I think we are ok for now but a lot depends on fuel prices.
Our CEO doesn't see USAirways, United, or any of the legacies just going away. With GE owning most of USAirways fleet they are going to keep throwing money at them for as long as the cost of keeping them in business is less than taking back and remarketing 200+ airplanes.
This is a real problem because as long as they can sit in BK court they set the pricing for the market making it really hard for any non BK airlines to raise fares. Hate to say it United and Airways guys, but your companies are slowly draging the rest of us down with you. Looking at Frontier last quarter, they really felt the pricing power of United/TED and couldn't get their RASM's up to cover costs.
Parker sees industry consolidation, but their are a lot of obstacles to this. One being that jetblue and airtran placed orders for aircraft way before fuel prices and overcapacity started to hit us. They can't get out of these contracts so it isn't likely that they are going to merge or aquire another airline when they can expand with their own aircraft. According to him, Indy air is just another GE case and they should really go away. Selling tickets from IAD to the west coast for $85 each way isn't going to solve their problems. We tried it and failed big time. ATA will probably go away but they will have little effect as NW, Southwest, and Air Tran have already announced plans to fill the capacity.
Maybe code shares are the answer?
As TWA Dude said, we have cash but it can only last so long. Parker wasn't concerned about a BK filing as he said that during the ATA deal many banks and investor groups stepped up to offer us more cash and were confident with our long term plans in LAS and PHX. What bothered him more was the Bush admin's proposal to add a $2.50/segment tax to airline prices. This would really hurt airlines such as AWA that rely on the "hub" model to move passengers. For all you GWB supporters, what were you thinking voting for this fool? (please don't respond to this statement, it's rhetorical)
He flat out told us that he was not happy with MESA and their operational performance and that we were committed to taking way too many RJ's. Getting out of the MESA contract would cost us more than just taking the planes and finding a place for them. Not to mention, we need their feed in our hubs. MESA brings in people from small cities in CA and AZ to feed our east coast and mexico flights. JO has us by the balls it seems.
If Southwest isn't knocking at your door, this is still a great place to come. We are getting new airplanes. We are adding routes out of CA and our hubs. Just announced LAS-ANC and LAS-PIT. We also started OAK-SJD with a 737 last month.
Our contract is good compared to what everyone else is getting. Everyone else seemed to have come down to our level (that part sucks). We still get crew meals though(sarcasm, though I'm one of the few guys that likes them)! I'm on reserve here in PHX. I hold weekends off, 13 days off a month, and rarely fly more than 40 hours/month. Two hour call out to the crew room, trip and duty rigs, and PBS bidding. We have 401K matching plus the company deposits 7% of your monthly gross into your 401K as a defined retirement plane. This is actually really good.
I get really frustrated by our crappy operational performance, but other than that my worst day here is still better than my best day at my old regional.
I think it was worth the move. I can't control crazy extremists, oil, and BK judges so I try not to worry about it too much.
Try to have a backup plan regardless of where your fly!
oh, mach none - when you finish with less cash than you started, it's a loss. I love it when pilots tell themselves that we are making money and that they are hiding it. I fly with some guys that still want significant raises because they think our losses are just made up numbers.
