As of a discussion yesterday, I believe SWA has finished the work for their ETOPS program.

Needs FAA blessing and then they are free to start Hawaii.

No need to buy AS for the ETOPS now.

 

Or Delta pushes the city of Seattle to allow SWA to move to Paine Field freeing up the gates at SeaTac. SWA wants to go there and we get gates.

 

Any Paine Field flying has little to do with what the city of Seattle wants and much more to do with lawsuits by cities surrounding Paine Field. Service from that airport has been mentioned for more than 15 years and still nothing. Wouldn't hold my breath.

 

SWA will not fly to HI until the max in 2017.

DL can extend the terminal to get at least 5 more gates. 150 flights a day with how many International? Sounds doable.

300. You need a whole new terminal unless you take over AK gates.

 

Then why did they spend all that money on those ETOPS 800s? (and no, you don't need ETOPS for anywhere in the Caribbean/central america/south america)

 

They got ahead of themselves with ETOPS. They never tracked their engine use/wear/reliability to the extent the FAA requires to get ETOPS approved. I believe they are doing that now but the FAA guy on my jumpseat said they are still not ready for prime time. There're still not selling tickets and I haven't heard them on HF doing proving runs in quite a while. I guess we will know soon enough.

 

Possibly the same way SWA is trying to take over the C gates in DEN to plus up its hub there.

 

OK I received some clarification. Alaska put out a memo to their employees that said Delta would have 300 flights by 2017. The VP of Planning and Revenue Management, soon after, clarified the numbers.

Apparently the "300 flights by 2017" was also talking about flights going from SEA to LAX and then LAX to SEA as those are equally damaging to Alaska Air Group as increased SEA departures alone. They were playing up the numbers on their side to let the employees know the threat is real and to increase levels of customer service as a way to fight back.

That said, Delta will still have equal to or more mainline flying out of SEA as Alaska by the end of 2016 if the current plan is executed. Since we have not heard of any new categories being added to SEA for this summer we must assume 737's will flow in and out along with some 757 (ie Juneau) to cover the increase. More flying running up to 2017, still leaves question marks. It would be interesting to find out if a new category is in the works as that would radically change the landscape for pilots based in the PNW (ie SEA based senior FO's might elect to take a narrowbody captain position opening more total slots for those looking to be based in SEA).

 

My bet would be 717 or 737. They will either go for the smaller airframe and focus on regional type feed to SEA or go with the airplane that can hit every city in the U.S from SEA (although they can do that now with the ER). 320 isn't good from there for East coast flying. My bet is that if we ever see a 717 West coast base it will be a 717.

 

They were thinking of going to HI but after they bought the ETOPS aircraft they decided to wait for the Max. Waste of $$. SWA management does things that are not bright sometimes, just like the rest of the industry.

One other thing to consider. SWA has pulled back in the NW after not doing so well. It will be interesting to see if the AK freq flyers are still loyal to AK with the Delta option.