Articles tagged “alaska airlines”

Now that the regulatory and legal hurdles are out of the way, Alaska is free to gobble up Virgin America. But what will be left behind?

It's not likely Alaska Airlines would have lost in court, but this case was still a nuisance, so it makes sense that the company resolved it. Now, Alaska can finally focus on absorbing Virgin America.

The Department of Justice has an odd relationship with airlines. It seems to enjoy grabbing headlines about how it's doing its job to protect industry competition. But when it comes time to actually getting airlines to make real concessions, it falls short.

Alaska is changing its loyalty program to add revenue considerations to its upgrade process. Beyond the immediate impact, that move may foreshadow a dark future for its loyalty program.

If Virgin America was not expected to merge with Alaska Airlines, analysts likely would fret about Virgin America's falling unit revenue. But since Virgin America is now in limbo, waiting to see if it can close its merger, it's not clear how much the unit revenue decrease matters.

The important stuff is happening in Washington, D.C. where the Department of Justice is considering whether it will seek to block the Alaska Airlines/Virgin America merger. This is more of a minor hiccup, but it's undoubtedly annoying for the two airlines.

There's been some drama related to Alaska's proposed acquisition of Virgin America, but many industry insiders still expect the deal to get done. And Alaska executives remain publicly confident that they will get their prize. The big question is when.

JetBlue is surprisingly feisty in this filing, considering airlines ask for and receive extensions all the time. But Alaska is a major competitor of JetBlue's, so maybe that explains it.

There's a bit of blaming the victim (the consumer) in these words. Few in the airline industry think carriers have solved their technology woes, so passengers can expect intermittent outages to continue for the foreseeable future.

Delta is once more doubling down in its campaign to woo Seattle customers.