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Alaska Airlines + Virgin America: What you need to know now

Alaska Airlines & Virgin America to merge (Image: Alaska Airlines)

Alaska Airlines & Virgin America to merge (Image: Alaska Airlines)

Well I guess we all saw this coming. At least as of last week. But before that, it seemed unfathomable that San Francisco would lose its hometown carrier to another airline.

But here we are. Today Alaska Airlines and Virgin announced at the crack of dawn that they would merge later this year, following government approvals (which likely won’t be much of a problem). It could take up to two years for full integration.

What remains to be seen is what will happen to JetBlue, which was reportedly also in the running for Virgin. Will it combine with another carrer? Will Alaska buy it, too? Or will it continue to operate without change…hmmm. We’ll keep an eye on that!

Anyway, for Bay Area flyers, this the merger brings together two of the country’s most loved airlines– Virgin is known for its fun, funky and almost luxurious service and Alaska Airlines is know for its solid product, good on time performance and profitability. Virgin America is known as “hip.” Alaska Airlines is know as “friendly.” It will be interesting to watch these two cultures and reputations meld.

Here are some key points to keep in mind right off the bat. We will of course be following this very closely at TravelSkills so stay tuned!

Fares could increase from SFO. Why? As a young upstart, Virgin America kept a lid on fares to the cities it served. For example, when Virgin landed in Denver last month, fares plummeted to as low as $118 round trip! When it took off for Hawaii last December, a fare war ensued, with fares dropping to as low as $318 round trip to Oahu and Maui. With Alaska Airlines in charge, I think much of that fare discounting will go away.

Virgin’s Elevate program will fold into Alaska’s Mileage Plan. Alaska’s statement says: “Virgin America Elevate loyalty program members into its Mileage Plan, ranked #1 by U.S. News and World Report. With Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, members are able to redeem award miles for travel to more than 900 destinations worldwide, rivaling global alliances.”

Watch Chris talk about the merger on this CBS-KPIX video:

Virgin America flyers in the Bay Area (with big investments in Virgin’s Elevate program) will soon see a lot more opportunities to earn/burn miles– that’s because Alaska Airlines serves all three Bay Area airports– Virgin America only served SFO. From the Bay Area (SFO, Oakland and San Jose) Alaska Airlines currently has about 45 daily departures. Combined with Virgin, the new Alaska Airlines will serve 114 destinations.

Virgin’s Elevate and Alaska’s Mileage Plus programs will operate separately until the merger closes – which could take a while- so no need for members to make and immediate changes.

From SFO, Alaska now flies nonstop to: Seattle, Portland, Palm Springs, Salt Lake City, Cabo and Puerto Vallarta.  From Oakland? There are nonstops to: Portland, Seattle plus Lihue, Honolulu, Maui and Kona in Hawaii. From San Jose, it has nonstops to four cities in Hawaii, plus Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Boise, Reno, Orange County, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Cabo and Guadalajara. From Santa Rosa (near Wine Country) it flies to several cities in the Pacific Northwest and Southern California via its Horizon Air subsidiary.

Here’s a link to the combined airlines’ route map.

It appears that the vaunted Virgin brand will disappear with the merger. Alaska’s statement says: “Alaska will maintain its new, refreshed brand and will work closely with Virgin America to learn more about the award-winning Virgin America brand and customer experience.” Which means that we will hopefully see an end to things like Virgin’s once fun, now irritating pre-flight safety video.

Hopefully Alaska Airlines will adopt Virgin’s dedication to technology by installing seatback video and wi-fi connections on 100% of its aircraft very soon. Like Virgin, Alaska uses Gogo for inflight wi-fi. Here’s a link to Alaska’s inflight entertainment and wi-fi options.

It will be interesting to see if Alaska Airlines adopts Virgin’s popular RED seatback entertainment system that allows passengers to order food from a menu and have it delivered by flight attendants. Alaska Airlines offers hot meals (for sale) on all flights over 2.5 hours. It serves Starbucks coffee.

