General Lee
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2002
- Posts
- 20,442
MedFlyer said:Maybe DL's loss has something to do with DL's focus on catering to leisure travelers. You don't see AA or CO tearing out their first class cabins and converting their planes to all-coach. In fact, CO is adding first class seats to their 753's. So while DL is chasing the $99 transcon crowd, AA and CO are picking up the business travelers.
How about DL putting their RJs up against LCCs, while AA Eagle and COex stay on routes away from LCCs? Look at COex (Expressjet). They fly from IAH, EWR, and CLE to places that most airlines do not fly to. They fly unopposed to many Mexican resorts--with higher priced tickets. They fly to Quebec City and St John's NF from EWR. They hit the smaller FLA cities from EWR--like DAB and SRQ. They charge higher prices flying to cities like Flores, Guatemala on a 50 seat RJ. We at DL fly RJs up against SW and Airtran. We need to follow COex's lead and fly the RJs to smaller cities with no LCC competition. Put larger planes (if we could afford them, one way would be to STOP buying RJs) on routes with lower fares---and be able to turn a profit faster--spreading out the costs. (a la Song---199 seat 757s)
Look at Indy Air and all of the initial problems with an all RJ fleet. To get out of their problems, they needed to buy larger planes (A319s) to compete with TED and United out of IAD. The RJs and lower prices DON'T WORK. We have wasted 4 or 5 years buying RJs that businessmen DON'T like. $99 fares on Song might work with 199 seats, but not 50 or 70 seats. You need to look in your own backyard Medflyer.
Bye Bye--General Lee