Alaskan Airlines just bought Virgin America, deal to go through by Jan 2017.

Alaskan Airlines just bought Virgin America, deal to go through by Jan 2017. Good or bad news?

AS' loyalty program is sticking, so it should be not-bad news in my opinion.

Is it just me or did the whole deal seem really rapid? It just felt like it was over in a blink of an eye.

I'm hoping the service of Virgin America doesn't drop - it's always been nice to undertake USA domestic flights with them in comparison to other USA domestic carriers in the Virgin Australia family....... 

That did happen very quickly.

i guess this means virgin america aircraft will don the alaska airlines livery. but how would they handle the substantial differences in IFE? virgin america has AVOD while alaska airlines doesnt. 

Two options are possible. Alaska will either stay with their current policy or they will upgrade.

Howver, the more improtant issue is how they will align two divergent aircraft fleets. Alaska is B737 based and Virgin America is A320. Even Alaska's management hasn't worked that out yet, according to their public statements today.

Also bear in mind that there are a couple of other more pressing issues. Whilst Alaska has bid USD $2.6b for Virgin America and there is agreement on the merger / takeover by the two carriers, the actual deal is subject to approval of both the US Dept Of Transport (DOT) and also by the Dept Of Justice (DOJ).

I believe that it is a good combination that will allow Alaska to grow and will stifle any takeover activity of Alaska down by either AA or DL in the immediate future. Personally, I would have prefered Jetblue as the merger partner for Alaska but Jetblue didn't stump up the best bid.

It's generally being suggested that Alaska 'overpaid' for the minimalist Virgin America route structure, whereas integration of a combined Alaska-Jetblue route structure would provide far wider coverage of areas not flown by Alaska.