Category: Aviation

Alaska Airlines and Philippine Airlines announce partnership

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Philippines Airlines via Glenn Beltz

From Alaska Airlines —

Alaska Airlines is celebrating the addition of our newest global airline partner, Philippine Airlines, the flag carrier of the Philippines and the oldest operating commercial airline in Asia. With our new frequent flyer partnership, Alaska becomes Philippine Airlines’ first loyalty partner in North America, opening the door for our guests to book travel to exotic, once-in-a-lifetime destinations such as Palawan and Boracay in the Philippines.

In the coming months, our guests will be able to book flights on Philippine Airlines directly at alaskaair.com, earn Mileage Plan miles for their travel and redeem Mileage Plan miles for Philippine Airlines flights.

 

I have to hand it to Alaska Airlines for continuing to grow their partnership portfolio. Manila seems to be a quickly growing market, with United now offering two non-stops a day from San Francisco. What remains to be seen with this announced Alaska-Philippine partnership is whether or not onward flights will actually be sold via Alaska’s website. In my experience, the IT aspects of Alaska when booking partner flights on their website leaves a lot of be desired. For example, try to book something like Seattle-Frankfurt, a simple itinerary where Alaska could offer Seattle-London-Frankfurt or even Seattle-Helsinki-Frankfurt, but Alaska will only offer Seattle-Dublin-Frankfurt. Other itineraries are similar, all over the world.

This is particularly frustrating as Alaska promises even more miles on partners when booking through their website. If you book a partner on a partner’s website and credit to Alaska you receive fewer miles; A business class fare on British Airways purchased on ba.com earns only 125% elite miles on Alaska. If you were able to book the ticket on Alaska’s website, it would earn 250% elite miles.

It’s hard to know whether this is intentional or if it is just a lack of IT capabilities. My guess is that there is a huge backlog of technical functionality that needs to be looked at and changed as part of the merger with Hawaiian Airlines and this is taking priority over needs, including partner integration issues.

Another part of this announcement that I find intriguing is that Alaska is actively seeking partners even after the integration into oneworld. It speaks to the fact that the alliances don’t reach everywhere but such connectivity is needed. It might also hint at Philippine Airlines being interested in eventually joining oneworld, kind of like Starlux has hinted at.

 

In any case, I think this is great news for frequent travelers and we might see some great reward availability open up to southeast Asia so keep an eye out for that! What are your thoughts on the Alaska/Philippine Airlines partnership?

Photo from Glenn Beltz on Flickr.

JetBlue-United Partnership Rumors

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From Reuters —

JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O), opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab have been negotiating a partnership, three industry sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The partnership with United is envisioned as quite different from the NEA, the sources said. While the alliance is expected to focus on providing greater connectivity to customers and allowing them to earn and burn frequent-flier miles, the two carriers will not coordinate on schedules and pricing, they added.

 

Another rumor, from Corriere, an Italian news outlet, is that United would receive 20 slots at JFK in the partnership.

United Airlines, one of the largest carriers in the world and a longtime ally of Lufthansa (soon also of ITA Airways), is turning its attention to low-cost carrier JetBlue in an attempt to challenge Delta Air Lines at one of its key hubs: New York’s JFK Airport. The Chicago-based airline — which currently operates from Newark, across the Hudson River in New Jersey — is exploring various options ranging from a commercial alliance to a full acquisition. United wants to return to JFK operations as soon as possible by taking over 20 slot pairs (allowing for 40 daily flights, between arrivals and departures) and access to 2 boarding gates from JetBlue. This is according to four U.S. sources familiar with the internal talks, speaking to Corriere.

 

With 20 slots at JFK, United would certainly look to bring back service to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Back in 2022, United CEO Scott Kirby told Bloomberg as much.

“Well certainly the place that we, whether it’s through JetBlue or somewhere else, we would like to get back into JFK in a big way, particularly in the transcon market. So getting enough slots at JFK that we can get back to serving San Francisco and Los Angeles, particularly for business customers, and having another real option for business customers in those markets that would be our number one priority.”

 

If these rumors are true and a partnership between JetBlue and United is really coming, it will definitely shake things up at JFK and could present some interesting frequent flyer opportunities. Since none of the rumors state a timeline for the partnership, we will have to wait and see for this to all fall into place.

