Archive for the 'Alaska' CategoryPage 2 of 4

Alaska Announces Bellingham-Honolulu

Published
by
Dan Webb
on August 3, 2010
in Alaska and Allegiant
. 12 Comments

Yesterday, Alaska announced that the carrier is set to launch daily service from Bellingham to Honolulu with 737-800s.

The first word that popped into my head was “Allegiant.” And I’m sure many others had the exact same thought – this announcement could be a preemptive move in response to Allegiant’s plan to enter the Hawaiian market. It does seem logical that Alaska would want to protect its Hawai’i operations from the Pacific Northwest that have been significantly built up over the past few years.

Of course, Allegiant hasn’t announced any Hawaiian routes yet, but that’s just my read on this one. Alaska’s listing of all the amenities included in the fare – like online reservations – seems like a direct shot at Allegiant. And Alaska hasn’t been afraid to go head-to-head with Allegiant in the past. More importantly, Allegiant has expressed interest in Bellingham already, if we look at this summary of a presentation given by an Allegiant executive.

Regardless of if this is a preemptive move against Allegiant or not, I’m not sure how well this one will work. That Allegiant presentation contains Hawai’i Tourism Authority data that estimates 11,271 visitors came from the Bellingham area in 2009. That comes out to about 216 travelers per week. That number makes the market appear to be a perfect fit for Allegiant’s potential non-daily service. I really do wonder if Alaska’s slated 1,099 weekly seats are a bit excessive.

Of course, the existence of a nonstop could help boost demand, but I’m just wondering if Alaska’s being a bit heavy-handed here to fend off Allegiant.

Either way, if this is truly Alaska expressing concern about Allegiant, then we’re in for an exciting few months as Allegiant continues to prepare  for its Hawai’i service.

EDIT: As has been pointed out to me in the comments, I am neglecting the possibility of Vancouver metro residents making the drive down and adding more passengers. It’s a fair point. Right now Air Canada and WestJet are each flying to Honolulu nonstop from there, with 767-300s and 737-800s, respectively. I’d be interested in knowing how much of Alaska’s and Allegiant’s Vegas traffic comes from Canada. Despite that factor I still find the move a bit on the aggressive side. I’m interested in seeing Alaska’s fares on the route and how they compare to the Canadian competitors.

Alaska Decides to Hop Into St. Louis

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 18, 2010
in Alaska
. 4 Comments

It was very interesting to see Alaska announce yesterday that they would be hopping on the Seattle – St. Louis route late this September. For awhile, it was one of the few routes off-hub routes that American was holding onto as TWA’s hub in St. Louis has been dismantled. But the airline is dumping that in August.

In May, Southwest, who has been building up its focus city operation in STL, decided to give the route a shot. But they’re dropping it as well, though the carrier has said it should probably be coming back next summer.

With no nonstop service left, it seemed to make sense for Alaska to give this one a shot. Besides, they’ve been selling traffic on this route for awhile through a codeshare with American. In fact, yields booking nonstop flights from Seattle to St. Louis through Alaska were 6.56% higher than those who booked through American, for what it’s worth. Perhaps with Alaksa’s brand loyalty in Seattle they think they can make this work.

Speaking of American, Alaska tells me they’d be interesting in having American place their code on the flight but nothing’s been officially set up yet.

On a side note – I wonder how many people on this route are Boeing employees?

Meanwhile, in an attempt to build up loyalty, Southwest just launched a double credit promotion out of St. Louis.

Alaska and Icelandair to Codeshare

Published
by
Dan Webb
on May 6, 2010
in Alaska and Icelandair
. 1 Comment

When Icelandair announced Seattle service a little over a year ago, the airline said it would be working “in cooperation with Alaska Airlines,” but we haven’t heard a thing since. But that’s now changed with Alaska and sister airline Horizon asking the DOT for authorization to codeshare with Icelandair starting on June 1, according to a regulatory filing.

So, how will this work? Well, passengers will fly on Icelandair’s Seattle route (which now has a fifth frequency), and then connect on Alaska/Horizon. The initial destinations are San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego, Las Vegas, Spokane, Anchorage, Vancouver, Calgary, and Victoria. Icelandair mentioned Edmonton and Kelowna in its press release last year, but apparently those aren’t happening (yet). Anyway, a good way for Icelandair to expand its reach in the United States. Back in the mid-90s Icelandair had a partnership with Southwest out of Baltimore, though it was short-lived.

