ACA told to close BOS Base?

[GogglesPisano]

Actually I know of 2 in-flight shutdowns at ACA. One of which I have intimate knowledge of.

 

[NoName]

Independence Air could offer that UAL currently does not:

1. affordable air fares out of IAD (no more $600 tickets IAD-SYR on a CRJ)

2. more frequent svc (more efficient usage of a/c, helping to further decrease costs and benefit customer); ACA's CRJs since UAL chap 11 avg 8.5 hrs a day; under Indy theyll avg. 11.5; Airbus upwards of 14.

3. much better customer service that is poor at IAD UAL (this has hamstrung ACA for years and yes, ACA does have some bad apples here too). You cant tell me honestly that UAX will have better customer svc with Mesa at IAD. There is a big push at ACA to flush the old culture and bring in a new attitude with a sense of purpose. Not an easy thing to do but it will be essential to the success of Iair.


I predict ACA will exit the DALConn program within a year. As long as it doesnt cost 400 jobs, it could be a good thing in the long run. Eliminate conflict of interest with DAL, allow ACA to concentrate on LCC, get rid of Dojets, etc.

You say alot of LCCs fail. I wont debate that. But know other carrier will start from Day 1 with as much on the table to start as Independence. BTW, even if we fail, at least we failed on our terms not someone elses.

Good luck to all.

1. fare...look for ual to match fares.

2. More freq? Thats yet to be seen. the future of ual exp is yet to be determined in iad.

3. better customer service no doubt im sure. however youll have to compete with freq flyer programs and folks who have been with united for years.
--------
indy cant even pitch the IFE as most airplanes in their fleet wont have it.

 

[NoName]

The difference is that ACA/I air is not really a "startup" carrier. They already have airplanes that air flying and making money. It's really just a change in focus and type of operation. UAL is a bankrupt company who wasn't willing to honor their agreement with ACA even though it was making both money. All you can do with "partners" like that is say goodbye. ACA/I air IS moving on.

aca is only making money b/c of their partners, not themselves. now they are cutting their strings and will be a startup. a startup that also has a lot more bills to pay. not everyone will be a first year employees like when jetblue started.

 

[NoName]

NoName, the previous airlines that you cite just goes to show that you do not understand what is going on here. Independance Air is not merely another rehashed upstart from the primordial ooze, they are a revolutionary product the likes of which has not been seen in the deregulated era. This is the gutsiest move I have ever seen.

These guys are rewriting the book. You don't think they have been paying attention to where all those pax they have been carrying are going or how they bought their tickets? Travel agents are history and so are big centralized reservation centers. Wake up!

Now, alas, I fear a wheezing DAL along with a bit of help from a staggering UAL might use us as the instrument to teach this and any future upstarts a lesson. Go get 'em, guys.

revloutionary? hardly. gutsy, yes. those passengers they have been carrying have been flying ual/dal not aca and didnt buy the ticket b/c aca was flying it. (ok maybe a few). How is this a revolutionary product?????? low fare carrier with crjs and narrowbodys? airtran does that. Im not saying anything against the pilot or management group, they were pushed up against a wall, and rather then whore out, they went on there own. thats not the point im trying to make. my point is i just dont think its going to work.

 

[SaladShooter]

NoName-

Please educate yourself before you open your mouth. Go to the web site download the investor presentation and take a look at it. Crunch the numbers and look at them. After you look at it OBJECTIVELY compare it to the airline models that are now being offered. There is not ONE I repeat ONE other airline that is going to try what we are trying. That is we are going to try run a hub and spoke with the mentality of a point to point operation. We are going to lower our CASM not by getting rid of the smaller aircraft and replacing them with larger ones but by flying the little ones more. If we fly the airplanes more it is more cost effective on the fixed costs. AirTran does not do what we are trying, JetBlue does not do it, SWA does not do it and NONE of the legacy carriers do it.

TM and KS are trying something different because the current way of running an airline is not working. The low utilization of the aircraft and the high fixed costs add up to uncontrollable costs that airlines just cannot handle anymore. We are going to try the WalMart approach, we keep it simple, we keep it eficient and most important we keep it cheap! UAL cannot match our prices out of IAD, why you ask, because the Express carriers are flying them that means not only does UAL have to make money but so do the Express carriers that are flying them. That is two profit margins that have to be accounted for in the ticket prices. UAL is coming out of BNK and cannot afford to lose money as the investors will back out fast. UAL cannot offer the frequency that IAIR will offer also, why you ask, they do not have the gate space nor do they have the assets in place to match IAIR. We are going to be running 8 continous banks a day with an average of 40 flights out at a bank period. UAL's new terminal will not be that big. (By the way the new Express carriers will not have any MX hangers available in IAD as we own the only one. So all MX will have to be performed at an outstation or in the open. So if they break an airplane in IAD they are SOL if it is a big problem unless they fix it in a snow storm or they ferry it out to an outstation.)

