Hobby expansion passes; Southwest wins fight with United

[Flopgut]

Exactly. Jeff had the press release typed up and was waiting to hit the Send button on the Fax machine when the City Council voted. SEE I TOLD YOU WE WOULD LOSE JOBS!

Weak, weak arguement. He planned it all along.

Tell yourselves whatever you want. CAL kicked you out of IAH and you were too scared to come back. Had to have the govt prop you up.

Remember the other thread? About two months ago I told you guys that GK's real plan was to get a deal at Hobby that was exclusive. He wanted some deal that limited competition. Well what are we looking at here? 5 gates, with four of them for SWA only. That's been the plan all along. You guys can't compete.

 

[redflyer65]

We don't compete?

What about LAX, SFO, and DEN? I think we are doing quite well in more than a few cities. Again, weak Flop. Very weak.

The point is, your CEO planned on using this to cut IAH, plain and simple and you know it.

 

[737tanker]

Flop
Since United is cutting jobs at IAH because Hobby will take FIS staffing from IAH then why didn't United cut jobs at ORD because with the new announced SWA/AirTran service from MDW to Mexico the staffing for the MDW FIS had to come from ORD?

 

[SWA Bubba]

Tell yourselves whatever you want. CAL kicked you out of IAH and you were too scared to come back. Had to have the govt prop you up.

Remember the other thread? About two months ago I told you guys that GK's real plan was to get a deal at Hobby that was exclusive. He wanted some deal that limited competition. Well what are we looking at here? 5 gates, with four of them for SWA only. That's been the plan all along. You guys can't compete.

Hey Flop,

Please take some time away from this thread soon, so you don't have a coronary. However, I do have to take some issue with a few of these claims. As for CAL kicking us out of IAH, you can believe what you want. We had that one city pair (DAL-IAH), 3 or 4 times daily, and it wasn't profitable. Why? Because none of our passengers could connect anywhere. All of our other Houston flying was out of Hobby, as it's been since our inception in 1971. Turns out that flying that one particular city pair wasn't enough to justify the station.

By the way, that's the one thing I'd like to you actually explain to me--you kept saying we should do our international flying out of IAH for a "level playing field," and for "fair competition." In all honesty, how could that be fair? Please answer that, Flop. If we did our international flying out of IAH, all we could take would be local Houston passengers. NO connections; that would be 90% or more of Southest passengers couldn't fly over the border on us. NOBODY is going to fly into one airport and connect to their Mexico flight by getting their bags, leaving the airport, taking a 30 minute cab ride, and then going to a different airport to check their bags again and go through security again. Please tell me how you can see how competition where OUR connecting passengers do all that, while your connecting passengers merely walk from one gate to another, could be considered "fair" by any metric. Please tell me that.

Two other minor points: first, I think you have it backwards; I think it was United that the government has a history of propping up, not Southwest. Tell me ONE instance where the government "propped us up." Second, you bemoan us controlling 80% of the international gates at Hobby, yet Unical controls >85% of the international gates at IAH. That doesn't seem any more fair. At least we're paying to build all of our gates ourselves. If and when more carriers fly international at Hobby, they (or the airport) can build more gates. Seems easy enough.

Bubba

 

[humveedriver]

I'm talking about agents and rampers.

It sounds like some of these SWA guys are reffering to some sort of AOPA guide and stating "customs" already exists?! FIS is a much bigger deal than trying to catch some random Baron pilot trying to sneak in oranges and Cohibas. Bag match is the big deal. The CAL rampers and agents that SWA has caused to be displaced know all that stuff.

Don't think these CAL people deserve a shot? Fine. Go ahead and let each member of the City Council know that. Explain to them that even though GK claimed he would create 10,000 jobs, there is no room at SWA for them. People who've been in Houston for 20+ years, or in some cases generations. Show us all who you really are. Do it while the ink is still wet on your new deal.

*the last two paragraphs were more of a general statement and not directed directly at Humveedrvr

I know, I was just having fun. But here is the thing. Even AirTran had to have a first day of international operations. You live and learn. SWA will look at our model and adapt it to fit their operation. I predict that the procedural changes that SWA makes to handle international baggage, will have a dramatic effect on overall mishandle baggage reports for domestics ops.That's an area SWA is currently struggling with. So this will help I think.
It's not just SWA/other airline pilots calling UAL out over the latest job cut announcement. Many industry experts and reporters are making the same call against UAL as well. Also your boss plans to fire these people this year and Kelly isn't planning on launching intl ops until 2015 out of Hobby. Makes it hard to hire them. I hope those who can move do. Although on a much smaller scale SWA was not able to accomadate all of our DFW rampers and agents. They got put on a wait list for future openings (no transfer opportunities).

 

[FlyinGuy]

Holy Cow!!!

These guys actually believe this stuff.

 

[Britpilot]

Holy Cow!!!

These guys actually believe this stuff.

Really.

Jeff planned these cuts and is using the SWA Hobby Intl Ops as an excuse.


Nothing is going to happen for three years yet his cuts start in a few months.

imp:

 

[redflyer65]

As for CAL kicking us out of IAH, you can believe what you want. We had that one city pair (DAL-IAH), 3 or 4 times daily, and it wasn't profitable. Why? Because none of our passengers could connect anywhere. All of our other Houston flying was out of Hobby, as it's been since our inception in 1971. Turns out that flying that one particular city pair wasn't enough to justify the station.


Bubba

These facts don't fit well into Flops rant. This is exactly how it went down.

 

[Flopgut]

These facts don't fit well into Flops rant. This is exactly how it went down.

Understand that part of what SWA argued about not going to DFW all those years ago was that they never wanted to go there in the first place, that it was too expensive, delay prone, etc, etc. I'm pointing out that those same arguments seemed to surface recently about IAH, even though you had a station there at one point. Your argument changes to suit the airport you are trying to exploit.

Uh, so this "southwest effect" thingy, why didn't it work in IAH? I mean, it's suppose to be impervious to any legacy competition, right? Why are you citing the WA as some problem to your ongoing success at IAH? You could have left IAH and flown anywhere in the country. Point to point, is what you do, I thought. If we're suppose to belive all the stuff you claim you can do, why didn't you get it done at IAH?

Truth is, you weren't about to poke us with a stick, we would have got right after you at Hobby. We were a tough competitor you could not handle.

 

[Flopgut]

It's not just SWA/other airline pilots calling UAL out over the latest job cut announcement. Many industry experts and reporters are making the same call against UAL as well. Also your boss plans to fire these people this year and Kelly isn't planning on launching intl ops until 2015 out of Hobby.

In the relationship between CAL and the City of Houston, someone had to blink first. It was either CAL when they merged with UAL, or Houston when they approved SWA's terminal. Idk. But for now, it's spoiled. Maybe we can get it back on track. The cuts are very much tied to the windfall SWA was given. Period. Does not matter how far off it is. We have to cut our losses and go elsewhere.