Skift Take
Alaska Airlines has always taken customer experience more seriously than other carriers, but historically, that's been easier, since Alaska has been smaller than its competitors. It's good to see Alaska still placing a major emphasis on customer satisfaction after its Virgin American acquisition.
Earlier this month, in a bid to boost revenues, Alaska Airlines said it will cancel some Virgin America flights from Dallas Love Field over the next year, replacing them with smaller jets operated by SkyWest Airlines under Alaska's brand.
It was a move Alaska, which finalized its acquisition of Virgin America in December, said it had to make. Virgin America's flights to New York, Washington, D.C, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have been losing money, both because of stiff competition from Southwest Airlines, and because the carrier was using Airbus A320s with too many seats. Changing from 149-seat jets to 76-seat Embraer E175s on many New York and Washington-bound flights should help profitability, Alaska executives said.
Merging airlines swap aircraft often, and usually executives don't worry whether passengers will mind flying on another airline owned by the same company. But Alaska wants to retain as much of Virgin America's loyal customer base as possible, so it tried something unusual — it had reservations agents contact affected customers. Passengers booked in the first class even got their ticket costs refunded, but were permitted to stay
