News flash. SWA's entrance into Hawaii was mainly driven by west coast travelers and California pax in particular.

Douche Machine and some Maryland newspaper hardly count as credible insight into SWAs reasoning for its Hawaii schedule.

Obviously. It illustrates that SWA still sees itself as a point to point operation as opposed to a network or hub and spoke operator.

Oh you saw that ridiculously good Chase Rapid Reward CC offer, almost giving Companion Pass away? Where do you think we want to pull those NEW card members from?

Filling up the plane with point redemptions is exactly what they want to do...those points weren’t given away for free!

please stop bringing logic into this discussion

Laugh all you want, historically Alaska has done extremely well competing head to head with Southwest. This is so true that if Alaska could pick its competitor, every time we would ask for Southwest. So laugh all you want but check back in 2025. Don’t get me wrong I am confident there is plenty of room for both Alaska and Southwest in the islands.

Yes, back in 20012. SWA bought 28 ETOPS 800s with plans to start Hawaii service. They didn't get very far.

Wasn't this due to the fact that their first attempt at ETOPS certification was a failure?

They never applied for ETOPS. Yes they had issues with class 2 navigation which is on them for not being prepared, but they decided to deploy the aircraft on other revenue streams versus Hawaii for revenue reasons. It was not because they were denied an ETOPS certificate.

I think you're getting your butts kicked pretty hard in California, and that's including those pesky little planes that are being allowed to fly for you with your scope, or lack thereof.

Over the past few quarters, Alaska Airlines has rethought its growth plans in light of its subpar results. One key takeaway is that the carrier's late-2018 and 2019 growth will be centered on the Seattle region, where Alaska is the leading airline. By contrast, it grew rapidly in California in 2017 and early 2018, sparking a damaging fare war with Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV).

Alaska Airlines has already eliminated numerous underperforming routes from California this year and reduced capacity on others. A few more routes will be cut between now and early 2019.

I haven’t seen much in the way of cutting flying. I have seen a planned increase in service out of SAN and a transfer of flying from those pesky little planes to mainline a/c is apparently happening this summer. Those look like old articles. Do you have any current info/numbers to support your claim?