Heyas F4H,
Absolutely accurate.
ABSOLUTELY.....NOT.
What the "general" convienently forgets is that the one thing that NWA hubs DO lack lack is worthwhile LCC competition. DTW has a VERY small splash of SWA and Tranny with Spirit in full speed rewind.
That's great, and it really is your only good thing about your cool hubs and old domestic planes. You do hold fortress hubs, which is good. Your old planes, though, need work. Anderson may have loved them when Oil was cheaper, but not now. And you are starting to park the DC9s (30 -30s this year, right?). It won't get any better with high oil.
MSP? A touch of Sun Country and Tranny. No SWA in sight. Do we have SWA at any of our hubs? A little in SLC, and a bit in LAX, but that is it too. Airtran is our competitior in ATL, and is trying to be yours in MSP. The thing is that Airtran can't get any more gates in ATL or MSP currently.
MEM? Some Tranny flights, and that's about it.
IND? Hardly a "hub", but both ATA and Tranny couldn't leave fast enough. Your IND is an RJ hub mainly. How many mainline flights do you have out of there a day anyway?
DAL? Ooooh, hmmm, lots of yield busting Tranny in their own house there, as well as JB in JFK and SWA at SLC.
Airtran does not compete with any of our INTL flights, and a lot of our domestic pax are connecting onto our numerous INTL flights. We have more INTL flights from ATL than you do in all of the United States. (any of your hubs, combined) We control 70% of the traffic at the busiest airport in the world. You control Detroit and MSP, places nobody wants to visit for fun. Wow. Southwest does compete with us at SLC, but often on one flight a day to certain cities. There are no extra gates in SLC for them to use either. Controlled growth.
DAL couldn't give their 100 seat flying away fast enough. On top of that, they just about GAVE those very airplanes away to a competitor that promptly used them to destroy DAL yields in their own "fortress hub". Nothing like handing a burglar the gun with which he shoots you.
We have 76 seaters doing 100 seat markets right now, filling the planes. You have old DC9s that are being parked this year (30 of them). Sounds like your 100 seat market is going away too. How many people does a DC9-40 or -50 hold? We have 737-700s coming this year, which will regain some of that market, along with a new carpet smell. How do those DC9s smell? Like the 1960s? Who did we give our airplanes to? I don't know what you mean? Again, we own 70% of the largest airport in the world. ATL makes MSP and DTW look like St Cloud.
It makes the guy who made the call to re-manufacture the -9s at NWA for a mere $2 mil a copy versus $18-22 mil per RJ or 717 look pretty smart. Had DAL done the same thing, think about how many MORE DAL pilots there would be. In the end analysis, it's all about the guys ON YOUR PROPERTY. One more airplane, even the small ones, means 10-16 more guys, and 5-8 more upgrades, and one less airplane flown by people trying to drag your wages down.
We are looking at getting fairly new (anything is fairly new compared to your old DC9s) MD90s that are now readily available. 100 are out there (Saudia just put 28 up for sale), and they are newer and can carry more people, farther, than your old embarrassing planes. Really, people who say it is "a real pilot's plane" are confused. And guess what? We are getting NEW planes. We are hiring 100 this month alone. We are doing this while you are ditching planes, and hiring a bit for attrition. You have old planes (DC9s and 742s) and they will be gone soon. We are getting 3 777LRs this year, and 6 in the first three months of next year. Do you know how many pilots that will take? They are LRs, meaning LONG RANGE. That means 2 Captains and 2 FOs per flight. Australia just opened up open skies, and we have the rights to go to Singapore, New Zealand, and Samoa. Where is the 787 in the flight test process? It hasn't started yet? Bummer.
As far as the cold North places, like OMA, FSD, FAR (which NWA has been serving since 1928) and the like, the DAL boyos' new hero, RA, said it best himself "they may be cold and dark, but they're all OURS". It isn't about the size of your airplane, but the size of the yield. MOT might be cold, and the walkarounds might suck, but the full flights of full fare paying passengers makes for a healthy bottom line, as do the FULL flights from NRT to other Asia cities, filled with Japanese passengers.
The great thing is that all of the LCCs out there KNOW where the highest fares are, and as they expand and have to put planes somewhere, they will. They may enter OMA (like SWA has) and take your connecting passengers away, so they don't go through MSP and go through MDW instead. They will look for opportunities, and you will be faced with the same thing the rest of us are. The LCCs have to put their new planes somewhere. And I think it is great that you are Tokyo's favorite airline.....riiight. Somehow I think JAL and ANA think otherwise. They do have a heck of a lot more flights to those same cities you go to from NRT, while you throw on one A330, etc. Don't lie to yourself, and the rest of us.
Nu