Port of Portland plans to meet with Korean Air on service to Asia

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The Port of Portland held a boarding meeting on December 11, 2024 and during that meeting they discussed the lack of transpacific flights. They went through some slides on the rebound of Asia travel and how it is still below 2019 levels, but, they also mentioned that some of the board was headed to Atlanta next week to have discussions with SkyTeam and Korean Air Lines. The discussion goes on to highlight how good the connections are out of Seoul-Incheon Airport to the rest of Asia.

Delta used to fly Portland to Tokyo-Narita but in the latter half of 2023 they ended that route. Since then, there have not been any non-stop passenger flights to Asia from Portland. Korean Air Lines is a Delta partner and is a member of the SkyTeam alliance. Having flights going through Seoul makes a ton of sense to connect passengers to the rest of the continent and would be a huge gain for PDX. Even if Korean only ran these flights 3-4x/week I believe there is enough traffic (based on the slide shared at the board meeting) to make it profitable. I’ve posted the full video below, starting when the discussion about Asia begins. They discuss their meeting Korean around 39:12.

There is also mention of discussions with JAL (Japan Airlines) in Tokyo sometime soon though no details were shared. There was also a very short bit about pursuing summer seasonal service to Dublin, Paris, and Munich. Of those, Paris seems the most likely because of Air France’s ties to Delta and existing service to Amsterdam on KLM.

In any case, a super interesting developments for Portland and PDX, hopefully we see more flights and service around the world!

Saying goodbye to United

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Saying goodbye to United

I recently wrote about United Airlines increasing the spend and flight requirements for every status level in their MileagePlus frequent flyer program. The changes bring them in line with the monetary requirements as their equivalent Delta Medallion statuses, the one difference being that Delta does not require a certain number of flights in exchange for lower spend.

My take on the changes is that United is definitely trying to push people to spend on their credit cards, even upping the number of elite points you can earn from that spend. They are also looking to get a little bit more spend from those frequent flyers who were right on the cusp of earning the next highest status. Lastly, they are trying to “thin the herd” of frequent flyers a tad bit, though I think this isn’t as much of a motivator as some make it out to be. If you want to hear more about the motivations of United, you can listen to a recent episode of Dots, Lines, and Destinations where we had Ed Pizzarello on as a guest to talk about United’s elite status requirement increases.

From the title, you can probably guess where this is going. This year I made it to United’s Platinum status and could probably push it to make it to 1K for 2025, but requalifying next year for 1K with the new requirements would be close to impossible. I am a lifetime Gold with United after flying over 1 million miles on them (and Continental) and so I will have those benefits no matter what. If I really wanted to spend a lot of time on airplanes over the next year, I could shoot for 3 million miles (I need about 1.3 million more) and get lifetime 1K but I think I value my sanity too much to even attempt that.

So, going forward I am not going to prioritize United in my travel plans. I’ll look at schedules and price and make a decision based solely on that. When possible I am going to lean toward flying Alaska Airlines or their oneworld alliance partners. If United comes up cheaper and/or with a better schedule, I will still consider them but I just can’t justify going out of my way to fly them.

This isn’t an easy decision, I love Star Alliance and the number of options they have around the world. I love that United does offer a really cool upgrade option PlusPoints, even if it has been difficult to use them on long haul international routes. I love that United has been adding lots of new destinations. I love that the 1K phone line actually gets you to the front of the queue. That’s what makes it hard to just go fly someone else.

Here’s the math I have been pondering. I used to fly Portland-Newark every week for about 30 weeks a year. Looking at average prices it was around $500-$600 roundtrip. Taking the high end of that, it was about $18,000 in spend and 60 flights. That used to qualify me for 1K. Next year I would need to spend an additional $10,000 to qualify for 1K. And I don’t travel nearly that much anymore, but I do quite a bit of long haul international travel that is fairly expensive and I still didn’t make 1K this year and don’t really want to give United the few thousand dollars it would take to make it.

There is also the question of where the airlines think they are economically and just how long the post-Covid travel boom will last. If in the next year travel were to slow, they could easily adjust their requirements or give bonuses to help people qualify that otherwise wouldn’t, but I can’t be the only frequent flyer who doesn’t live in a hub looking at these changes and questioning which airline I spend my money with and why.

What do you think? Am I making a rash decision? Should I stick with United for another year?

