New Boeing Jet Added to Fleet
Posted on Tue, 03/29/05 00:00 Southwest accepted delivery of our 11th new aircraft of the year and our 423rd 737 overall on Monday when N206WN was added to the fleet. This was the third of four planned -700 deliveries for the month of March. We have 23 additional deliveries planned for the year, with 30 scheduled for next year. The latest delivery brings our fleet up to 194 -300s, 25 -500s, and 204 -700s.
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For those who are interested....the net increase in airplanes this year with the "planned" deliveries at this point will be be 29....5 x -200s were retired in Jan...the increase in capacity from last years optimization of the schedule in addition to these aircraft equate to approximately 10% growth in capacity....other carriers have announced shrinkage (George C knows all about "shrinkage" for those Seinfield fan!) in their capacity....very hard to increase efficiency when that occurs....adding airplanes/seats without adding the additional folks other than crews allow productivity to increase & spreads one's costs out over a larger number of airplane seats. With the advent of additonal funding with USAir & Indy Air the expected shrinkage on the East Coast particularly isn't occurring as quickly as Southwest would like but time will tell....fuel hedges insulates to some degree SWA's pain from high oil prices & as I said months ago, higher oil prices only aggravates the liquidity problems many of our competitors are facing. Despite what folks may think, SWA doesn't have the pricing power & leverage to move prices to a level that can overcome the high oil prices....still too many seats out there but MDW is producing great opportunities & taking advantage of those while things shake out in the east with other legacy carriers or regional carriers is a way to keep generating revenue.
A recent Herb sighting in CLT within the past few days adds speculation that something in the near future may occur there....seen at an Irish pub dancing/drinking with the Mayor of CLT....doesn't take much to get Herb to dance or drink but doing it CLT? The future looks bright for CLT & lower fares between AirTran, Indy, possibly JB & us coming to town....we'll see what plays out in the near future....
Posted on Tue, 03/29/05 00:00 Southwest accepted delivery of our 11th new aircraft of the year and our 423rd 737 overall on Monday when N206WN was added to the fleet. This was the third of four planned -700 deliveries for the month of March. We have 23 additional deliveries planned for the year, with 30 scheduled for next year. The latest delivery brings our fleet up to 194 -300s, 25 -500s, and 204 -700s.
_________________
For those who are interested....the net increase in airplanes this year with the "planned" deliveries at this point will be be 29....5 x -200s were retired in Jan...the increase in capacity from last years optimization of the schedule in addition to these aircraft equate to approximately 10% growth in capacity....other carriers have announced shrinkage (George C knows all about "shrinkage" for those Seinfield fan!) in their capacity....very hard to increase efficiency when that occurs....adding airplanes/seats without adding the additional folks other than crews allow productivity to increase & spreads one's costs out over a larger number of airplane seats. With the advent of additonal funding with USAir & Indy Air the expected shrinkage on the East Coast particularly isn't occurring as quickly as Southwest would like but time will tell....fuel hedges insulates to some degree SWA's pain from high oil prices & as I said months ago, higher oil prices only aggravates the liquidity problems many of our competitors are facing. Despite what folks may think, SWA doesn't have the pricing power & leverage to move prices to a level that can overcome the high oil prices....still too many seats out there but MDW is producing great opportunities & taking advantage of those while things shake out in the east with other legacy carriers or regional carriers is a way to keep generating revenue.
A recent Herb sighting in CLT within the past few days adds speculation that something in the near future may occur there....seen at an Irish pub dancing/drinking with the Mayor of CLT....doesn't take much to get Herb to dance or drink but doing it CLT? The future looks bright for CLT & lower fares between AirTran, Indy, possibly JB & us coming to town....we'll see what plays out in the near future....