Now this is all based on the assumption UAL is going to survive, which we all know is a crap shoot. Even some of the UAL pilots I give rides to say they are having creeping doubts about the survival in the long term. They like to point to the pay cuts they took and the recent anouncement of a new paint scheme as mismangement.

Now will it work?? I do not know but I can tell you this I used to work at Merril Lynch as an analiyst and I have never seen anybody try this or even talk about trying this in the past. If we can get through the first couple of years we will be fine, I am not worried about UAL or USAIR as I believe they will cease to be a factor for us in the future as they will dissolve or shrink so much they are no longer a threat. JetBlue is too new to know if it will be a major competitor as they are still on the MX holiday and because of that the numbers are not complete for a really detailed look at the financial health of the company. SWA is out of BWI, a hell of a drive so they will little to no competition in the short term. AirTran has its sights set on the Midwest US so they should not be a factor for awhile. DAL could be a problem but from what I hear from some friends at ML is SONG is not living up to the hype as of yet. Last I heard a 60% load factor since inception up to November of 03, not a complete analysis but unless it gets better it will not be around for long. ( Though is DAL files BNK and leaves us with the DODO's that would create a whole new problem.) AMR is not really a big player in IAD nor is NWA so I do not see them as problems.

Sorry about the length but please get educated on the issues before you chip in with your 2 cents. Now if you have any educated financial objections to this idea please post them and we can debate them as I am always open to new ideas and even I can overlook something.

I am a financial guy by trade, and so I please excuse any spelling mistakes you might come across.

 

[NoName]

well youve got it all figured out. even down to the part were no one else is going to be a factor. doesnt matter what kind of model you use you have to put passengers in the seat, and thats something that is yet to be seen, and no one can forecast. they are really pouring a mean cup of coolaid over there...

 

[w4mch]

In truth noname there will most likely be a "competitive response" by UAL and our management takes it seriously.

Several things to consider though:

1. UAL will have cash balance and cash flow restrictions placed on them by the ATSB loan process. Look at USAir's current squeeze to see what I'm saying here. They (USAir) have to maintain $1B cash on hand and a positive monthly cash flow. Similar restrictions will limit the severity and duration of UAL's predatory pricing response.

2. Even with UAL's restructuring they will have the ATSB loan to pay on, in addition to pension funding catch-ups to pay, in addition to having just pissed off every airport and vendor they work with. Add this to their legendary customer service and we feel we can do a good job competing in the cities we choose to fly to. We aren't going to go to europe, south america and asia out of IAD, just domestic markets we feel will have a good traffic response to our fares and frequency offerings.

All told, the ACA coolaide tastes a lot better than the UAL hemlock that was on the table earlier.

 

[Always deferred]

Ok everyone --- obviously NoName is here to:

1. Incite a flame war
2. Is Johnny O still trying desperately to be heard
3. Some jealous MESA guy (judging by crj 700/900)
4. Some other jealous pilot who can only make himself feel better by trying to throw a rainshower on everyone else's hopes
5. Some middle schooler who can't even spell correctly.
6. All of the above

I say there is nothing more frustrating to his type then when people just ignore him. He will continually log on to see what kind of responses he gets, and will be beyond devastated when no one is replying to him or giving him the attention he so desperately craves.

My point : IGNORE HIM

 

[NoName]

just trying to bring a reality check to indy air...thats all. byebye

 

[OldManPilot]

Who's DoJets is sitting at CAE airport with no engines on it?

Anyone have maint. there? It's painted in Delta colors.

 

[46Driver]

Columbia is ACA's maintenance base. We are also the only ones who fly the DoJet for Delta.

 

[SaladShooter]

noname-

I had hoped you would have provided me with an intelligent debate about the buisness plan of IAIR. It looks like you did not take my advise and research beofe you posted a response to me. I see it took you a little over 13 minutes to post a reply to my message and I know you could not have reviewed the documents on the ACA website about IAIR in that amount of time. If you would have reviewed the slideshow you would have seen where the passangers for IAIR are going to be coming from. Get educated first then we will debate this topic!

