lowecur said:
...I believe this whole fare structure may be a way of bringing all the other legacy's into Chapt 11 at the same time. It's a way of leveling the playing field in a hurry. DL would have a great advantage at that point, as the difficult negotiations are behind them, and they would find it much easier to get exit financing ahead of the others (who still will face difficult negotiations securing more payroll givebacks).
IMHO, this last quarters' dismal performance is not about SWA or DAL trying to take advantage of the situation with a grand strategy of domination. It was about trying to keep revenue up by guessing how low to set fares in order to fill seats. Lower load factors would have made the quarter worse.
The huge losses by legacies are not killing them off but are, instead, forcing them to reduce costs. IMHO, SWA (and DAL)would rather see its competitors operate with higher costs with a small profit to keep cost cutting out of the picture. That would assure SWA of even higher profit with slow, steady growth. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what SWA has made history doing the last 20 years? If SWA has changed their strategy then so be it. In hindsight it may look brilliant, or not. But my sense is the strategy has remained the same and market forces are challenging even SWA's successful formula.
One fact--It's easy to park an aircraft, but reducing the overhead and work force takes time. The CASM will actually go up until all the pieces of the puzzle are put together. Shrinking is so much more complicated and expensive than growing your way to lower costs.
Reducing capacity in an orderly manner will take time. It must be accompanied by more demoralizing and expensive reductions in overhead. Delta has a plan to continue doing so in '05. USair is well along that path. UAL and AA, I'm not sure.
What's even worse---SWA, as a LCC bellweather, is not charging what it needs to stay healthy. Cash is being burned on capitol expenditures as fuel hedges are barely keeping us out of the red. This period of expansion should see higher profit. Everyone made a bad call on increasing capacity. If we had to replay 2004, I think capacity would be lower today.
Everyone is scrambling. The playing field will not be leveled as nearly everyone enters Ch 11, just permanently lowered to a place where snowballs have no chance. But this is not a plan (of SWA at least), just what is in store for the industry if crazy low fares continue.
Note SWA's conference call on expansion. No more than the 29 in 2005. The rumors were for more. And only 3 options converted to firm orders in 2006 for 26 total.