick the agreement.

It's typical union-busting 101: Stall, stall, delay, waste peoples' time.

In addition to violating our contract, the company now seems to be hell-bent on abusing our safety programs. It appears that Hornibrook wants to use the FOQA program to go after individual pilots. I'm also concerned about the use (or abuse) of irregularity reports. The company has claimed that they will never be used for disciplinary action, but it now appears that management is automatically forwarding them to the FAA.

Finally, hiring a new Director of Labor Relations from Ford and Harrison is a clear indicator of where the company is going from the standpoint of labor relations. If you work here, watch your back.