Alaska to Cut Los Angeles – Cancún Service

Published
by
Dan Webb
on March 3, 2010
in Alaska
. 0 Comments

Earlier this week, Alaska notified the DOT that the airline plans to cut service from Los Angeles to Cancún, a flight that Alaska has been operating for years. According to Alaska’s current timetable, the flight is operating six days a week with 737-800 aircraft. Service is slated to end on June 6.

Interestingly enough, on June 9 United’s usual Saturday-only flight goes to daily for the summer. Mexicana is a player on the route as well, and Delta currently has Saturday-only service. So maybe this route just wasn’t working out with so many players. Alaska also mentions that it will continue to place its code on Delta’s flights on this route, so the airline probably thought it could pull its own metal out of the market but still get revenue through its partner. I do wonder if Delta might increase capacity in the market now.

Meanwhile, Alaska will continue serving Cancún on a seasonal basis from Seattle. The carrier also serves a few other Mexican destinations from LAX (Guadalajara, Ixtapa, Loreto, Manzanillo, Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo).

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/as737700/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Alaska Selects…Gogo?

Published
by
Dan Webb
on February 24, 2010
in Alaska
. 5 Comments

This morning, I saw the headline “Alaska Airlines To Offer Gogo Inflight Internet Service” pop into my inbox, and I honestly though it was a mistake! The airline has been testing Row 44′s satellite-based service on a 737-800 for awhile now. Row 44 seemed to make more sense for Alaska than Southwest, the only other American customer, as Gogo is only available over the continental United States, and Alaska has a bunch of flights in, well, Alaska, but the carrier has also developed a significant Hawaiian presence as well.

An Alaska 737-800. These aircraft will be the first to be installed with Gogo.
Photo Credit: Alaska Airlines.

So why go with Aircell? Alaska’s VP of marketing, sales, and customer experiences said in a press release that “their reliable, lower-cost equipment can be installed quickly, allowing Alaska Airlines to introduce Gogo service to our customers as soon as possible.”

There’s a big reason – Aircell installations are cheaper, but they’re also very quick – the company says the equipment can be installed overnight so the air carrier doesn’t lose an revenue. Row 44, however, is more expensive, is more complex to install, and will only be getting started with installations with Southwest later this year. Aircell, however, seems to have installations down to a science.

But what happens to those passengers traveling in Alaska? Well, Gogo “will expand its network” to provide service, but only for “key destinations.” (Which were not listed.) Passengers flying to Hawaii are out of luck, however. But apparently Alaska thinks the benefits of Aircell on the installation side of things more than compensate the greater coverage area that Row 44 offers. (Random thought – are the operational benefits that Aircell have be showing off realized when service is unavailable for chunks of Alaska’s network?) Continue reading ‘Alaska Selects…Gogo?’

United Announces Return to Anchorage

Published
by
Dan Webb
on January 18, 2010
in Alaska, Frontier and United
. 0 Comments

United announced last week that would come back to Anchorage after leaving in 2008. In the past, United flew there year-round with an increase in service during the summer, but in 2007 it said that the city would only be a seasonal destination. A year later, the decision was made to cut all service entirely.

But after a year hiatus, United will come back with the same destinations it had when it left: its Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco hubs. All will have daily service, though Chicago gets an extra frequency on Saturdays. The Saturday-only service to Chicago starts a couple of weeks before the daily flights, and ends a couple of weeks after.

The routes are already flown by other carriers, so for the heck of it, I played around with some online timetables to see the increase in capacity that the new service would be providing:

jan181

Anchorage to O’Hare is interesting, as it is a new route for American this summer as well (like United’s, the service is seasonal). One benefit for American’s new service, is that because of their partnership with Alaska, their new Chicago service carries Alaska’s code.

What I found to be very interesting, however, is the new San Francisco service, just from a scheduling perspective. The Denver and Chicago flights are timed pretty close to those of the competitors, but San Francisco is different. Alaska’s current nonstop service takes place overnight,  while United’s is during the day. That might just be the best way it fit into the schedule, as it appears one 757 flies ORD-ANC-SFO, while another flies SFO-ANC-ORD. I guess I’m wondering if the different timing will give one airline an advantage over the other.

But Anchorage has certainly been getting some nice boosts in service of late. Awhile back US Airways announced seasonal service to Philadelphia, and last week Continental announced seasonal service to Portland.

