Alaska Air must decide fate of Virgin America's Airbus jets

SEATTLE -- The merger of Alaska Airlines and Virgin America brings an interesting new dynamic that Seattle-based Alaska now must navigate: a fleet of jetliners from two different aerospace giants.

Alaska Airlines' mainline fleet consists solely of Boeing 737s. Emblazoned on the nose of each are these words: "Proudly all Boeing." However, merger partner Virgin America flies Airbus A320s, the family of planes from Boeing rival Airbus that are a direct competitor to the 737 line.

"So we'll be a two fleet airline. We'll have Airbus airplanes at Virgin America. We'll have Boeing at Alaska," says Alaska Air CEO Brad Tilden. "And I think like any business, we're going to take a few months time and we'll sit down with both manufacturers in the months ahead and talk to them about 'Is it better for us to move to an all Boeing fleet on the Virgin side, or is it better for us to continue to operate these two fleet types?'"

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Different airlines take different approaches to their fleets. Southwest only flies the 737. With more than 700 jets, it's the fourth largest airline in the country by fleet size. Delta, with more than 800 planes, flies ten different types of jets.

For Alaska, what makes the most sense?

"That's a logical business process that we need to go through and we will go through it in the months ahead," said Tilden.

Different planes can limit an airline's flexibility. Most airline pilots are only certified to fly one type of plane at a time. They can -- and do -- switch, but that involves additional training and cost. Mechanics also need to keep more spare parts on hand.

The biggest addition for Alaska in all this is a larger footprint in California. But Tilden says there was a time when the company didn't think it was going to fly to Hawaii as it does now. Nor did it think it would fly east of the Rocky Mountains, much less to New York or Florida and, soon, Cuba.

VIDEO: Alaska gets Airbus jets in merger with Virgin (KING 5)

KING 5 TV of Seattle is part of the USA TODAY NETWORK. Occasionally, USA TODAY NETWORK stories are used in Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the Sky blog. You can follow the author of this story, KING 5 reporter Glenn Farley on Twitter at @GlennFarleyK5.

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