United increases 2025-2026 elite status requirements

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United increases 2025-2026 elite status requirements

United released their 2025 requirements for 2026 MileagePlus elite status and it’s not great news. I’ve put two tables with the 2024 requirements and the new 2025 requirements below. For reference, PQF is Premier Qualifying Flights and PQP is Premier Qualifying Points or dollars spent. For every dollar spent on airfare with United you earn 1 PQP.

Year Premier Silver Premier Gold Premier Platinum Premier 1K
2024 12 PQF and 4,000 PQP or 5,000 PQP 24 PQF and 8,000 PQP or 10,000 PQP 36 PQF and 12,000 PQP or 15,000 PQP 54 PQF and 18,000 PQP or 24,000 PQP
2025 15 PQF and 5,000 PQP or 6,000 PQP 30 PQF and 10,000 PQP or 12,000 PQP 45 PQF and 15,000 PQP or 18,000 PQP 60 PQF and 22,000 PQP or 28,000 PQP

As you can see, this comes out to 25% increase in PQF and PQP needed to qualify for each status, with some minor differences for specific ones (1K only needs 11% more PQFs with 22% more PQPs).

In an email sent to MileagePlus members, there are the following perks coming for PlusPoints, a currency that once earned, allows flyers to upgrade flights from economy to Premium Economy and Polaris (Business class).

Starting in mid-2025, PlusPoints earned upon achieving the highest tiers of
Premier status will become even more versatile. In addition to using
PlusPoints to request premium seat and cabin upgrades, you’ll soon be able
to redeem PlusPoints for new perks, including:

  • Premier qualifying points (PQP) or Premier qualifying flights (PQF)
  • TravelBank cash
  • Bonus miles
  • Gifting Premier status to other MileagePlus members

So as PlusPoints are earned next year, you’ll be able to use them in 2026 for these new “perks”. These new options seem to be in response to the general complaint I hear which is that PlusPoint upgrades rarely clear. So elite flyers are earning these points and are then unable to use them which is frustrating and deflates the value. And United would much rather having pay business class passengers in those seats rather than upgrading someone using PlusPoints so they needed a way to give the points value and these perks are what they came up with. The PlusPoints now feel like a second currency, in addition to the existing miles you earn from flying and credit card spend.

Keeping it classy in United Polaris business class.

I have mixed feelings about the increase in qualifying points and flights for their respective statuses. One one hand it feels like United is trying to thin the herd of elites in their ranks. By making it harder to earn each level of status, theoretically there will be fewer elites at each of those levels. But that theory doesn’t match what United has said about the market in general, which is that business travel is way down. So with these changes are they insinuating that leisure travelers are spending so much more that they have to thin that out? If so, that’s insane because it doesn’t match the broader economic picture that everyone is painting; That we’re in an economic slump and people are saving not spending.

United clearly has overcrowding issues at their hubs, especially at Newark and San Francisco. Just go browse Threads or Twitter and you will see people complaining that their San Francisco-Newark pre-boarding call for 1Ks, who get early boarding before Group 1, was half of the plane. These are fortress hubs for United with limited competition so lots of elites are expected but with these latest requirement changes, they make it just a little harder for those flyers to earn status. Maybe it knocks that early boarding number down by 5 people per flight. United must have some data to back up their decisions, or they are simply getting very greedy.

What are my plans?

I have my doubts that these increases impact the number of elites at each level but I would love to be proven wrong. I think the spend requirements for 1K, where you get lots of PlusPoints for upgrades and generally more perks, is outrageous and don’t see my travel patterns ever meeting the $22k and 60 flight requirement to qualify. What I struggle with is where to go instead. United’s schedules out of Portland are actually quite good and my cursory searches of other carriers aren’t promising. Delta has similar schedules but they also have similar spend requirements for elite status. Alaska does not have all of the spend requirements but their schedules out of Portland are not great, especially if they don’t fly somewhere non-stop out of here. Because they lack a middle of the country or east coast hub, the connection options are limited to one of their other west coast hubs or via American Airlines and one of their hubs; American’s schedules aren’t much better.

