Alaska
American Airlines’ Alaska Air Deal Differs From Its JetBlue Deal. Does That Matter?
An alliance with American Airways has helped Alaska Airways
ALK
The American/Alaska alliance, often called the West Coast Worldwide Alliance or WCIA, was introduced in February 2020. It allows the carriers to codeshare, significantly on flights connecting with American worldwide flights but additionally on flights serving home locations.
Inside the alliance, “We aren’t permitted to do sure issues with on the West Coast with American Airways due to DOJ restrictions,” Andrew Harrison, Alaska chief industrial officer, mentioned Thursday throughout a trial in U.S. District Courtroom in Massachusetts.
“We can’t code on overlap markets,” Harrison mentioned. “We are able to’t be as aggressive. American and JetBlue can accomplice. We are able to’t.” He cited Seattle-Dallas/Fort Value for instance of an “overlap” route, originating in every path in a accomplice hub, as a route the place American and Alaska can’t code share.
On the trial, Division of Justice antitrust attorneys are in search of to dam the Northeast Alliance or NEA between American and JetBlue. Or may they might search to change it alongside the strains of the WCIA? U.S. District Choose Leo Sorokin will determine whether or not and the way the NEA goes ahead.
DOJ antitrust legal professional Bonny Sweeney mentioned the NEA is “unprecedented” within the skill of American and JetBlue to coordinate capability on home flights.
Questioning Harrison, Sweeney mentioned, “You agree that what American and JetBlue have achieved is completely different than what you’ve gotten achieved in capability coordination.
“The flexibility to coordinate on home is unprecedented, sharing income on overlap routes is unprecedented, allocating markets is unprecedented in home markets,” Sweeney mentioned.
Harrison responded, “In my tenure of information, sure.”
Evaluating the WCIA and the NEA, Harrison mentioned, “They coordinate capability planning and allocation in JFK And Boston, and we can’t.”
Commenting on the NEA, Harrison mentioned that of the 1,600 each day departures from the three principal New York airports, “United and Delta are the most important and strongest; American and JetBlue are way more distant. JetBlue (with) American can current a way more compelling proposition for folk.”
Harrison additionally mentioned that DOJ restrictions, imposed after Alaska’s 2016 acquisition of Virgin America, badly impaired Alaska.
Harrison mentioned Alaska as soon as had a partnership with Delta in Seattle, however the partnership began to interrupt up in 2014 when Delta wished an even bigger presence in Seattle so as to construct a trans-Pacific hub. The partnership “grew to become an increasing number of strained,” he mentioned, as Delta grew its personal departures to 160 each day from 37 each day. “Delta made clear they actually solely wished us to accomplice with them and the airways they wished us to accomplice with,” versus letting Alaska decide its personal worldwide companions reminiscent of British Airways and Emirates, he mentioned.
Delta “began pulsing in flight after flight after flight, blanketing our community,” he mentioned. “In lots of instances the markets had too many seats in them and fares collapsed. It put an enormous pressure on our skill to generate revenues.” Because the Delta partnership broke up, Alaska moved so as to add codeshare agreements with American.
In 2016, Alaska acquired Virgin America. DOJ authorized the $4 billion acquisition, however demanded codeshare restrictions. In a December 2016 investor presentation, Alaska detailed the restrictions. It mentioned, “There are 45 markets the place Alaska loses present codeshare income, and the web monetary impression is between $15-$20 million.” It now appears the impression was understated.
Harrison mentioned Thursday, “We misplaced numerous connections over their hubs.” Partially in consequence, he mentioned, “We had a really significant issue. The Delta relationship was gone and ended. The American relationship was principally wound all the way down to nothing.
“The order so stifled our skill,” he mentioned. “We had regular code shares; we acquired Virgin America. Then DOJ put guidelines on prime of us that nobody else has to observe. Our relationship (with American) fell aside.”
The WCIA has revived the American alliance. “American Airways actually wanted to construct up their worldwide community on the West Coast,” Harrison mentioned. “They have been actually struggling in Los Angeles. What we might assist them with is to construct and to (join) our friends to assist fill their worldwide flights.” At present, Harrison mentioned, 8% of Alaska revenues come from partnerships, primarily with American.
Alaska
Second Malaysian rescued from Alaskan mountain, another perishes
PETALING JAYA: One of the two climbers trapped on an Alaskan mountain since Tuesday (May 28) has been rescued by a helicopter crew early Friday (May 31), says the Alpine Club Malaysia.
Unfortunately, the other climber died in a snow cave while awaiting help, as reported by officials from the US National Park Service.
“At 6am (local time) on Friday (May 31), rescuers managed to evacuate one of the climbers, Zainudin Lot, who is being treated at a hospital in Talkeetna, Alaska. His condition is stable, but he has frostbite on both hands.
“Meanwhile, we regret to inform you that Zulkifli Yusuf was confirmed dead at 6am on Wednesday (May 29) while taking refuge in a ‘snow cave’ in an area known as ‘Football Field’ at an altitude of 19,700ft above sea level.
“The suspected causes of death are high altitude cerebral edema and hypothermia, which will be confirmed by a postmortem,” it said in a Facebook post on Saturday (June 1).
The club reported that Zulkifli’s body remains at the site, and the process of recovery may take some time, depending on weather conditions.
The Malaysian consulate in Los Angeles has also been informed about the development and will assist the victims for the next process.
