"Because I'm not American, the US Department of Transportation stipulated I take some of my shares in Virgin America as non-voting shares, reducing my influence over any takeover. So there was sadly nothing I could do to stop it."<p>- Sir Richard Branson, Virgin founder.
If anyone is taking over or merging with Virgin America, I'm glad it's Alaskan. I've never been unhappy with flying with them.<p>A couple examples of little things they do that are clever and should be copied by everyone else: check your bag at the gate 30 minutes before boarding and you can board early; a guarantee that your checked luggage will be in your hands 20 minutes after landing, or you get $20.<p>They are an airline that are trying things, experimenting.
I still think JetBlue was a better fit. Alaska's a west coast, all 737 fleet. Now they own another west coast airline (i.e. they overlap) with a ton of Airbus. Alaska's probably getting something good for their $2.6b, but I haven't figured out what exactly.
As far as I know, Virgin is pretty much a franchised brand. Their trains are run by other transport companies, their cable TV is run by another telecoms operator, their banks are run by another institution etc.
Sad, but not surprising. It seems like good customer service just doesn't scale for airlines. Back to being stuck with being treated like crap by your airline, or paying less to be treated slightly crappier by your airline.
Just a few days ago there was a fantastic article on the lack of competition in the economist. It pointed to the recent consolidation of the airline industry. Kind of amazed that there will be one less player.<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21695385-profits-are-too-high-america-needs-giant-dose-competition-too-much-good-thing" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21695385-profits-are-...</a>
Might want to fix the link to show this:<p><a href="https://www.virgin.com/news/alaska-air-group-acquire-virgin-america" rel="nofollow">https://www.virgin.com/news/alaska-air-group-acquire-virgin-...</a>
I wonder what will happen with that letter of intent for the investment in that boom sonic plane startup. Was that investment announcement somwthing legally binding? (I didn't follow that closely)
There goes my favorite airline. Given choice, I choose to fly VA. Just booked a couple more tickets yesterday for a quick trip. It's just painless.
Anybody know if Alaska Airlines's maintenance procedures have improved over the years?<p>They had an ugly crash involving failure to do Mx on jack screws in the past.