Special Liveries from Alaksa and Horizon

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 18, 2009
in Alaska and Horizon
. 3 Comments

Alaska Airlines and regional subsidiary Horizon Air each had a special livery unveiled yesterday. Due to my obsession with special paint schemes, I naturally had to blog about them. :D

Alaska is a sponsor of Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno, and as such revealed a specially-painted 737-800, registered N596AS. The Seattle-based carrier is also sponsoring the website followapolo.com, where fans can track Ohno’s Olympic journey.

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Meanwhile, sister airline Horizon unveiled the first (registered N439QX) of two Q400s in a special “Comfortably Greener” livery, which is the airline’s way of touting the environmental benefits of the Q400, such as lower emissions. (Or, to put in in less PR-friendly terms, the Q400 is cheaper to operate compared to other 70-seat RJs, partly because it uses less fuel. So, less emissions is a convenient by-product of cheaper operating costs.)

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Click above to enlarge.

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The second Q400 in this special scheme arrives next month. Horizon is slowly phasing out its CRJ-700 aircraft, and the airline estimates it will be operating a single fleet type by the end of 2013.

Alaska Continues to Grow Hawaii Flights

Published
by
Dan Webb
on November 11, 2009
in Alaska
. 0 Comments

This week, Alaska has launched new service to Maui and Kona from Oakland, and yesterday the Seattle-based carrier announced a couple additional Hawaiian flights.

nov11

Photo credit: Chris Weyer. Used with permission.

On March 11, Alaska will begin service from San Jose to Maui (three times a week), and on the next day will launch service to Kona (four times a week). On March 26, the airline will launch daily service from Sacramento to Maui, which is a flight  that was operated by Aloha before it went bust. Hawaiian Airlines flies to Honolulu from both cities.

It’s certainly nice to see carriers like Alaska (and now Continental) help fill in the void left behind by the departures of ATA and Aloha. Alaska has become a much larger player in the Hawaiian market of late, and very quickly. Alaska only started service to Hawaii a little over two years ago. Service has been growing – especially this year after the airline decided to slash Mexico capacity by 37%. The airline is now up to 73 weekly roundtrips to Hawaii – such growth over a two-year span suggests that Alaska is finding success in the market.

Hawaiian Steps on Alaska’s Turf with New Oakland Flight

Published
by
Dan Webb
on September 21, 2009
in Alaska and Hawaiian
. 0 Comments

sep20Last week, Hawaiian announced some additional flights, which coincides with some changes in the carrier’s fleet. The airline is currently all-Boeing, but that will change next year when the first of three leased A330s will arrive. The airline has also ordered A330s and A350s from Airbus.

The airline will be doing some additional flying during the summer season. San Diego-Maui will be launched again – Hawaiian did operate route in summer 2008, but did not this year. Meanwhile, the airline said it would be adding an additional flight between Los Angeles and Honolulu with one of the new A330s, though at this point, it is listed as a 767-300 in Hawaiian’s timetable.

But one of the interesting moves is new daily summer service between Oakland and Maui. ATA and Aloha operated this route before they went bust, but this year Alaska announced it would start operating the route four times a week starting in November. The new flight from Hawaiian complements its existing flight from Oakland to Honolulu.

Clearly, Hawaiian thinks there’s more demand in the market, and a daily 767-300 is a lot of capacity compared to Alaska’s four 737-800s a week. It will be interesting to see how this one shakes out, at least for the summer – Hawaiian’s flight starts on June 18 and runs through September 6. I wonder if Alaska will decide if it’s worthwhile to add any additional capacity in this market.

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uzvards/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Revisiting Alaska’s July Revenue Numbers

Published
by
Dan Webb
on August 28, 2009
in Alaska
. 0 Comments

Earlier this week, I had already discussed Alaska’s July numbers, but I realized I could analyze those a bit more. The airline noted that PRASM (passenger revenue per available seat mile) and RASM (revenue per available seat mile) were affected positively by the first bag fee, and the company estimates it earned $4.9 million from that in July. Meanwhile, Alaska estimates that a new agreement on the company’s Mileage Plan card will give the company an extra $2.5 million each month for the rest of this year.

These items, obviously, give the numbers a bit of a boost, so I decided to play around with them to remove that extra revenue. For RASM, I got 12.72 cents, and I calculated 11.64 cents for PRASM (compared to 13.07 and 11.87 cents, respectively). Comparing my numbers to last years’, I found a 1.99% decrease in RASM and a 3.25% decrease in PRASM (compared to a 0.7% increase and a 1.3% decrease).

Obviously, the removal of those other revenue make the comparisons to last year look a bit worse. Nevertheless, the decreases I calculated are still superior to the double-digit declines that some other carriers have reported.