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Alaska Air Acquires Virgin America
- JamilD 10y agoPrevious discussion, when the merger was initially announced, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11421894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11421894
- cylinder 10y agoSomething similar to the Branson foreign ownership issue: Rupert Murdoch had to give up his Australian citizenship to be allowed to own US television stations.
- CodeSheikh 10y agoSo the merger made this new "entity" 5th largest airline in the U.S. after AA, Delta, United, JetBlue, Southwest. I guess it is considered an achievement for some.
- freyr 10y agoWouldn't that make it 6th?
- olegkikin 10y agoReal programmers count from zero.
- CodeSheikh 10y agoOh I didn't put that list in any order :) I am not sure if JetBlue is bigger than SW or vice versa.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- freyr 10y agoI meant you listed five airlines bigger than Virgin/Alaskan, which would make it 6th.
- the-dude 10y agoIf you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline ( Richard Branson )
- throwme395 10y agoViresh Sita (cio alaska air) gave an awesome talk this year ar Chef Conf https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mGJkhuRlvTo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mGJkhuRlvTo
- xenadu02 10y agoNow everything Virgin America will get much worse. Time to find a new miles credit card I guess.
- SmellTheGlove 10y agoNot necessarily. Alaska's onboard product is dated, but my experience has been excellent customer service on the ground, and friendly crews in the air. Something I recently learned - Alaska's flight attendant contract has the lowest duty period in the industry (10.5 hours a day), and in general has better terms than the legacies. I didn't know that until a couple of weeks ago when I read it in a Flyertalk thread, but I wasn't surprised given that Alaska FAs seem happier than their legacy counterparts. VX has that same solid core customer service.
- johansch 10y agoThis was my first reaction. This seems like a weird marriage. Virgin America is one of the western world's most innovative regional carriers (along with Norwegian, IMHO), and Alaska Air, from my experience, is kind of the opposite.
- adrr 10y agoFly both airlines. Not sure how you say Alaska isn't innovative. They have Wifi and outlets on every plane i've flown. Also have paperless tickets. These are the innovations business travelers want. Other airlines its hit or miss.
- johansch 10y agoI did fly both airlines, a couple of times each. (I don't normally fly many domestic american flights, but somehow I managed to fly with both of these...) Paperless tickets.. really? That's so 10 (20?) years ago.
- adrr 10y agoWhoops, meant paperless boarding passes via your phone which came on to the scene in 2010.
- yladiz 10y agoAnnoyingly, though, the two companies still don't talk when it comes to reservations. Recently I missed a flight from Portland, and since it was very close to the time the flight left they rebooked me on another flight. I asked both the Virgin and Alaska desks if I could get a flight on Alaska since it was earlier than the next Virgin flight (the next morning) but they don't communicate in that way and couldn't transfer it. They also said it'll be a year or two before the two systems merge to allow such a thing. However, besides that slight inconvenience (which would rarely matter anyway) both of the company's customer services are great. Alaska is always great, on and off board, and Virgin is a pleasure to fly with because of their newer planes amongst other things. Hopefully the merger makes them both better than the already good level they are.