Alaska Airline's mod new look. What do you think? (Image: Alaska Air)

Alaska Airline’s mod new look. What do you think? (Image: Alaska Air)

Alaska recently updated its “look” which Bay Areans will soon see a lot more of. And it’s no slouch when it comes to inflight comfort and tech. For example, it has all-leather recaro seats and oversized overhead luggage bins on its newest Boeing 737-800 and 737-900 aircraft. It has seatback power (standard and USB) on nearly all its planes now. It offers “preferred plus” economy seating with more legroom and a free cocktails.

While Virgin America was showy and fun, it always struggled— only recently showing profits as the cost of fuel declined. Combining with Alaska Air should help shore up Virgin, but could lead to the loss of some money-losing routes.

Alaska is buying Virgin for $2.6 billion. The combined airline will be the fifth largest in the US, with 1,200 daily departures with 280 planes with an average age of 8.5 years. The airline will have hubs in Seattle, San Francisco, Anchorage, Portland and Los Angeles.

The future of Virgin America’s employees in the Bay Area is uncertain at the moment, but the good news is that both carriers are considered great place to work-both rank among Forbes “best places to work.”

At SFO, Alaska Airlines is temporarily operating  out of the International Terminal while Terminal 1 is under construction. It remains to be seen how or if Alaska’s flights will integrate with Virgin’s in Terminal 2. Alaska does not currently operate a Board Room at SFO– members instead use Cathay Pacific’s lounge on the A side of the international terminal.

The combined airline will be based in Seattle-– too bad because Virgin America was always very proud to boast that it was “the only California-based airline.”

Why did Virgin agree to be acquired in the first place? One its website it says, “Today, just four airlines control more than 80% of the U.S. market.  By combining with Alaska – an airline that, like us, has a strong position on the West Coast, a history of operational excellence, and a guest- and employee-focused culture – we are not only creating the best airline in North America, but one with the size and market share necessary to compete in this consolidated environment.”

Read a blog post from Brad Tilden, Alaska Airlines’s CEO on the merger here. Also, here’s the press release announcing the merger.

Stay tuned to TravelSkills for more as this whole deal comes to light. In the meantime, let us know what you think about the merger in the comments below. For me, I’m a bit sad at the loss of my hometown carrier. It’s been a joy chronicling the scrappy, funky and fun carrier’s journey over the last eight years. Check out this video to see what I mean…

–Chris McGinnis

NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about:  Should I tip my Uber driver? + Boeing 747 nearing its end? + Bargain hunters travel guide for 2016 + World’s best airline lounge? + Fares to Europe tumble 

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Comments

  1. “They were not filling the planes.”

    What planes were you on? Just about every time I’ve flown between SFO and either EWR or JFK via VX, the flights have been full or oversold.

  2. Well I DO fly First Class on VX and I’m betting that the quality of the experience will be greatly diminished after the merger is completed, particularly if Alaska ditches VX’s leased planes. Five inches of recline in Alaska’s First Class PALES in comparison to the 150-degree recline on VX. Even if you were to discount the recline, Alaska would have to remove First Class seats to match the pitch on VX, and what airline’s about to do that?

    I’m not-so-secretly hoping that JetBlue will take up an SFO-EWR route before this merger closes; their premium cabin (called Mint; available only on transcon flights) looks pretty sweet and is cheaper than VX. Otherwise, I MAY have to take drastic action and go back to flying on (aaaaack) United.

  3. Many of the disenchanted here sound almost like the people who bemoan how *great* air travel was before deregulation. This isn’t Asia or Europe where government subsidies prop up flagship carriers.

    Virgin flyers have to realize how lucky they are the competition was between Jet Blue and Alaska. Any other potential partner would have been even more draconian and corporate in its approach.

    All good things come to an end, and at least it was fun while it lasted…

  4. Sad day indeed; been gold with VX for past 7 years and would hope Alaska is able to keep the fun in VX; only plus, international partners! VX was not too good for that. Funny to see comments from “occasional” travelers that don’t get the VX experience, relax, enjoy the mood light, order a drink for a fellow traveler that you like (from your own seat) they will deliver it and with a smile:). Think of flying SFO-JFK with United or AA, that will sober you up… and no I don’t travel first class on VX

  5. I was hoping for a jetBlue merger with Virgin. There’s places I love to travel to that jB won’t fly to.

  6. While it will take longer for the frequent flyer plans to merge, I hope they at least start partnering in the short term.

