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JetBlue to Make Major News Announcement
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AlbieF15
F15 Ret/FDX/InterviewPrep
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2001
- Posts
- 1,764
G. Lee,
It is true when DAL or ASA have a lock on a local area, they can charge $$$ fares and compete with Air Tran, JB, etc. However, the continuing expansion of the LCCs means those little mini-monopolies are getting harder and harder to hang on to.
ASA still manages to rape almost anyone rolling into PFN, VPS, or DHN (all close to my area). However, TLH and PNS have much lower fares due to Air Tran. I'm sure if SWA, JB, or Air Tran ever decide to try the Destin/Emerald Coast they will generate a legion of fans who will fill their planes. Can they fly from Dothan AL to Amsterdam on either? No, but if the locals can get to Orlando for a holiday or Sarasota for a business conference for less than the $600 bucks I quoted on DAL last week, I'm sure they will gladly give up the "old familiar" for the new...at least for a try.
As a frequent commuter, I have to say the customer service at Air Tran is top notch. JetBlue continually wins accolades. The pilots and flight crews at ASA are great, as are the local ramp folks...but ATL is a nightmare at times.
I've said it before on the forum...I was a Delta wannabe for most of my adult life. I know lots of great folks there, and quite a few buddies are furloughed from there at the moment. However...if your new "Song" doesn't do some seriously good business, I know your current commuter/mainline combo will lose a bunch of business to these other competitors...even if you match their price. The service is good, the jets are nice, and you don't feel absolutely taken advantage of when you try to price out a ticket at the last minute. I think your scoffing at direct service to Melbourne is just whistling past the graveyard. JB only has 40 or so jets...and they plan to have about 100. AirTran continues to expand. Folks from Washington will drive to BWI, and folks from Detroit will drive to Flint to save 300 bucks. You can only cut capacity for a while to inflate prices before someone steps in to fill the void....and the sound in the air right now is new 717s and A320s doing just that....
It is true when DAL or ASA have a lock on a local area, they can charge $$$ fares and compete with Air Tran, JB, etc. However, the continuing expansion of the LCCs means those little mini-monopolies are getting harder and harder to hang on to.
ASA still manages to rape almost anyone rolling into PFN, VPS, or DHN (all close to my area). However, TLH and PNS have much lower fares due to Air Tran. I'm sure if SWA, JB, or Air Tran ever decide to try the Destin/Emerald Coast they will generate a legion of fans who will fill their planes. Can they fly from Dothan AL to Amsterdam on either? No, but if the locals can get to Orlando for a holiday or Sarasota for a business conference for less than the $600 bucks I quoted on DAL last week, I'm sure they will gladly give up the "old familiar" for the new...at least for a try.
As a frequent commuter, I have to say the customer service at Air Tran is top notch. JetBlue continually wins accolades. The pilots and flight crews at ASA are great, as are the local ramp folks...but ATL is a nightmare at times.
I've said it before on the forum...I was a Delta wannabe for most of my adult life. I know lots of great folks there, and quite a few buddies are furloughed from there at the moment. However...if your new "Song" doesn't do some seriously good business, I know your current commuter/mainline combo will lose a bunch of business to these other competitors...even if you match their price. The service is good, the jets are nice, and you don't feel absolutely taken advantage of when you try to price out a ticket at the last minute. I think your scoffing at direct service to Melbourne is just whistling past the graveyard. JB only has 40 or so jets...and they plan to have about 100. AirTran continues to expand. Folks from Washington will drive to BWI, and folks from Detroit will drive to Flint to save 300 bucks. You can only cut capacity for a while to inflate prices before someone steps in to fill the void....and the sound in the air right now is new 717s and A320s doing just that....
