The Alaska/Virgin Marriage Begins

Today is the official first day of the Alaska Airlines/Virgin merger. I know that because the flight attendants passed out free chocolates to all passengers on our flight.

 


They may be officially married, but it sounds like they're not going to move in together though.  The LA Times reports that the two airlines will continue to operate separately for the time being, but starting Monday people can buy Virgin tickets at the Alaska Airlines website.  It doesn't say whether you can buy Alaska tickets on the Virgin website.

It also says this makes Alaska/Virgin the fifth largest US airline, but it's still relatively small:

"Combined, Alaska and Virgin America control about 6% of the nation’s domestic flights. The country’s four bigger carriers — American, United, Delta and Southwest — control more than 80% of domestic flights."

As usual, the flight out of Anchorage offered amazing views. Here’s a view of the ice in the inlet as we took off about noon today.

it gets a little bigger and sharper if you click on it

I was sitting over the wing, so my camera view is a bit obstructed. Denali was hidden by the wing tip for a long time, and then finally came into view before we began flying over the Chugach.  It's about 265 miles by car from Anchorage to Denali National Park, but as the raven flies, it's more like 140.

It was snowing in Portland and the new plane had to be de-iced before we could leave.