Originally Posted by LonesomeSky

Alaska and Hawaiian's combined fleets, aircraft orders, and order options gives management the potential to mold the fleet to fit the economy. If the economy is strong, they can keep everything and deploy the aircraft where needed. If the economy falters, the future Max deliveries become replacement aircraft as we transition back to being an all Boeing airline.

Alaska got an absolutely smoking deal on the Max. Every Airbus that gets converted to a Max represents a cost savings. Even with Boeing's issues, those cost savings are hard to pass up.

If Alaska downsizes unprofitable widebody flying, It makes sense to offload the 330s. Alaska is brutal about revenue management and cost control. I always see Hawaiian 330s parked in Portland and Phoenix. Why are those big planes sitting idle for so long? Could that kind of flying be rightsized to a Max? Idk. If you're trying markets like HNL-MCO, that says you have too many widebodies and not enough places to deploy them. Depending on the economy and Alaska's unwillingness to bleed, I can imagine a future where alaska gets rid of all the 330s and only retains a small widebody fleet consisting of ten to twenty 787s with half deployed to Seattle and the other half based in HNL.

Look at the VX merger for insights into Alaska's playbook. We are eight years past the merger and the combined fleet is the exact same size as it was when we merged. Alaska flys more seats because the average aircraft size has increased, but the fleet hasn't grown. Look at San Francisco, it's a fraction of the size that it was before the merger. Alaska shed the crown jewels of VX's route network without remorse. It worked, sort of. Alaska is profitable and they've strengthened their hold in most places, just not SFO.

Alaska is a weird species of airline. Alaska has unique strengths and weaknesses. Seattle is a wealthy, growing city, but with the ocean on one side and mountains and expansive deserts on the other side, Seattle (and Portland) is basically an island. Alaska's network is made up of mostly long, thin routes that overfly competitor's hubs. For those reasons, they are highly dependent on local PNW branding and strict cost controls. Alaska reminds me of those juniper trees that grow in cracks between rocks near the peak of a mountain. The tree is old, uniquely adapted to its environment, and in no danger of being overrun, but it's never going to grow like a river bottom cottonwood. Alaska grows at a pace that's slower than human time-scale. Expect a slow upgrade and a long stint on captain reserve.

Originally Posted by GoodJet

Can you explain to me how two different widebodys from two different aircraft manufaturers provide economy of scale? They don't. The posters saying we are going to get 40 widebodies to achieve some kind of economy of scale are implying we will get 40 787s.

It's the leap of logic that gets me. We leap to the merger goes through despite severe government hostility to mergers in our industry. Then a massive leap to Boeing can somehow perform on existing orders (they can't). Then wildly jump on over to taking all available option orders. Then somehow fire up the rocket booster and just send it on over to we someohow get 20 or 18 more 787s because you need that many because "economy of scale".

I'd love to see it but we have posters here saying that Air Group is very financially conservative and yet also going to buy more 787s than American Airlines.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

There's obvious economy of scale in a single fleet type.

But there's also economy of scale in international ops, even if conducted with two fleets... there's a variety of overhead specific to that type of flying. There's obviously economy of scale in domestic and regional ops, but AS already has plenty of that.

Originally Posted by GoodJet

Can you explain to me how two different widebodys from two different aircraft manufaturers provide economy of scale? They don't. The posters saying we are going to get 40 widebodies to achieve some kind of economy of scale are implying we will get 40 787s.

It's the leap of logic that gets me. We leap to the merger goes through despite severe government hostility to mergers in our industry. Then a massive leap to Boeing can somehow perform on existing orders (they can't). Then wildly jump on over to taking all available option orders. Then somehow fire up the rocket booster and just send it on over to we someohow get 20 or 18 more 787s because you need that many because "economy of scale".

I'd love to see it but we have posters here saying that Air Group is very financially conservative and yet also going to buy more 787s than American Airlines.

Originally Posted by PineappleXpres

New 787s are expensive. A330s are cheap. So it's a capital deiscussion as much as a operational efficiency discussion. If Virgins made no captial OR operating cost sense then no brainer. If the 330/321 make some Capital sense. Especially until Boeing gets their act together. The A330s can establish and flesh out a network while the 787s decide to show up in 2035.

The widebody scale discussion is a CASM route structure decision.

Originally Posted by ReluctantEskimo

Brand loyalty has led this company down some dark roads in the past. Let's all hope they've learned their lesson.

Originally Posted by GoodJet

You lost me there. I'm not seeing how economy of scale will apply with all of the extra costs of doing that kind of flying with two different fleet types.

Originally Posted by ShyGuy

The pandemic killed San Fran. No amounts of Virgin would have saved that.

Originally Posted by ReluctantEskimo

There you go making wrong assumptions again. Not what I was referring to.

Our "brand loyalty" problem is painted on the nose of the airplanes.