Something similar to the Branson foreign ownership issue: Rupert Murdoch had to give up his Australian citizenship to be allowed to own US television stations.
Annoyingly, 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.
So 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.
I highly suggest you wait and see. I moved from LA--where I flew almost exclusively Virgin because they were fantastic--to Seattle--where I now fly exclusively Alaska and have an Alaska credit card.
The credit card is fantastic, their mileage program is generous, their partner network is wide, and in my experience, they've got really good customer service, both on the phone and in the air. They do a low-price guarantee so that you can call in and get refunds if the price of already-purchased tickets drop. Combine that w/ TripIt Pro, which gives you notifications when the price drops, and you can save a ton of money.
The downside? They're much lower tech than Virgin: typically no screens on the backs of seats (especially for shorter flights), less of the fancy check-in stuff, the app isn't SO slick. But I really think the value combined with a sense of "wow, that was actually a pleasant flight" more than makes up for it.
So I'm actually excited to see if we can get the best of both worlds: the technical innovation of Virgin with the no-nonsense customer experience of Alaska. :fingers crossed:
Either way, I'm stoked to have more places to earn/burn miles.
They're much lower tech than Virgin: typically no screens on the backs of seats (especially for shorter flights), less of the fancy check-in stuff, the app isn't SO slick.
True, but...I bring an iPad or MBP on every flight so I don't need a screen. Fancy check-in stuff? I dunno, how fancy can it be (serious question asked out of ignorance)? What Alaska has seems to do the job, and I'd be at a loss to improve on what I view as a simple process. Virgin's nice, yes, but I really just want to be transported from point A to point B without the cattle car feel of less expensive airlines. For me, Virgin does seem to hit the happy medium of "costs a little more but worth it", but they don't fly Seattle to anywhere I care to go other than SF.
Service? I've had them screw up, but they have always eventually made it right. The worst was when it snowed in Seattle, meaning the plane never left to go get me in Orlando. Just a voice mail at 3:00 a. m. telling me I'm screwed. Called right back to their outsourced overnight call center who told me I could fly out in two days. Eventually my wife took over, got a FTE Alaska employee who got us out that day, and exit rows for the trouble. Now, that was with a five-hour layover in DC, and we shouldn't have to spend hours on the phone. I'd say they did their best, but "best" would have included taking me up on my offer to fly out of Tampa instead so they didn't have to funnel all the cancellations through Orlando. But it was good enough for me, and I've had far worse from other airlines. And Alaska has never once given so much as a sideways glance when I walk on with my mandolin case.
If they can extend the Virgin amenities to Alaska's SEA-MCO route (my most common trip), I look forward to it. Otherwise, meh, I'm happy with Alaska the way they are.
> The downside? They're much lower tech than Virgin: typically no screens on the backs of seats (especially for shorter flights)
This is a deliberate design choice for the seats. They can be thinner, and have more space, if there are no screens. A lot of airlines are moving in that direction - people bringing their own tablets, or Delta now providing them for the flight. It's also apparently a pain to design an aircraft seat with a screen in it - the amount of engineering you have to do to make sure the screen won't kill someone in a crash bulks the seat up tremendously.
Baseline United service is deplorable. But they've become quite clever at providing better variants for people who fly them a lot. It's almost like being a party member in the old Soviet Union. You get the equivalent of your own, better-stocked stores, etc.
The private United lounges are quite nice. Tasty buffets and excellent coffee machines, at no additional cost. Lots of space and outlets to get some work done. Plus the staff at those lounges have access to all sorts of better tools to get you re-routed, improve your seat, etc.
I'm a mere MileagePlus Silver foot-soldier in their world. But the United Explorer credit card gets me a couple lounge passes a year. On occasions when weather has disrupted my intended flights, the Lounge Wizards have managed to get me astonishingly better arrangements, just because they can.
Not just for the baseline flier. My last flight out of SFO with United, I watched as the gate agent called the police on a first-class passenger for getting on the plane without first putting his standard-sized carry-on in the stupid little metal thing. I vowed to the gods in the heavens at that moment that I would never fly United ever again. I should mention here that three out of my last eight flights with United were delayed at least four hours, and we sat on the runway for most of that time.
