"Feel free to move about the country"
A combination of problems... Only one airline is running a National campaign to put butts in their seats, Southwest. I was taught in a class that one of the Golden rules of marketing was the company that stops marketing its product during a revenue slump will lose to those companies that continue to market. What exactly are airlines trying to do to bring back revenue...? two thing, cut labor and vendor costs..
That is good, frustrate the frontline worker who is on the frontline of the revenue stream, they will be sure to give a customer a good experience.. We also lay the frontline worker off at a greater ratio than we do any other workers, so they are scaling back the revenue generating part of the airline.
I love when they say they are renegotiating with vendors... That is about as succesful as those debt consolidation companies. The airlines should have negotited the best price when they signed the contract with the vendor for their service/product.. You mean they don't negotiate a contract with them like the do with us.. They just give them more than they think its worth until tough times, in which they go back to them looking for a better price (which they also did with us).. nope what they do is negotiate a way to drag out their payments, so debt will stack up for better days. That's a great plan.
Overall I feel managenment in our sector is still living in Regulation. It seems only those airlines that got going post regulation actually operate in a fashion that they need more income than they have expenses. The rest still run to the Gov if the economy hick-ups, and not planning for a rainy day. They still have the same stupid fare rules from the days of regulation, like weekend /Saturday stay required... Not at SWA, Jet Blue, Frontier, or AirTran.. In fact a recent study showed it is just as expensive to fly SWA than AA, but the fare rules make it much more inconvenient.. and inconvenience drives away the business customer who needs to walk up and buy a resonably priced ticket.. but with the old school mentality its either Sat night stay required, with return on Tues from 8-10pm or Wed 2--2:30am for a decent priced ticket.. The airlines are driving their own revenue streams to other channels.
People, even recently, used to look at all the airlines before buying a ticket. I was flying next to someone on two seperate occasions (SWA, Frontier) who said basically that all the things they hear about what used to be the major airlines is the doom and gloom, possible bankruptcy, more and more layoffs, needing more concessions, reduction in schedules, going to the gov for "money needed to survive". And from the other company they hear, we are expanding, more flight across the country from more destinations, simple pricing fares start at $99 each way, were are having fun, "Feel free to move about the country." You tell me, who is urging the customer to fly, making them feel comfortable to fly, making them feel like they will get a value priced ticket, not making them scared that the airline will go belly up at any moment, and is fragile and delicate, they may even be skimping on maint since they are strapped for cash (remember we are taking about pax not pilots)? The cataclismic answer(s): you can fill in the blanks________________
I wish I could go back and be an airline analyst again... but this time to someone with some real pull, like the CEO.