Just using a little bit of logic in this case. If UAL was so sure they can compete against and destroy ACA why are they afraid of letting us go. It was proven in court that UAL was behind the MESA takeover bid from the start. (That is why we got the injunction) If they did not think we would survive why would they have cared?????? They could just pick up the pieces in a year or so and get the whole company for a song of a price, yet they chose the other option.....I wonder why????? The reason is UAL along with the rest of the industry has no idea if this plan can work, if it does it will revolutionize how you manage an airline. It will prove that smart managment can think outside the box and deliver a quality product at a resonable price. Like I said before the current buisness practice of how to run an airline does not work in todays econonmy, the world has changed and it is time to try something different. If it works or not is up to the flying public to decide.

In addition you said you wanted to bring a reality check to Indy Air....over the last year I have seen UAL file Chpt 11, UAL reneg on its 2003 rates for compensation, Bain Consulting telling me I am over paid yet they are racking up 700/hrin fees, ACA managment telling me they do not care if I can pay my mortgage(TM ORD-April 2003) as I am paid too much because MESA just took a pay cut, UAL offereing us a crappy deal with 2-6% rate of return with a sunset clause thrown in for good luck, I AIR announced, UAL, MESA and that sociopath JO trying to take over and pull a CCAIR on us, a injunction against MESA and UAL, Do328's breaking left and right around us, DALPA getting ready to drop the boom on DAL with the scope clause....do I need to go on. I believe I have lived more reality in the last year than I care to ever see again. So walk a mile in our shoes before saying we need a reality check!

 

[MONKEY]

First let me say, that I am not anti-iair.

I do however see a little bit of faulty logic in the following.

Just using a little bit of logic in this case. If UAL was so sure they can compete against and destroy ACA why are they afraid of letting us go. It was proven in court that UAL was behind the MESA takeover bid from the start. (That is why we got the injunction) If they did not think we would survive why would they have cared?????? They could just pick up the pieces in a year or so and get the whole company for a song of a price, yet they chose the other option.....I wonder why????? The reason is UAL along with the rest of the industry has no idea if this plan can work, if it does it will revolutionize how you manage an airline. It will prove that smart managment can think outside the box and deliver a quality product at a resonable price. Like I said before the current buisness practice of how to run an airline does not work in todays econonmy, the world has changed and it is time to try something different. If it works or not is up to the flying public to decide.

If ACA goes out on their own, even if they fail, their is still a great cost for UAL. They will need to ramp up another uex partner (air whiskey, SKW, and/or Mesa). This alone will come at a great cost.

Next they will have to compete with IAIR. Even if they feel like IAIR will fail, they will still lose a portion of their market to them for the period of time that IAIR is operating. In addition to this, they will most likely have to discount their fairs to compete, further cutting their income.

I am not saying that IAIR will fail, just trying to point out why it is in the best interest of UAL that Mesa would have been able to buy them out.

anyways, I wish you well.

 

[SaladShooter]

Why I do not totally disagree with you UAL has a nice trump card in the pocket. Under the new revenue sharing model UAL does not have to pay for ramp up costs, this cost is absorbed by the regional partner moving into a new domicle. So UAL will transfer flying to MESA, TSA, SKYWEST, AIR WILLY into IAD and not have to pay ramp up fees as thoses costs are paid for by the regionals per the new agreeement. Now UAL was smart for once and decided to buy the terminal itself that way no other aircline can leave them like this again. This is one of the reasons our managment decided against going with UAL, they can move you around and you will not get a check from them to cover the costs of opening new bases.


Now if they are so sure they can destroy us it would have been cheaper to flood the market with cheap tickets and take the loss of revenue upfront and pick up IAIR on the cheap at a later time. Instead they decided to try a takeover with MESA as the best defense against IAIR.

 

[RegionalFA]

well youve got it all figured out. even down to the part were no one else is going to be a factor. doesnt matter what kind of model you use you have to put passengers in the seat, and thats something that is yet to be seen, and no one can forecast. they are really pouring a mean cup of coolaid over there...

just like in theory communism could be the perfect government. unfortunately, humans don't always work the way figures on paper do.


Not that I don't wish you guys the best. I do. I don't neccesarily like all of the arrogance that I hear about some of it... but whatever. I hope it works out for the best.