Remember, ASA is STILL ridiculously profitable, because we are soooooooooooo LOW COST. To shrink or not grow means that changes. BAD BUSINESS. SKW INC is ridiculously profitable because of their conscious efforts to LOWER costs, not raise them. It's simple economics, Joe. Do you really believe SkyW could grow so fast and efficiently to mitigate the costs involved with shrinking ASA? The second that happens, all that Brad has done evaporates and we become expensive. We need to ride this momentum.
Trojan[/quote]
I really don't think that there is a line-flying pilot out there that REALLY knows which airline is 'low cost.' I really don't know if ASA is 'low cost', relative to other competing airlines. It's almost impossible to tell from the cockpit.
With that in mind, I think that a more likely reason for ASA's profitability is the contract we have with Delta. Objectively looking at the business results over the last few years, it seems that ASA is successful financially, even last summer when nothing was working right, because of the structure of the contract with Delta.
If I were to occupy one of the managerial offices at the Kremlin, I would not be thrilled with one of my subcontractors making money while I wasn't.
I don't know if it is wise to trumpet ASA's financial success at this time. I strongly doubt that our next contract with Delta will be as lucrative for ASA as the last one, regardless of performance.
Now, all that being said, I concur with everything that's been said of the change in leadership. It baffles me as to why the prior leadership couldn't have accomplished similar results.
I was trying to describe the difference at ASA from last summer to this summer with a van driver the other day. As we were climbing above 10K, it hit me as to why ASA is doing better: for the first time, we are trying to do it right, as opposed to trying to do it cheap. I'm not embarrassed anymore to tell people in Atlanta where I work.
