On Sept. 29, Alaska Air Group announced it will seek regulatory approval to join the existing antitrust-immune transatlantic and transpacific joint ventures involving fellow Oneworld alliance members American, Japan Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Level and Finnair, a move that could bolster the company's development of a global network from Seattle. Editor at large Robert Silk that day interviewed Alex Judson, Alaska Air Group's director of partnerships and international, at the company's Seattle headquarters.
Alex Judson
Q: How would Alaska benefit from joining the transatlantic and transpacific joint venture partnerships?
A: When you look at the playing field internationally, 85% of flights are part of an immunized joint business. It's really important to be part of that because it helps us to compete in a better way. We've seen as we've built out our long-haul operations that there's only so much you can do with a codeshare or frequent flyer partnership, or even being part of an alliance. When you get that antitrust immunity, if you're part of a joint business, it's that deeper level of collaboration on that set of routes. It's the ability to coordinate on price, on schedule, but really being able to partner together in such a way that you can make your long-haul business more successful and give more options to customers.
Q: Would this increase your ability to provide convenient connections onto partner airlines from your Europe and Asia destinations?
A: Absolutely. We can look at our schedules and say, maybe we will tweak the time of, let's say, their Heathrow to Amsterdam flight to be able to better support our connectivity from our operation. It's also the ability to work more closely leveraging sales and saying, how can we leverage the sales team that exists with BA in market or the sales team that JAL has in Japan? How can we co-market each other?
Q: You already have a partnership with American, and they feed you customers in Seattle. How would the joint venture add to what you already have with American?
A: There's a number of components to the partnership we have with American today. There's our domestic codeshare. There's our loyalty. And there's our enhanced elite experience: We offer benefits above and beyond what Oneworld offers. I think one of my favorites is that we have joint upgrades on each other's flights. We've got that domestic partnership, but this would be a step change above that over to the international side.
Q: Could it result in your tweaking your schedules that feed Seattle long-haul?
A: I think there will be some level of cooperation there. Obviously, this is new territory for the U.S., having two U.S. carriers as part of a joint business. So we will kind of wait to see what the DOT gives us in terms of what guardrails we have to follow.
Q: Would the Hawaiian brand be part of the joint ventures?
A: Hawaiian's long-haul business to Japan is a critical component that would be enabled by the Pacific joint business. JAL has a big business between Japan and Hawaii.
Q: Alaska Air Group began long-haul flying from Seattle last year. You planned to offer 12 transoceanic destinations from there by 2030 but upped that to 15. Why was that?
A: It's a matter of us seeing how successful the expansion has gone so far and seeing that we have more opportunities. When we started, we wanted to be conservative. We wanted to make sure to set a target we could achieve, and we quickly realized that we wanted to be able to expand that target.
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This interview was edited for content and clarity.