I don't think you could pay me to fly United ever again. My old standby used to be Continental, but United ruined them, too. I've never been disappointed by Alaska. As someone with an Alaska miles credit card now, I'm pretty happy about this merger.
United is terrible to fly with, and I reserve them for the "last resort" of my choices. Their planes are a bit older, the seat pitch is noticeably worse than some other airlines (American, Virgin), and they provide the bare minimum of a major airline in the states. Unless the price is significantly different and warrants the experience, I will always choose another airline.
Not 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.
Definitely going to have to strongly disagree. Having dealt with customer service from both airlines, Alaska is a massive upgrade in competence, friendliness, and results.
Alaska certainly isn't as fancy but I personally don't need the screens and check in experience. I actually find that Virgin's webapp for booking tickets to be incredibly buggy.
So, this is all ancedata, but my experiences with Alaska have been fantastically poor.
The last time I flew AS, they lost my bag. No big deal, it happens. I was staying with a friend in his apartment. Late that evening after I had gone to sleep, I received a series of voicemails from the AS employee trying to deliver my bag, but couldn't get into the building. The first few voicemails were rude, the last was vulgar. The employee ended up leaving my bag ON THEIR BACK PORCH and instructed me to go get it. To top the experience off, she left some sort of receipt on top of the bag, which I took and threw away. I later received another call from her berating me for taking the receipt, without which she apparently would not receive payment for delivering the bag.
For the return flight, I did arrive 5 minutes too late to check a bag by the rules. Instead of telling me this or giving me a chance to carry on my small bag (easily fits in the sizer), the check-in agent moved me to standby on the next & last SJC flight of the day, told me I wasn't likely to make that flight, and called for the next person in line. I went online with my laptop and found they were still selling one-way F tickets for that last flight for $250, so I bought one and ended up making it home that night, no thanks to the check-in agent.
Now, I will grant that at the time (~2005) I wasn't a super-experienced flyer, and there were tons of points I should have pushed back or complained, but their service was just plain awful. I've had a bunch of bad experiences with AS, but the above was the last straw. After that I booked Southwest/Virgin and just worked around their limited schedule for SJC/SFO-SEA.
Contrast this with VX, where I accidentally purchased a ticket for a flight the day before I intended to travel. I realized my mistake when I received a marketing "thanks for flying with us" e-mail. I called and explained that it was entirely my fault, and was allowed to rebook for the next day and they refunded the original ticket, minus the change fee. I had no status with VX, they had every right to take the entire ticket value and they still were incredibly generous.
That sounds awful. I'm fairly certain, Alaska and all other airlines use a 3rd party service to handle retrieving lost luggage. Having dealt with that myself on other airlines, it's a miserable experience all around with nobody knowing the complete picture.
That said, it's no excuse for the airlines to just accept bad behavior by their 3rd parties.
I can't speak to what they do now, but back then pretty much any airport worker was apparently allowed to 'bid' on a bag return job for AS. In this case, it was an actual AS employee that took the job. That's what I learned from that receipt nonsense.
Alaska delivers a consistent passable product. Think Starbucks, not your local independent hipster coffee shop. It's going to taste the same at every store in the world. Not amazing, not terrible.
* No shiny screens or anything. Chair, outlet, coke. That's good enough for me.
* Free gate-checking if you volunteer before attempting to board.
* Their carry-on size limit hasn't been reduced to absurdity, unlike American. I was flying out of JFK terminal 8, and apparently their size is small enough that even the TSA agent, at a glance, tried to stop me, only relenting after we walked over to the Alaska counter and had one of their counter people confirm it.
I think that summarizes their operations quite well: "consistently passable".
I get the feeling their customer experience, like many other older american airlines are, is designed after listening more to the aging flight crews (and in no-doubt also after many negotiations with their union) than to the passengers.
This 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.
Fly 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.
I 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.
Since VX has had those exact same amenities plus additional others for longer, and AS is not going to keep the Airbuses around...from the perspective of a Virgin flyer, Alaskan wouldn't seem that innovative.
Virgin surpassed Alaska as my favorite airline, but they're both pretty awesome -- unfortunately, in different ways. Here's hoping they take the best from each.
