Thoughts on ERA Aviation being acquired/merged.

Wow, didn't really see that coming. If I were to wager a guess I'd say the Dash 8's will probably be down on the Peninsula a lot less and may start seeing a lot more action north of FAI. All ERA's Dash 8 flights to BET will probably now stop on the Hageland ramp which is usually pretty busy. PenAir is probably pretty safe as there is hardly any overlap in route structure.
 
Not really a big deal. It just means that the hageland/frontier/era entity will have better overlap for the beech 1900s, and that there is now essentially a giant monopoly covering all of west alaska, the north slope (which era did have a lot of charters in the dash) kodiak, valdez, and then Kenai Homer. I see them taking on Grant on the peninsula with hageland caravans and the era name, then expanding into southeast to service Juneau as Alaska Air starts its gradual retreat from the state. Seriously, southeast is the next logical move.

PenAir probably won't have anything to worry about, as I doubt there is any motivation to go down the chain as they have that market pretty much locked up.
 
ppragman said:
Seriously, southeast is the next logical move.
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So they would take over Alaskas cities in Southeast? What aircraft would they bring down to SE?

I dont see Alaska pulling out of Alaska entirely. I see them pulling out of some of the rural villages. With the all the Salmon that gets shipped out of SE, I think Juneau is here to stay. They can possibly get rid of Petersburg and Wrangell.
 
ASpilot2be said:
So they would take over Alaskas cities in Southeast? What aircraft would they bring down to SE?

I dont see Alaska pulling out of Alaska entirely. I see them pulling out of some of the rural villages. With the all the Salmon that gets shipped out of SE, I think Juneau is here to stay. They can possibly get rid of Petersburg and Wrangell.
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I foresee all of it being fed into Juneau, then thrown on the alaska jet for anchorage or seattle, then maybe dash service to anchor-town (though that'd be a long flight, 3hrs). As for Salmon, hell, there's way more salmon coming out dilli and king salmon than there are out of juneau, and Alaska has already abandoned those markets. Same with Dutch. Southeast for cargo is the realm of the GeoDuck and bypass mail. Those mail contracts will go away now that the laws put in place by ted stevens are going to be repealed, and ACE will almost certainly take over for the contracts because they're reliable, and on good terms with the post office.

I'm certain velo will comment on this, but my gut feeling for Alaska Airlines is that southeast alaska isn't exactly a good market when you compare it to Anchorare-Seattle run, etc. It seems that the EAS structure is the only thing keeping it worth their while. It'll go something like this: AS will start flying SE only in the summer for the tourist season, then gradually that will go away too. They did the same thing in all the other markets they've withdrawn from, a gradual pullout followed by a seasonal run, followed by no run.
 
I dont see Juneau becoming seasonal. I have never seen an empty flight going out of there to Seattle.

I definently see ACE bringing mail to Juneau, then Wings distributing it to upper Lynn Canal, and ACE to everywhere else.
 
ASpilot2be said:
I dont see Juneau becoming seasonal. I have never seen an empty flight going out of there to Seattle.

I definently see ACE bringing mail to Juneau, then Wings distributing it to upper Lynn Canal, and ACE to everywhere else.
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I doubt juneau will be, but Sitka, Ketch, Wrangell, Pete will.

Ace already brings some mail into juneau every morning, the PRIMAIL. It's only a matter of time before the AS mailplane (flight 65 I think) is a squadron of 1900s.
 
ppragman said:
I doubt juneau will be, but Sitka, Ketch, Wrangell, Pete will.
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Pete, Wrangell, and Sitka yes. Ketchikan is debatable. From what I have noticed, the Ketchikan loads are pretty decent.:)

I heard that there are some changes coming to the mail bypass act, creating several distribution hubs.
 
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