All of this to say, I feel quite stuck. What makes this even more difficult is that I am at 1.5 million lifetime miles on United, guaranteeing lifetime Gold status. If I fly another 1.5 million miles I am guaranteed lifetime 1K. I would love to reach that milestone but just don’t know that I can do that quickly (or cheaply). So, for longhaul work flights, I think I am going to fly the better carriers when I can and credit to Alaska. For domestic travel I am thinking I’ll give preference to United but if they are outrageously priced I’ll consider other carriers. We will see how this plays out in the next few months, I have a few international work trips in the planning stages and I’ll need to make a decision.

Summary

United has raised the qualification requirements for elite status and announced some new things that elites can redeem their PlusPoints for, making up for the fact it is so hard to redeem the PlusPoints for upgrades. The qualification requirements have gone up around 25% for most status levels. If United sees a shift in the economy they can change these requirements or give bonuses and adjust next year.

Qantas giving upgrades to politicians

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Qatar Airlines 777

Ben from One Mile at a Time —

According to the book, Australia’s current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has received at least 22 free Qantas upgrades from economy class, including some for his family and personal travel. The book claims that Albanese would liaise directly with Joyce for these upgrades. It’s claimed that the requests for these upgrades date back several years, including to when Albanese had the role of Transport Minister.

 
Ben goes on to discuss whether this even matters.

Am I the only one who feels like we’re splitting hairs here? How about we see an Australian politician actually fight for the people, and make it so that politicians don’t get access to a special lounge, and where it is an issue when politicians get free upgrades? This isn’t how it should be, in my opinion.

To what extent did these factors influence the relationship between politicians and Qantas? I mean, it’s hard to say, though if you ask me, the Australian government has tried to block foreign competitors of Qantas, all while letting the airline operate in a way that simply isn’t in the best interest of the traveling public.

 
I tend to think it does matter, especially as there was (and still is) quite a bit of controversy over Qantas getting its way as foreign carriers ask for more flights into Australia as part of their bilateral agreements. The Albanese government rejected those requests.

The Guardian’s write-up on the blocking of the flights is quite telling.

“The Government has the opportunity to make some immediate decisions that will put downward pressure on airfares, and improve reliability and competitiveness,” McKenzie said.

She said the decision to refuse Qatar’s request “makes little sense, particularly when we’ve seen the cost of international flights in some cases treble in the last couple of years”. McKenzie claimed allowing it would put “downward pressure on airfares”.

McKenzie said King had provided varying reasons for rejecting the request, including wanting “to help Qantas afford to buy new planes”.

“This government seems to be running a protection racket for a major domestic carrier by refusing to increase competition and freight capacity,” McKenzie said.

 

Prices into and out of Australia are at all time highs and Qantas is posting record profits. Other carriers are begging to fly more flights and potentially lower fares and those requests are being rejected by a government where the leader is receiving status and upgrades from what you could call the national airline. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and gets upgraded like a duck…

Friday links

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Some links this week that I found interesting.

United’s 2025 route announcement

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United’s 2025 route announcement

The Announcement

On October 10, United Airlines announced eight new destinations and a few other new routes. I had predicted, because of my own selfish desire that United fly the routes, San Francisco-Hanoi and San Francisco-Bangkok as well as Newark-Palermo. The only one I predicted accurately was Newark-Palermo. The full list of new destinations are:

  • Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – United will serve Ulaanbaatar from Tokyo-Narita on a 737 starting May 1, 2025.
  • Kaohsiung, Taiwan – United will serve this southern Taiwan destination from Tokyo-Narita on a 737 starting July 11, 2025.
  • Dakar, Senegal – This will be flown from Washington-Dulles starting May 23, 2025. I’m guessing this will be flown on a 787-8 but that info is not confirmed yet.
  • Nuuk, Greenland – From Newark, this route will start on June 14, 2025. The speculation is that this will be flown on a 737 MAX 8, but no confirmation from United yet.
  • Palermo, Italy – United will fly to this destination from Newark and the route will start on May 21, 2025. This route was originally planned for summer of 2020 but the Covid lockdowns prevented it from happening. The route will be operated by a 767-400ER.
  • Bilbao, Spain – Starting May 31, 2025, United will fly to Bilbao out of Newark. United didn’t state what plane they will be flying on the route but my guess would be a 767-300ER or a 757-200.
  • Madeira Island, Portugal – United will operate a 3-times weekly flight to the Portuguese island out of Newark. This is another route that might be operated by a 737 MAX 8, but we don’t yet know for sure.
  • Faro, Portugal – This Portuguese beach destination will start out of Newark four times a week on May 16. This is another flight I think could be a 757-200.

