Richard Brason blogged that he “isn’t happy about” Alaska Airlines buying Virgin America. While it’s true that Branson doesn’t have a veto over the deal, as he says, he doesn’t say he would have opposed it if he did.
And while there may be some amount of ‘sadness’ Branson is almost certainly very happy with the sale for two reasons.
Air France is scheduled to restart Paris – Tehran service in two weeks. Their flight attendants objected to having to wear headscarves when disembarking as well as the airline’s ban on skirts for the flight.
They asked for the ability to opt out of working the Tehran flights on the basis of conscience. France is largely secular, and attitudes towards Islam are in many ways quite negative. France, and Air France, is also quite unionized. So imposing working conditions that subjugate women to the demands of Islam as imposed by Iran is naturally unpopular.
Air France had threatened penalties against crew not observing the dress code suggesting that “air crew were ‘obliged like other foreign visitors to respect the laws of the countries to which they travelled’.”
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As of this writing United, American, and Delta shares are up so far early in the trading day.
With Alaska’s announced purchase of Virgin America for $2.6 billion, a roughly 90% premium over the airline’s market value just two weeks ago, there was an immediate reception to the deal at the New York Stock Exchange.
Alaska Airlines and Virgin America held an investor call this morning to walk through the deal that came together over the weekend.
Regarding the Virgin America brand, Alaska “want[s] to learn more about it.” You ‘d think they’d have some idea the value of the brand and how (if) to deploy it before spending $2.5 billion — $600 million in cash and taking on $2 billion in debt (while picking up half a billion in cash from Virgin America). Currently Virgin America pays 0.7% of revenue off the top to Virgin for the brand.
Alaska claims they initiated the deal, and JetBlue got into the bidding after they started negotiating.
With the Anbang saga presumably behind us, shareholder votes on the Marriott acquisition of Starwood scheduled for April 8, we can return to a discussion of what the future of Starwood — and Marriott — will look like. And as they say, ‘where you stand depends on where you sit.’
The deal should be approved at the shareholder meeting April 8. The transaction should close during summer. And the big hairy work to figure out what Marriott wants to do with Starwood, now that they’ve won her, will really begin — strategic decisions, then massive IT projects. Eventually some hotel brands will disappear though not for awhile. And some Sheraton hotels will be stricken from the earth as a cancer on the brand. So that part at least is for the good.
Alaska Airlines announced that it is acquiring Virgin America at $57 per share or ~ $2.6 billion in a transaction expected to close by January 1, 2017.
Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan will be the surviving loyalty program. They’re being non-committal about the Virgin brand at this point, although it seems inconceivable they would continue to pay to licensing.
Virgin America’s market cap was about $1.15 billion a week and a half ago. Speculation began about a buyout and the company closed worth closer to $1.5 billion on Friday.
Last Monday JetBlue and Alaska Airlines were revealed to be the leading contenders to buy Virgin America. Yesterday it looked like Alaska would seal the deal at about $2 billion.
Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Alaska will wind up the victor — but at a cash price of $2.5 billion.
Some banks will unofficially give a grace period to meet minimum spend requirements towards a bonus. I sure wouldn’t want to test that theory. Know how much you need to spend to earn a signup bonus, and when you need to spend it by.
Know also what spending counts towards the bonus and what spending doesn’t.
Mid-last week Alaska Airlines made no-notice changes to their Emirates award charts for business and first class travel, raising prices by as much as 100%. Overnight the price of business class and first class awards went up — a lot. A first class roundtrip between the US and Africa on Emirates went from 200,000 to 400,000 miles.
Alaska offered an explanation. It turns out that Alaska Airlines has changed their mind about why they did it, and is offering a new and different explanation.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
