Aviation Week's Window Seat Podcast
Oct 5, 2026 · 25 min · 9 segments
Editors discuss Alaska Airlines' new cabins, lounges and proposed international partnerships, with insights from its investor day in Seattle—and assess what it will take to turn those ambitions into…
Chris SloanGuestAaron KarpGuestDavid CaseyHostAnd further in that international push was another announcement, which, as someone who writes about network news all day, was probably the most interesting thing that caught my eye, which was the potential joint ventures with American Airlines, Atlantic and Pacific joint businesses.
CCO Andrew Harrison said this was a way of putting Alaska on a more level playing field with some of its competitors.
Aaron, what is the thinking behind this move? Why do you think it wants to join these businesses now? And what could it help Alaska to achieve that it might struggle to do on its own?
And as Ben Mininucci pointed out, all of those others are part of JVs, international immunized JVs.
Finnair, Aer Lingus, and Level going across the Atlantic and with Japan Airlines going across the Pacific.
And Alaska wants to join those two JVs in which they could share revenue and planning in terms of these long haul flights.
I mean, 85% of the capacity going across the Atlantic and the Pacific coming from the U.S. as part of these JVs.
And they just believe the international strategy they have will be so much better supported if they can be part of the JVs, if they can participate.
Now, the odd thing here and where this is going to become into a potential regulatory problem is that in all these other joint ventures, there's one U.S. carrier that's a partner.
And Alaska is basically wanting to join in with two JVs that American Airlines is already a partner in.
And I think regulators are going to take a very hard look at, well, now you have two U.S. carriers in one antitrust immunized joint venture.
And in terms of American competing against Alaska, how does that figure? I mean, it's one thing for there to be antitrust immunity to work with foreign airlines, but to work with another US carrier, I think that's something that's going to be a big deal here.
We're not doing the sort of thing that JetBlue is doing where we're flying from the East Coast to the U.S. to select destinations in Europe.
We are flying long haul from the U.S. West Coast to Europe, from the U.S. West Coast across the Trans-Pacific.
And in order to do that, we have to be on the same playing field as the other big three that are doing that.
It's just a matter of the strange fit of putting two U.S. carriers in two antitrust immunized JVs.
And further in that international push was another announcement, which, as someone who writes about network news all day, was probably the most interesting thing that caught my eye, which was the potential joint ventures with American Airlines, Atlantic and Pacific joint businesses.
CCO Andrew Harrison said this was a way of putting Alaska on a more level playing field with some of its competitors.
Aaron, what is the thinking behind this move? Why do you think it wants to join these businesses now? And what could it help Alaska to achieve that it might struggle to do on its own?
And as Ben Mininucci pointed out, all of those others are part of JVs, international immunized JVs.
Finnair, Aer Lingus, and Level going across the Atlantic and with Japan Airlines going across the Pacific.
And Alaska wants to join those two JVs in which they could share revenue and planning in terms of these long haul flights.
I mean, 85% of the capacity going across the Atlantic and the Pacific coming from the U.S. as part of these JVs.
And they just believe the international strategy they have will be so much better supported if they can be part of the JVs, if they can participate.
Now, the odd thing here and where this is going to become into a potential regulatory problem is that in all these other joint ventures, there's one U.S. carrier that's a partner.
And Alaska is basically wanting to join in with two JVs that American Airlines is already a partner in.
And I think regulators are going to take a very hard look at, well, now you have two U.S. carriers in one antitrust immunized joint venture.
And in terms of American competing against Alaska, how does that figure? I mean, it's one thing for there to be antitrust immunity to work with foreign airlines, but to work with another US carrier, I think that's something that's going to be a big deal here.
We're not doing the sort of thing that JetBlue is doing where we're flying from the East Coast to the U.S. to select destinations in Europe.
We are flying long haul from the U.S. West Coast to Europe, from the U.S. West Coast across the Trans-Pacific.
And in order to do that, we have to be on the same playing field as the other big three that are doing that.
It's just a matter of the strange fit of putting two U.S. carriers in two antitrust immunized JVs.
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