A few other items were announced as well, including year-round service from Tokyo-Narita to Palau. This service is in addition to the flights on United between Palau and Manila and Palau and Guam. There will also be a new daily flight between Houston and Puerto Escondido, Mexico on an Embraer E-175. San Francisco will see a new service to San Jose, Costa Rica once daily. And lastly, United will fly Washington-Dulles to Venice, Italy and Nice, France in summer of 2025 in addition to the Newark flights to those destinations.

My Thoughts

It is nice that United is adding some new routes and I think a few of them really stand out. Their announcement in summary was, “people are bored going to Rome” and that sentiment doesn’t necessarily sit well with me. Yes, people want new destinations and there are travelers who want to go to these new destinations but I wouldn’t define most of what they announced as popular tourist destination.

The exciting routes to me are Nuuk, Ulaanbaatar, and Palermo, with Palermo being interesting because it is in Sicily and directly competes with Delta’s newly announced route to Catania. The most exciting to me is Ulaanbaatar; I would love to visit Mongolia and spend some time on steppe exploring. It is not an easy place to reach on Star Alliance with transit of China, South Korea, or Turkey being the only way to get there until this United flight starts.

Seth recently visited Greenland on the new Air Greenland service to Canada and I think he raises some very practical questions on the ability of Greenland to handle a large influx of tourists. The route is super cool though and I do hope to experience it and explore Greenland.

I am sure Bilbao, Spain will perform well for United but I do wonder what United will run the route on. The runway at Bilbao is 8,500 feet and surrounded by hills and mountains so it will need to be a performant aircraft, making me lean toward a 757-200.

Faro, Portugal makes some sense because of the large Portuguese population in New Jersey and Faro being a well regarded beach/coastal locale.

The Kaohsiung route is an interesting addition out of Tokyo. My understanding is that there is a ton of demand to Taiwan and this is another option where United can route traffic to the country on their metal with a single stop in Japan. With slots at Narita fairly easy to come by I could see United continuing to explore options out of the airport to tertiary cities in Asia.

Overall I was relatively unimpressed by the announcement. It almost feels like United hired a British stag/hen party planner and just went with whatever destinations they recommended. Maybe folks really want to go to places on the Mediterranean for the Instagram novelty but that doesn’t excite me very much. We’ll have to see how the routes perform, especially as year-over-year travel numbers start to decline.

Exploring the new terminal at PDX

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Exploring the new terminal at PDX

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in Portland International Airport’s “dress rehearsal” for the opening of the newly built main terminal building. The building has been under construction since early 2021 and with this phase, a big portion of the airport will reopen, reducing a lot of the check-in desk congestion that is present today. The dress rehearsal was to help the airport, the airlines, and TSA make sure that things were operating as expected and to work out any major hiccups before the terminal officially opens on August 14. I believe over 1,000 participants signed up.

All participants had to register before entering the space and this process was a bit painful as it meant waiting in the parking garage in a very long line. The bottleneck seemed to be that they were doing a quick orientation of around 75 people before releasing them into the terminal. To me, this seemed problematic from a realism perspective as the waves of people during the morning rush can be well into the 200-300. Each person received a script that let them know what airline they were flying, whether or not they were checking bags, the security line they needed to go through (PreCheck, express, or regular), and how they were checking in (app or website, kiosk, or with an agent).

The Nitty Gritty

The terminal is beautiful, no doubt about it. On the right in this photo is the temporary wall that blocks the current check-in area from the new space. Then there are the new check-in areas. They are long open areas giving plenty of space for travelers to maneuver, even if an airline’s queues are long. Then you reach the wooden floor and a large opening in the ceiling letting a ton of natural light fill the space.

New PDX Terminal

The wooden floors lead to a tiled space and here you are facing west. There are stadium seats (more on that later) that face the area where passengers will exit the secure area after their flights. In the next picture the security checkpoints are to the right and left of the center of the photo.

