FAPA - the ball is in your court.

[tweeter125]

Gary Kelly has stated that he would not want to be the guys that "put the hometown airline out of business."

That being said I would like to roam the halls of the A concourse again and I am somewhat confident the F9 guys would rather be on our seniority list than Republics. I could be wrong.

Gup

I bet that there are some ATA guys that would scoff at that quote.

For that matter, to those of you at Frontier wishing for SW to swoop in and out bid RAH, please refer to the above and ask yourself..... How did that work out for ATA?

 

[The Victors]

I don't think that they will but there are some reasonable reasons why they would.

1. If you look at SWA's entry into virtually every market you see the same exact trend repeated. BWI, MDW, OAK, PHL, DEN, ect. SWA enters, prices drop, at least one carrier departs the market, prices rise and SWA captures a profitable market share. We (F9) have not left DEN yet, so prices are still very soft. If we were to leave, prices would rise and the market would be profitable for SWA. SWA could purchase F9 and have the same effect has driving us out of the market. The question is how much is SWA losing per quarter in DEN and how does that relate to our "price". This made more sense late last year compared to today.

2. If RAH enters the market and keeps F9 in denver in some way, shape, or form then SWA will never accomplish their mission. Prices will always remain soft and SWA will be competing against F9's much lower CASM or even worse, RAH's fleet of 190's. RAH's entry into the DEN market should increase SWA's interest exponentially.

Who knows what will happen, if my career wasn't on the line I would find the entire thing rather entertaining. From where I sit, it just sucks.

SWA makes money in DEN. It's been publicly stated several times that DEN is the most profitable opening city ever for swa. The only reason that F9"s CASM might be slightly lower (not sure about the exact numbers, but the only airline with lower CASM that I know of is AirTran and it's only slightly lower) is because the employees continue to vote themselves paycuts. That being said, I agree that swa should take a long look at this situation and I agree they probably don't want to deal with lower prices from RAH.

 

[The Victors]

I bet that there are some ATA guys that would scoff at that quote.

For that matter, to those of you at Frontier wishing for SW to swoop in and out bid RAH, please refer to the above and ask yourself..... How did that work out for ATA?

Swa did not purchase ATA. It was a codeshare. There's a difference. If Swa actually purchased F9, it would be different than the ATA deal.

 

[njcapt]

Swa did not purchase ATA. It was a codeshare. There's a difference. If Swa actually purchased F9, it would be different than the ATA deal.

If you think that SWA didn't exercise day to day control over ATA in order to drive them out of MDW, I have a bridge to sell you. Just because the current situation doesn't exactly mirror the one that existed during the ATA deal, don't think for a minute that your management wouldn't burn F9 to the ground and salt the earth in terminal 1 to do away with a competitor in a city important to them.

 

[Newf Dog]

SWA did not purchase ATA. They loaned them money and structured the deal to their benefit in shrewd fashion. SWA played it smart.

You are correct in that if SWA played the same game with Frontier then yes, they could just as easily burn Frontier to the ground and come out really nice.

In a straight purchase, F9 would probably also be gone (or maybe not but most likely in time yes) however the pilots would make out OK with merger via Allegheny-Mohawk which is the current law for non-ALPA carriers.

Notice I didn't say that F9 pilots would make out great, good or just dandy. They will do "OK." The definition of "OK" may be better for some than for others. I think I could safely say that part of that definition would include "a lot better than if we got merged with Republic." Who knows what the rest of that definition would look like.

Frontier has just earned a profit for the 7th month in a row. It's a shame that they fought so hard only to come up so short but they simply don't have the money to come out of this in one piece by themselves. They will need someone to give them the money and let them keep on roughly "as is" or they will need to be bought by a carrier such as jetBlue or SWA where they (I'm speaking only for the pilots side here) have a chance of something "OK" under Allegheny-Mohawk. Aside from that the F9 pilots are toast in a matter of a few short years with a republic type deal. Anybody thinking otherwise is delusional IMHO.

There are other suitors for F9 out there. They have done their "due diligence" and know the results of the cost-benefit analysis. The "market price" has now been set. We'll see if any of those suitors decide to continue in the game.

As much as I love Frontier if I were outside the airline business and had the cash I wouldn't give them the money. If I were inside the business at one of a few strategic carriers I could see a play here.

 

[starchkr]

SWA makes money in DEN. It's been publicly stated several times that DEN is the most profitable opening city ever for swa. The only reason that F9"s CASM might be slightly lower (not sure about the exact numbers, but the only airline with lower CASM that I know of is AirTran and it's only slightly lower) is because the employees continue to vote themselves paycuts. That being said, I agree that swa should take a long look at this situation and I agree they probably don't want to deal with lower prices from RAH.

Huh...I could have sworn that everything i hear is that SWA is LOSING money in DEN and they have since startup there.

 

[cale42]

Rumor mill says 12 companies signed non disclosure and did due diligence. RAH made the opening play. No one else will do anything until July 13 to see if that number will even get approved by the court. Then there is a month period for other bids. I believe anyone else can do due diligence in that time. This is far from a done deal with RAH..

 

[Cardinal]

Rumor mill says 12 companies signed non disclosure and did due diligence.

In this case the rumour monger would be Sean Menke, 6/25/09, State of the Airline address.