I am neither a good reporter, nor prognosticator

walterh April 3, 2014
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So I recently had some questions and posited some opinions in the Alaska vs. Delta frenemies shuffle that’s been going on the last few months – and I got some stuff wrong.  But not only that, I got some prognostication wrong as well.  So now I’m here to hopefully fix all that.

First thing is, Alaska has a good presence of people, all wearing Alaska clothing and manning the D8 gate at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.  But just because they’re in Alaska clothing doesn’t mean anything.  I talked to one of the people that seemed to be in charge there as we were boarding the ATL-PDX flight, and she said that besides her, everyone else was outsourced.  They may look like Alaska employees, but they gate people are just as outsourced as the people handing the ground operations (tug, pushback, etc).  Well that sucks!

Not only that, but Alaska just recently announced that they are going to nix the Atlanta to Portland routes – I’m assuming because of load factor issues.  I normally travel on busier days – days where business travelers are out in full force (Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays), and the plane seems to be mostly full.  But I’ve taken the flight on a Tuesday where there are a good 50 empty seats in the back of the plane – not good if you want to keep a route profitable.  And obviously the route isn’t because Alaska just announced – in the small print when they said they were going to add SEA->BWI and SEA->ABQ to the route map – that they were discontinuing four city pairs, including ATL->PDX.

SUCKS!

Okay, so maybe it doesn’t suck for you.  But as someone who is on PDX->ATL on an almost weekly basis, it’s really going to suck for me.  At least I think it’s going to suck; the Atlanta employee said that they were lobbying to try and keep the flight.  I hope Alaska at least keeps the dual round trip frequency in Atlanta, even if they don’t keep it from Portland (the previous frequency was two round trips daily, one morning flight and one redeye).  Whatever the case, I’m going to have to start looking for more options when it comes to my weekly travel.

So there we have it.  A bit mea culpa from me.  But then again, if you’re relying on me to be the standard bearer of news, I’ll be laughing over in the corner.  ::grin::  I’m not bad – I just write that way.

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Who will make the next move in the Alaska Airlines vs Delta frenemies shuffle?

walterh March 25, 2014
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So there’s been a bunch of new developments along the lines of Alaska Airlines and their partner Delta.  When Delta started expanding into Alaska’s territories, things got bad.  Alaska started to retaliate, with some pretty bold moves into Salt Lake City, going from service just from Seattle to nearly every big airport in the West.  And just this morning, Today in the Sky is reporting that Alaska is offering double miles on British Airways flights between Seattle and London – while Delta starts that same route in a few days.

Delta and Alaska terminated their agreement for Delta to handle their ground operations in airports where Alaska isn’t as prominent, like Atlanta, Boston, and the like.  And what was Delta’s reaction?  They were all, “Fine!  I didn’t want to help out anyway.  Let’s terminate this thing early!”  And in Atlanta, they did just that.  Starting 2 weeks ago, Alaska has hired their own people to run the Alaska gate (moved to D8 from D14, though Atlanta airport still gets it wrong on the readerboards), and – I believe – Menzies to run ground operations.

But here’s the curious thing…  Why did Alaska hire their own people for two incoming and two outgoing flights per day in Atlanta?  Wouldn’t it be cheaper if they outsourced it?

Not if they’re going to increase flights to and from Atlanta!

I’m predicting that, like Salt Lake City, Alaska Airlines is going to ramp up their Atlanta flights, especially from Alaska stronghold markets like Boise, San Jose, and the like.  It just makes sense for them; they’re still keeping their partnership with Delta, and feeding passengers to Delta continuing flights, but they’re also making sure that they’re going to stay dominant in the airports that they count as strongholds.

Not sure if I’m right or wrong, but history will tell us.  But thing is, it just makes sense…

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My first prediction: There will be blood!

walterh June 27, 2012
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So it turns out that Delta is trying out a self-boarding process in Las Vegas and Atlanta.  I don’t know how the damn thing works, but it’s to “free up the boarding agents to deal with passengers other issues”.

Translation: We can fire more people and make more money.

This is gonna be ugly, I bet.  And as I said, there’s going to be blood – somehow, somewhere.  People are going to board out of order, take on a dozen carryons, etc, and this whole system will just gum up the works even more.

Automation is good.  Just not this kind of automation.

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