Frontier announces move to Hobby

[145BOSS]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Frontier-Announces-Move-to-bw-1661938860.html?x=0&.v=1

Anyone want to take a stab at how many daily HOU-DEN flights WN announces next week?

 

[N1atEcon]

WN already has 4 nonstops a day and several more with a stop someplace. My guess is maybe a softening of some of the fares to make RAH drop their fare to a painful level to get paxs.

 

[chqflyer]

Someone in the crystal palace is wearing their tie a little too tight. RAH has zero chance against SWA. SWA already dominates that route.

 

[StaySeated]

Big Picture.

F9 currently flies three daily flights to IAH. Those three round-trip flights generated approximately $21MM TTM of revenue..

SWA generated approximately $25MM TTM of revenue on four round-trips between DEN and HOU.

These are public numbers and come straight from DOT Form 41.

F9 competed against CAL, UAL, and Skywest.

SWA competed against no one.

F9 basically had the choice of flying against the new monolith between DEN and IAH or SWA at HOU, they chose HOU.

Normally one would initiate a market with the 190, but this one needs a narrow body until SWA drops the price. Republic has their ace in the hole and when SWA attempts to predatory price the route they will invite the E-jets.

It will eventually be a battle between SWA and the 190, while the 319's are allocated elsewhere.

Imagine another scenario where the people that live in Houston (something I can't really begin to understand) can fly between HOU-DEN, and accumulate frequent flier points that they can later use on United/CAL. (read that again if you didn't catch it the first time).

I am not celebrating this event, but it is rather predictable.

 

[Jetjockey]

The low hanging fruit is disappearing.

 

[chqflyer]

I don't really think it's much of a battle between SWA with a full size jet vs a beat up little RJ. This looks great on paper to the CPA making the decisions, but the travelling public would much rather go with the cheaper fare on the mainline airplane with mainline crews vs those "scary and unqualified" kids in the trainer jet. SWA can just sell tickets for 20-30 bucks and drive RAH right on outta there. I see this as a very foolish move.

 

[krewmeel]

I don't really think it's much of a battle between SWA with a full size jet vs a beat up little RJ. This looks great on paper to the CPA making the decisions, but the travelling public would much rather go with the cheaper fare on the mainline airplane with mainline crews vs those "scary and unqualified" kids in the trainer jet. SWA can just sell tickets for 20-30 bucks and drive RAH right on outta there. I see this as a very foolish move.

Initially the flying will be done in a A319 (probably less than 5 years old). When WN begins dropping fares it will be done in a brand new EMB190 with 99 seats (basically DC-9 size ac). In either case, were hardly talking about "a beat up little RJ". You may have a point about pimply faced kid pilots in the case of the EMB....but, we both know pax don't give a rat's a$$ who is up front as long as the fare is cheaper than a tank of gas for the family SUV.

 

[redflyer65]

The only ones that will take the DEN-HOU flight on F9 will most likely be the Frontier/Midwest/Republic frequent flyers. I don't see WN worrying too much about what Frontier tries.

Now on the other hand, Southwest will own the entire C gates at Denver in September and is pushing hard to increase the Originating traffic out of there. Initial results are looking very positive. I'd say Frontier has more to worry about in Denver than Southwest does in Houston.

Load out of Denver yesterday were unbelieveable, nothing less than 125 out of 137 all day long. Most flights completely full. Its all about the yield and no one usually shows their hand on that one.

 

[SYX328]

However if there is no profit on those flights then it doesn't matter. Just because 125/137 on each plane then there may not be anything there. Especially at 29-59 fares.

 

[hockeypilot44]

The only ones that will take the DEN-HOU flight on F9 will most likely be the Frontier/Midwest/Republic frequent flyers. I don't see WN worrying too much about what Frontier tries.

Now on the other hand, Southwest will own the entire C gates at Denver in September and is pushing hard to increase the Originating traffic out of there. Initial results are looking very positive. I'd say Frontier has more to worry about in Denver than Southwest does in Houston.

Load out of Denver yesterday were unbelieveable, nothing less than 125 out of 137 all day long. Most flights completely full. Its all about the yield and no one usually shows their hand on that one.

I didn't know this. Where is Delta moving to?

 

[redflyer65]

Airport authority is moving them to the A gates in September.

Southwest bought out American's leases last month to get them over to the A gates as well.

Could be interesting.

 

[Quimby]

However if there is no profit on those flights then it doesn't matter. Just because 125/137 on each plane then there may not be anything there. Especially at 29-59 fares.

I would guess the avg ticket is a bit higher than $29-59. There may be a few sold at that price point, but not many.

 

[crashpad]

Guess who's new hometown airline will be for travel south of the border.
Kitchow!!!....didn't see that coming now ditcha?

 

[crashpad]

Guess who's new hometown airline will be for travel south of the border.
Kitchow!!!....didn't see that coming now ditcha?

 

[Skyboy722]

Guess who's new hometown airline will be for travel south of the border.
Kitchow!!!....didn't see that coming now ditcha?

Even though you said it twice I still didn't get it. Huh?

 

[chqflyer]

I think he's alluding to the fact that SWA is eventually gonna be flying to Mexico on many of the same routes that F9 services.

 

[CHQ Pilot]

This could get interesting for the next few months. I'm not sure how many of the passengers out of HOU to DEN are O & D, but with the schedule optimization they could send a lot more connection traffic through HOU, increasing the number of flights to DEN, while allowing a drop in airfare since the costs could be in essence "subsidized" on the connection legs. I'm definately not a revenue management guy, but I do know the SWA people are really good at schedules and what the fare point is for certain cities. There has been a lot of research done through the years, and not just for SWA cities.