Earlier, Muhammad Illaham Ishak, 47, one of the three Malaysian climbers who successfully reached the peak of Mount Denali in Alaska, was rescued after being trapped by adverse weather during their descent on May 28.
Illaham is now receiving treatment at a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska, and also suffered frostbite on his hands and feet.
Alaska
Sierra Club among plaintiffs in lawsuit against feds over Alaska LNG project
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – For the second time in as many weeks, a government entity has been sued for its role in greenlighting the Alaska LNG project.
One week after eight Alaskan youth filed a lawsuit against the State of Alaska over its support of the natural gas pipeline, the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity have followed suit with a lawsuit of their own.
On Thursday, the two environmental groups announced they sued the federal government over not providing thorough opinions of the pipeline’s threats against Alaska’s polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales and North Pacific right whales.
“The agencies responsible for assessing the impacts on whales, polar bears, and other species neglected to take proper care in evaluating the full scope of harm Alaska LNG will cause,” Sierra Club Alaska Chapter Director Andrea Feinger said in a statement.
“We’ve only got one shot to protect the climate and critical ecosystems that these endangered animals rely upon. The federal government must take an honest look at the real outcomes of expanded gas extraction and transport across the landscape and waterways of Alaska.”
In a news release on Thursday, the nonprofits called out the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service for not following the Endangered Species Act.
“I’m outraged by how thoroughly federal agencies ignored the many ways this LNG project is likely to harm endangered whales and polar bears,” Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Our climate can’t take more fossil fuel extraction and neither can these desperately imperiled animals.”
The lawsuit was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with the hopes the legal system would deem the government’s wildlife assessments as faulty.
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Alaska
Environmental groups file new challenge to yet-unbuilt Alaska LNG export project • Alaska Beacon
Two environmental groups filed a new legal challenge to the Biden administration’s approval of a yet-to-be-built project that would send the Alaska North Slope’s vast reserves of natural gas to markets.
In a petition filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club argued that federal agencies failed to properly consider harms that the massive natural gas project would cause to Endangered Species Act-listed animals living in the affected marine areas: polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales and Eastern North Pacific right whales.
The petition was filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, along with the agencies’ parent departments, the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce.
The Biden administration last year renewed an approval of exports from the project, which has been pursued in various forms since the 1970s but never built. The current plan is being promoted by the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. It proposes a 42-inch-diameter pipeline running about 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to tidewater at Cook Inlet, where a new facility would convert the product to liquefied natural gas and load it onto tanker vessels for export to Asian markets.
The Biden administration’s most recent approval, which follows numerous other permits and approvals over the years, was based on flawed biological reviews, the environmental groups argued.
“The rubber-stamp approval of the Alaska LNG project was reckless in many ways,” Sierra Club Alaska Chapter Director Andrea Feniger said in a statement. “The project will be devastating to vulnerable wildlife already struggling to face the catastrophic impacts of climate change. The agencies responsible for assessing the impacts on whales, polar bears, and other species neglected to take proper care in evaluating the full scope of harm Alaska LNG will cause.”
The lawsuit comes about a week after a different case was filed that challenges the project. On May 22, a group of young Alaskans sued the state to block the project because of its anticipated carbon emissions and impact to climate change. That case was filed in Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage.
The cases are unrelated and the timing of the two is coincidental, said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. However, “it just goes to show how damaging this project would be in a variety of different ways,” she said by email.
The environmental groups’ legal claim was filed directly in the appeals court, bypassing lower courts, in accordance with the Natural Gas Act, Monsell said.
Under the act’s judicial review provision, challenges to permits for LNG projects other than those issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are to be filed directly in appeals courts in which projects are located, she said.
A previous lawsuit challenging the export approval was filed last August by the same environmental groups in a different court. That challenge, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Energy, alleged that federal approval decisions overlooked both climate and nonclimate environmental impacts of the yet-unbuilt LNG project. That lawsuit remains pending; the most recent action was a series of briefs filed by opposing parties earlier this month.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., responding to the latest legal challenge, said numerous reviews have already found the project to be worthwhile.
“Alaska LNG has withstood intensive environmental scrutiny by two successive administrations because of its obvious and abundant benefits, which include reducing global emissions by up to 2.3 billion tons, strengthening allied energy security, and finally ending longstanding air quality problems plaguing Interior Alaska villages and communities,” corporation spokesperson Tim Fitzpatrick said by email.
The Alaska North Slope has about 35 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas reserves, with more than that believed to exist in different areas of the region, including both conventional sources that would be produced through normal drilling technology and unconventional sources that would require more advanced techology, according to the U.S. Geological Survey estimates.
While oil has flowed from the North Slope since 1977, the natural gas that exists in the same fields has been stranded without a market and without any means of delivery to a market. The natural gas that is pumped up with oil in the North Slope fields is mostly reinjected into the ground to help push up more oil.
State, federal and industry officials have for decades pursued plans for pipelines to send that natural gas to markets – including a plan that was endorsed by then-President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s – but none has proved economically feasible.
The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. estimates its plan would cost $39 billion.
The Alaska Legislature, in its operating budget passed earlier this month, appropriated money to continue the state-owned corporation’s operations through the fiscal year starting on July 1.
Legislators allocated about $2.5 million in general-purpose state money to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., less than the $4.5 million the corporation had requested at the start of the session. The corporation can also spend up to $3.1 million from a special gasline-specific account, under the operating budget.
Earlier in the session, some lawmakers expressed skepticism about continued state funding of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and its efforts.
Reporter James Brooks contributed to this article.
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