AAI 107 million loss

[RIDETHELIGHTING]

mesa flys the CRJ900 at 83 seats for usair.

 

[maxblast72]

Do you think DAL could just pull out of the Airtran markets?

No, but right now Delta is reducing domestic capacity except markets where they overlap with Airtran (which Delta is flat to slightly up). Fornaro did say alot of those reductions were in Cincinatti and Salt Lake City, and that he didn't think Detroit would fare real well during the merger process due to the Michigan economy.

I think Delta with Richard Andeson at the helm has taken the philosophy not to give Airtran any breathing room. Unless they increase the frequency in the overlapping markets (2 RJ flights per mainline flight), replacing MD-80s and 737s with large RJ's would be a reduction in ASM on those routes.

I found Horizon's CASM in Alaska earnings report (seem to be the only airline that breaks out the wholly owned regionals). For a fleet of 21 CRJ-700's 34 Dash 8-400's and 12 Dash 8-12's, the average CASM for the fleet was $0.24/mile. That is over twice Airtran's total CASM even with the -400 skewing the numbers lower (since they are supposed to be 30% more fuel efficient than they RJs they replace). I would imagine Fornaro would rather compete with RJ's over Delta's MD-80s or 737's.

 

[Max Powers]

http://www.crj.bombardier.com/CRJ/en/jetsense.jsp?langId=en&crjId=900

Of course you have to consider the source but supposedly the 90 seater is cheaper than LCC 137 seaters look to the bottom of page on the chart. Plus with less seats it is easier to enter into a market with less seats to sell at the same price.

 

[maxblast72]

Nice presentation for trying to make the sale.

Of course Bombardier probably uses Mesa's labor costs for determining their CRJ-900 CASM and Southwest's labor costs for determining the 135 seat LCC CASM. Also, like to see the numbers brought up to our average stage length of 700 miles. And at what Jet A price assumption do you think their using for their models? I doubt it is over $2/gallon.