LOL, you are truly daft trying to compare the Seattle market to New York. Of course NYC residents have no airline loyalty. Puhleeeze. NYC is home to hundreds of corporate headquarters. Airlines there have come and gone across the decades. They couldn't possibly care less.
except that B6 is hardly known as the airline that caters to corporate traffic.
Again, show us some evidence that anyplace in the US or around the world really breeds the type of brand loyalty in the face of competition - not just because a carrier provides the majority of the seats in the market - that you think exists.
It's nice to think that AS has such greatly loyal customers but I've seen no real proof... but perhaps you have it.
Perhaps a better question is why B6, over the course of a dozen or so years has grown to the size it is at JFK inspite of the amazingly awesome DL?
Now, you might be tempted to retort that in a similar manner that B6 grew at JFK, DL will be able to grow at SEA. I doubt it - unless DL is able to somehow obtain even more space (gates / terminal) and have the unwavering support of state + local politicians that B6 enjoyed in NY. I doubt that will happen.
did you forget that B6 was handed a bunch of slots in order to start service at JFK?
with the facilities that DL has been able to pull together, DL by this summer will be able to offer more than 1/3 of the total seats that AS offers from SEA, IIRC, - and DL is using a lot of large regional jets.
IF DL operated the same mainline/regional aircraft percentage that AS uses, DL's share of the market would be a whole lot higher.
We are less than two months from DL's buildup of domestic capacity at SEA. I have seen no evidence that they are backing down - which they clearly would have to do if the bookings weren't materializing.
Either DL has figured out how to get the bookings from the "opposite end of the flight" from SEA (which in the case of LAX would pretty well blow away the theory about how weak DL is there), from Asia, or AS really doesn't have the loyalty in its hometown that people here think they do.
I just threw another bag of popcorn into the microwave.