It has been reported that Alaska Airlines have plans to go big within the Northwest Pacific region of the US. They want to do this by trying to takeover Virgin America. It has been reported that they have put in a bid for the airline, although no fee has been announced or been released to the media. The Jetblue Group have also put in a bid for the airline as well.
Alaska Airlines putting in this bid is more significant to that of Jetblue. Alaska Air currently have bigger passenger capacities in the Northwest Pacific than Virgin America and Jetblue. Analysts say that this behaviour is similar to that of eradicating an airline from the market to enhance their progression and success within that specific market.
Another reason into why the acquisition for Alaska would be so big is because they would then be able to cement and secure more routes within the Northwest Pacific. For example, Virgin America currently have a lot of flights operating between Portland & San Fransisco as well as Seattle & San Fransisco, which are routes that Alaska want to strive in desperately. As well as that, the acquisition of the airline would benefit Alaska in the sense that Virgin America’s operations in San Fransisco and Los Angeles in particular could benefit them on a more economical level. This would be ample opportunity for them to hit that market and dominate it.
However, analysts also say that Jetblue is in the pole position to win the bidding process against Alaska Airlines. Jetblue has the same fleet as what Virgin America has, so in terms of cost efficiency, Jetblue would be saving money more than what Alaska would do as Alaska operate with Boeing B737 aircraft. Banker’s are also saying that Jetblue is looking more likely as their stocks have rose by 0.5% on the stock market and sources within the Jetblue executive staff have stated that there is a planned trip to San Fransisco on Monday, which is putting questions into the air into whether Jetblue have secured the airline or not.
If Jetblue were to win the bid, it would be a very odd takeover. As mentioned earlier in the article, Alaska Airlines have more passenger capacity within the West Coast, compared to Jetblue. If Jetblue were to secure this bid, then we could possibly see expanded services on Jetblue’s behalf into the West Coast or possibly extra codesharing programs within Virgin America. The Jetblue group tend not to completely merge operations but try to keep them open. It will be interested to see whether this would turn into an AA/US Merger where all of the US Airways operations were merged into the American Airlines operations.
Make sure to keep checking in with AirLive.net for more information on this potential buy-out from either Alaska Airlines or from Jetblue!