Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan ending partnership with Hawaiian Airlines

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Effective April 30. From the mileage plan newsletter

Our Mileage Plan partnership with Hawaiian Airlines will end on April 30, 2007. Tickets purchased by April 30, 2007 on Hawaiian Airlines will be eligible for mileage credit for one year. Mileage Plan customers may also redeem awards on Hawaiian Airlines until April 30, 2007. Award tickets will be valid for travel one year from the date of outbound travel. No changes may be made to Hawaiian Airlines award tickets after April 30, 2007.

[philemer]

This is bad news. I wonder what prompted it?

Phil

[dawg]

Rumor hast it that Alaska is looking to start flying to Hawaii in the future. (hopefully in the near future). I read this on http://www.flyertalk.com.

Dale

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Originally Posted by dawg

Rumor hast it that Alaska is looking to start flying to Hawaii in the future. (hopefully in the near future). I read this on http://www.flyertalk.com.

Dale

I keep wondering how long it will be before one of the larger carriers takes over Alaska and ends our little good thing here on the NA west coast. There is a long history of eastern carriers taking out west coast airlines to increase their network in the west, then completely botching the integration so that in a few carriers the eastern carrier doesn't have any more routes in the West than they had previously.

Happened when USAir took out PSA (which Southwest Airlines has shamelessly imitated), and when American took out AirCal. In both cases, the east coast airlines completely threw away the money they spent. If they had simply put the money in fireplaces and lit it on fire, the money would have at least given someone some heat.

Alaska was able to grow to what it is now mostly because of the bungling of USAir and American, leaving the market open to a carrier that truly understood and focused on West Coast operations.