New PDX Airport Terminal, Looking at Exit Hall

The security checkpoints are where some of my qualms with the design start to become apparent. Each security lane, or spot where there is a body scanner, has three places where passengers can line up to fill the plastic bins with their luggage, shoes, toiletries, etc. This is marked with the lane number and a letter (5A/B/C in the next photo), but there is zero explanation of what this means. As you can see, people were kind of bunching up. This will speed up people going through the I.D. check but will probably cause some frustration as people try to jockey for the next open bin space. I’m not sure how to solve it but I brought it to the airport staff’s attention as well as the TSA’s, so maybe they’ll come up with something in the next couple of weeks.

West Security Checkpoint at new PDX Terminal

After you go through security you are in a new atrium area that will lead to the old terminal hallways, so no big changes there.

But, the good news for travelers is that the secure connector hallway between B/C and D/E terminals will reopen when the terminal reopens! This will be a huge help to passengers who are connecting between some of the airlines that interline and codeshare out of PDX. The downside is that this hallway is now contains the singular exit for all passengers. I’ve been told this is temporary until phase II of the airport is completed, so hopefully that is true. The other downside is that the connector hallway no longer has moving walkways nor the chairs that it used to have. If I had a flight delay I would typically grab a coffee, sit in those chairs, and enjoy the views of the airport operations. My guess is that the hallway is too narrow now and putting chairs in would just impede traffic.

Terminal Connector Hallways and Exit at new PDX Terminal

Now, back to those stadium seats. These seats face the single terminal exit. There is going to be a lot of traffic around this area with people waiting for their friends and family to arrive. I’m sure Loyal Legion will do great business but do you notice that glass partition between the booth and the area above the terminal exit? It’s definitely not high enough to prevent a child (or adult) from tossing things down onto the heads of people exiting after their flight.

I also don’t love the lack of backs on the seating in the area but it is an improvement to the current waiting areas for families, which is essentially 5-6 seats at each of the two exits.

Standing on Stadium Seating Area in New PDX Terminal

Overall the space is a huge improvement. The amount of natural light alone is a massive upgrade to what the old check-in area, security checkpoints, and waiting area were like. This new pre-security departure hall offers lots of open space for passengers and passenger’s family/friends to wait. And the concessions and stores that disappeared during the construction, we’re getting those back and some new ones, like Loyal Legion, outside of security that everyone can enjoy. What do you think of the new terminal?

Looking at new PDX terminal from stadium seating area

 

Delta dropping Portland-Amsterdam, KLM picking it up

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From KLM —

Starting from October 27, KLM will fly three times a week on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday between Schiphol and Portland in winter. In summer 2025, KLM will fly five times a week on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday between Schiphol and Portland. The flights are operated by the Boeing 787-9 and offer 30 seats in World Business Class, 21 seats in Premium Comfort Class, and 224 seats in Economy Class.

 

It isn’t outright stated in the release but this service replaces Delta’s daily A330 service between Portland and Amsterdam. This is overall a large reduction in seats on the route, especially since it will no longer be daily in the summer.

This route originates from Northwest’s old route network which Delta continued for a little while and then slowly started shrinking over time. Delta has operated it as a “scissor” route, meaning the flight would fly Portland-Amsterdam-Detroit so that the plane could rotate through a Delta hub for maintenance. The return flight to Portland would operate in a similar fashion. This probably created a small amount of planning headaches, but Delta had been doing it for years.

Because Delta has a joint-venture with KLM/Air France, KLM flying the route will still earn Delta cash and they can connect some traffic through PDX, though I think that will be rare. KLM will operate a more fuel efficient plane, the Boeing 787-9, reducing costs on the route.

At the same time, I think it’s a downgrade for Portlanders both because of the reduction in schedule and because of the plane change. In economy Delta operates the A330 with 2-4-2 seating while KLM’s 787-9s operate with 3-3-3 seating. For a couple traveling together, those 2 seats by the window are a great option. The reduction in service is disappointing but maybe KLM will up the summer flying after selling the route for a while and seeing how well (or not well) it is doing. Of course the news release doesn’t acknowledge the reduction but in my opinion it should.

It does make me wonder about the future of Delta’s base at PDX. It feels like they are so focused on making Seattle work that they’ll reduce other west coast flying in pursuit of that goal. There have been rumors of Delta trying to get a Portland-Seoul route operating but I am very skeptical of that happening.

One little side note, at the bottom of the KLM press release it states:

Portland is the capital of the state of Oregon.

 
Portland is not the state capital of Oregon.