Now this is getting serious!

[Insp4]

Flight attendant mentioned that today. I think she said something like 60 or 65% of International schedule. But then with virus-stimulated travel bans left and right, there may not be anyone traveling International this summer anyway.

For instance, I talked with a friend today who lives in Honolulu. Half-joking, I suggested that maybe I should fly over to visit him. With the planes empty I should have no problem getting on as a non-rev. He said "don't plan on it unless you are willing to be subjected to 14 day isolation. For the time being anyone and everyone traveling to Hawaii--even from one Hawaiian island to another must accept 14 day isolation in a single room. No excuses. No exceptions.

I hope we all maintain our sense of humor about all this. It may be the only way we get through this.

 

[jimntx]

You did know that Ricky and Lucy parted because of Ricky's womanizing?....... But before this is over, AA just maybe about the same size an Alaska!...... I hear they are not going to serve a good portion of their international summer routs.

Yeah, but Ricky and Lucy at least did not resort to loaded guns.

 

[eolesen]

I’ll go ahead and reverse a long held position: there may be mergers again in the immediate future.

Alaska may indeed find its way into somebody else’s arms. They will still need to maintain service because it’s the only option in a state without interstates and fish still need to be flown out, but AS will be a much smaller operation for quite a while.

Cruise traffic is going to evaporate this year. Alaska cruises are mainly older people, and my guess is they won’t be interested in traveling on floating Petri dishes for another full year or so past the crisis end.

JetBlue may be harder hit than anyone else. They’ve got a lower cost in debt structure, but they are based in and depend on New York City. That’s Ground Zero.

 

[KCFlyer]

Cruise traffic is going to evaporate this year. Alaska cruises are mainly older people, and my guess is they won’t be interested in traveling on floating Petri dishes for another full year or so past the crisis end.

This may be the end of the megaship era. I don't think cruise lines will ever reach the point where they can sail on ships with 4,000+ people on them. That might not be a bad thing. Cruises were nicer when they were smaller.

 

[jimntx]

This may be the end of the megaship era. I don't think cruise lines will ever reach the point where they can sail on ships with 4,000+ people on them. That might not be a bad thing. Cruises were nicer when they were smaller.

AMEN! I've set my limit at 1500 passengers and preferably less than that. My New Zealand/ Australia cruise in January-February had about 1200 passengers on board. Perfectl And I just missed Covid-19. Got home February 16th (Of course I was 5000 miles south of the nearest infected passenger and no one had even heard of Covid-19 even the Grand Princess customers who were stranded in Yokohama Bay. They just knew that there were a bunch of sick people on board at the time.)

 

[eolesen]

Too many ships in the construction pipeline to reverse that trend immediately, but yeah, I have no desire to be on a 4,000 passenger boat again. We were on Carnival Horizon last year, and the crowds were noticeably worse than what we had on Carnival Freedom with 2,900 passengers two years prior, and 1,500 on the cruise we'd taken many years earlier on the Carnival Jubilee...

(Yeah, I know, Carnival is the Walmart of cruising, but we've had good luck with them and don't want to be surrounded by geriatrics).