AirTran to cut service!!!!!

[Lear70]

Just about anything negotiated would be better than T.A. 1 or 2. The NPA has requested negotiations to start in early May through the NMB. The NMB has not yet responded.

The meeting is next week, someone got the date wrong. I'm anticipating the company will ask for voluntary LOA's first. They'll probably get a few takers, but not as many with all the other pilots on the street from a couple weeks ago.

airTran isn't leaving MKE. The information I'm getting says load factors are over 80% which is more than break-even.

The fare sales are only a few seats for attention-getters. I know every little bit counts right now, but raising prices $5-10 would have turned a quarterly loss into a small quarterly profit (take a look at the pax numbers out of the 10k).

It's a mess, but the end isn't here just yet...

 

[ualdriver]

Just about anything negotiated would be better than T.A. 1 or 2. The NPA has requested negotiations to start in early May through the NMB. The NMB has not yet responded.

The meeting is next week, someone got the date wrong. I'm anticipating the company will ask for voluntary LOA's first. They'll probably get a few takers, but not as many with all the other pilots on the street from a couple weeks ago.

airTran isn't leaving MKE. The information I'm getting says load factors are over 80% which is more than break-even.

The fare sales are only a few seats for attention-getters. I know every little bit counts right now, but raising prices $5-10 would have turned a quarterly loss into a small quarterly profit (take a look at the pax numbers out of the 10k).

It's a mess, but the end isn't here just yet...

Taking the kids to Disney in July.......Had kayak.com do a search on the dates we were looking for a week or two back for a flight from the Chicago area to MCO........Airtran MKE-MCO was the cheapest out of all the airlines by far, around $230 round trip including taxes, fees, etc. Everyone else was charging closer to $300.

 

[FlyWolf]

good for you, enjoy your ride on Airtran MKE-MCO, just make sure you aks the flight attendant for a coke products, not pepsi's .

 

[ualdriver]

good for you, enjoy your ride on Airtran MKE-MCO, just make sure you aks the flight attendant for a coke products, not pepsi's .

He-He........sorry to mislead. We didn't buy our tickets on Airtran as my screenname is UALdriver and my loyalties lie elsewhere Perhaps you didn't notice our 500M+ net loss? I have to throw my company at least a small bone!

I guess I was just trying to imply that we all have high load factors, but the fares are still not enough to cover our fuel costs. I suspect that $230 MKE-MCO roundtrip fare is a money losing one, as was probably the $300 fare offered on UAL that we purchased.

ualdriver

P.S. Actually we usually buy on UAL because UAL employees get a 20% discount on all UAL tickets for immediate family (spouse, kids, and parents).

 

[CitationLover]

If it's going to be your signature, you should spell "imminent" correctly.:beer:

Cheers.

as b82 stated, i simply cut and pasted what our chief pilot put on his weekly information letter.

 

[FlyWolf]

^^^ you mean X chief pilot, right? lol

 

[SkiFishFly]

I guess I was just trying to imply that we all have high load factors, but the fares are still not enough to cover our fuel costs. I suspect that $230 MKE-MCO roundtrip fare is a money losing one, as was probably the $300 fare offered on UAL that we purchased.

.

Might not be a money loser.

MKE - MCO, about a 2.5hr flight, might burn about 12000lbs of gas (737 will actually burn less). About 1800gal which is roughly 6750 bucks worth of fuel. Capt costs about 400 bucks. FO about 150. 3 FAs about 160 bucks. Acft costs about 2500. This adds up to 9960 total costs. Lets round up to 10k.
10k in costs spread out over 120 passengers is $83.33 per passenger. So a $115.00 fare might be profitable for us.

note- I might be off on these costs but they seem to be ballpark from discussions I have had with others. The fuel numbers and cost for the CA, FO and FAs are pretty realistic though.

 

[SFR]

Not in the Bridge (Stockbridge) anymore....chillin in IAH.

 

[Lampshade]

Might not be a money loser.

MKE - MCO, about a 2.5hr flight, might burn about 12000lbs of gas (737 will actually burn less). About 1800gal which is roughly 6750 bucks worth of fuel. Capt costs about 400 bucks. FO about 150. 3 FAs about 160 bucks. Acft costs about 2500. This adds up to 9960 total costs. Lets round up to 10k.
10k in costs spread out over 120 passengers is $83.33 per passenger. So a $115.00 fare might be profitable for us.

note- I might be off on these costs but they seem to be ballpark from discussions I have had with others. The fuel numbers and cost for the CA, FO and FAs are pretty realistic though.

You're not even close with those numbers, what about the airlines other costs you forgot to mention?

Crew med insurance
Reserve coverage
maintenance
Mechanics
Ground personnel
Reservations/ticketing personnel
Management staff
Airport rents
Aircraft leases
IT dept
etc

 

[gearup5]

Anyone see the dumb azz on the npa board saying we should be giving money back to save the company. Obviously he did not see bf get the multi million dollar raise. We don't pay for gas. That is it.

 

[ualdriver]

Might not be a money loser.

MKE - MCO, about a 2.5hr flight, might burn about 12000lbs of gas (737 will actually burn less). About 1800gal which is roughly 6750 bucks worth of fuel. Capt costs about 400 bucks. FO about 150. 3 FAs about 160 bucks. Acft costs about 2500. This adds up to 9960 total costs. Lets round up to 10k.
10k in costs spread out over 120 passengers is $83.33 per passenger. So a $115.00 fare might be profitable for us.

note- I might be off on these costs but they seem to be ballpark from discussions I have had with others. The fuel numbers and cost for the CA, FO and FAs are pretty realistic though.

In addition to what lampshade said, also keep in mind that Airtran is really getting the entire $230 that was paid by the passenger. Taxes and fees (guessing) would probably be 30 bucks of that $230?

 

[jonjuan]

The fare sales are only a few seats for attention-getters.

Every RT I was able to book 9 seats (the max on the airtran website) on every date selected at least 2 weeks out. I received the web deal fare for evey seat. I don't think there are only a few seats available at these fares.

 

[SkiFishFly]

If anyone has good acft cost numbers - that would help (probably a pretty closely held secret). I was told by one individual that 1000 per hour for the 737 includes maint, gates, gate agents etc. Even if you double that to 2000 per hour, the cost per pax (assuming 120) in the previous scenario is still only 104.

Someone mentioned pilots do not pay for fuel. I'm firmly in that category. No concessions!

 

[FlyWolf]

$1000/ hour seems low, how about aircraft lease, at least $400-500K/Month, no?

 

[ualdriver]

$1000/ hour seems low, how about aircraft lease, at least $400-500K/Month, no?

I think the monthly leases for narrowbodies run around 1% purchase cost, per month, assuming historical interest rates. So a 30M airplane would probably cost around 300K/month to lease. And, of course, I'm talking generally/ballpark type figures.