  7. Actually, I think American uses 6 gates in Terminal 2 with a total of 9 gates between T2 and T1 as there are 14 gates in Terminal 2, Boarding Area D. The gates in T! were formerly US Airways, and the former US Airways flights still operate out of T1 in Boarding Area C where Delta is. San Jose will be affected more than Oakland regarding the merger of Alaska and Virgin because Alaska is growing considerably in San Jose, and some east coast nonstops are likely where there have been none for awhile, or very few. Jet Blue is the only carrier out of San Jose that goes to JFK and Boston at night.

  8. It appears now that down the line, SFO’s Terminal 2 will see a sizeable new Alaska “blue and green” presence with Alaska Airlines nonstop to: Boston, JFK, Washington D.C. (Dulles), Ft. Lauderdale, Austin, Dallas/Love Field, LAX, San Diego, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Honolulu, Maui, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vellarta, Palm Springs. I think United has DC/Reagan nonstop out of SFO, but I can’t recall if Virgin America has it as well. This reminds me of the size TWA once was at SFO with about that many destinations back in the 60s and early 70s. Not the same destinations, but several. Virgin America uses 8 gates in Terminal 2, and American uses 5 gates in Terminal 2, and 3 gates in Terminal 1. American and Southwest will likely swap, and eventually Alaska will return to Terminal 1 to be in the same new Boarding Area B concourse with American in about 6-7 years. But for now, it appears Alaska will move it’s operations out of the International Terminal except for the Mexico flights to Terminal 2 sometime down the line. The domestic airline list is shrinking while the international airline list at SFO is increasing. Next: Spirit and Frontier, the possibility of those two combining.

  9. Virgin’s popular RED seatback entertainment system that allows passengers to order food from a menu and have it delivered by flight attendants—but otherwise from SFO to Dallas round trip I did not see anyone order anything as I had a clear view the length of the plane.

    Virgin is known for its fun, funky and almost luxurious service—perhaps if one is in first class. My one big regret is not taking them up on the offer of upgrade to first class just for the bragging rights at the Dallas wedding we attended. But it was over three times the cost of an Alaska upgrade of $50 that included $40 of checked baggage for a net cost of $10 while we filled a gunny sack of empty red wine bottles and had an 8 oz. of bottled water with each serving and a hot meal of beef.

    I did see a few spectacularly attractive Virgin’s females. The passengers in front of us came aboard with greasy bad oil fast food stench. The flight attendant in the back spent over 90% of her time aboard playing candy crush handheld video. Yes, the preflight video was entertaining. We got one specially faceted plastic cup of beverage the entire flight.

    What did Alaska pay billions for? Gates, planes, employees? Elimination of a competitor?

    As I reached down to get something out of my bag at my feet, the passenger in front lowered his seat forcefully and without warning, smacking me hard in the head.

    Virgin was only profitable as long as fuel was cheap. They were not filling the planes.

  10. Sad to hear. Very sad.

    Your announcement shows no plan to adopt any of VX innovated efforts to make flying fun rather than slightly less painful than a Greyhound bus. While AS flight attendants can’t be bothered to serve more than h2o/OJ on the SFO-PSP route, VX manages to provide full drink AND food service AND return for refills not to mention DirectTV. AS attendants simply retreat to their kitchens after their one and only service trip down the aisle. God forbid they interact with, much less serve their customers. We don’t bite.

  11. I am extremely doubtful that Alaska will integrate any of the good of Virgin. I will simply presume the positive spirit will be lost. I find Alaska to be equal to Southwest, much better than the other “majors” but nothing that makes me want to fly domestically unless I must. Given the horrible TSA attitudes (except the privatized SFO screeners), airport pre-screening areas that are terrorism risks, the dirty third world airports and hotels that are trying to nickle and dime customers to death, Virgin America was a bright spot in travel. Given easier booking, no charge for flight changes (say meeting time change), I suspect my business will go to Southwest Airlines, not to Alaska. I will try to burn up my Elevate points now.

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