General Lee
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2002
- Posts
- 20,442
Cl65,
What? They still won't be able to expand at ATL because of the lack of gates. That is our fortress, and we will always win there because we have 3/4 of the gates. We are expanding Song in the NE to go after Jetblue---and it can only hurt them to throw on more seats on the markets (with our 199 seat 757's) with better entertainment systems and a better frequent flyer program. You are dreaming man, seriously. Maybe you will compete against us on the Moscow route from JFK too, right? Not.
Bye Bye--General Lee
What? They still won't be able to expand at ATL because of the lack of gates. That is our fortress, and we will always win there because we have 3/4 of the gates. We are expanding Song in the NE to go after Jetblue---and it can only hurt them to throw on more seats on the markets (with our 199 seat 757's) with better entertainment systems and a better frequent flyer program. You are dreaming man, seriously. Maybe you will compete against us on the Moscow route from JFK too, right? Not.
Bye Bye--General Lee
Last edited:
AlbieF15
F15 Ret/FDX/InterviewPrep
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2001
- Posts
- 1,764
Fortresses can be seiged, or they can be bypassed....
My last Air Tran flight was a hop from Flint to Orlando. It was a nice pleasant 2 hour direct flight, with about 85% of the seats filled. All those nice folks didn't want to go to LA, or Moscow, or anywhere else exotic...they just wanted to get to FLA at a good fare. They got a nice 2 hour flight without any ATL hassles or delays. Some drove from other places around the state just to get the direct flight at the great fare. I can't say for sure anyone drove from GRR (the Michigan city you mentioned), but I imagine that there were plenty from nearby Detroit.
At this rate, AT may not NEED more ATL gates. Dayton to MCO, Memphis to FLL, etc, are examples of what could happen. JB and SWA have shown that if you manage your costs you can make money on routes the majors have abandoned to regionals.
Again...I don't dispute Delta's dominance in international, long haul domestic, or the ATL fortress. All I'm saying is that rather than fighting DAL directly your competition is just flying over it rather than though it.
My last Air Tran flight was a hop from Flint to Orlando. It was a nice pleasant 2 hour direct flight, with about 85% of the seats filled. All those nice folks didn't want to go to LA, or Moscow, or anywhere else exotic...they just wanted to get to FLA at a good fare. They got a nice 2 hour flight without any ATL hassles or delays. Some drove from other places around the state just to get the direct flight at the great fare. I can't say for sure anyone drove from GRR (the Michigan city you mentioned), but I imagine that there were plenty from nearby Detroit.
At this rate, AT may not NEED more ATL gates. Dayton to MCO, Memphis to FLL, etc, are examples of what could happen. JB and SWA have shown that if you manage your costs you can make money on routes the majors have abandoned to regionals.
Again...I don't dispute Delta's dominance in international, long haul domestic, or the ATL fortress. All I'm saying is that rather than fighting DAL directly your competition is just flying over it rather than though it.
General Lee
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2002
- Posts
- 20,442
AlbieF15,
I like your optimism. But, we still have a very very large fleet compared to both Jetblue and Airtran, and we own ATL. Our Song product can only hurt Jetblue by adding more seats on each route, and having a better entertainment product (by OCT), along with a better frequent flyer program. I am sure the Airtran people and Jetblue people are nice, but we are also working on the product as a whole. Our Song workers are given special interviews or "auditions" to weed out the grumpy people. I have flown on the Song flights and they are spunky and the passengers seemed to like that. When you said people are driving from Washington to BWI to fly on Airtran etc, I would have to say you should look at our DCA flights---they are full. We charge a premium to passengers and the flights are full. We also fly from DCA to SLC nonstop exclusively, and it is always full of politicos trying to get to the West Coast. We just added all of our Shuttle flights back---from LGA to BOS and DCA (16 flights a day to BOS and 15 a day to DCA)---and we make "bank" on those flights. All of our European flights are FULL from JFK, ATL, and CVG----totally full. My friend tried to Nonrev from JFK to Athens and couldn't get out at all and gave up after 4 days. Fred Reid said our Latin America routes (San Jose, Bogota, Lima, Liberia, San Salvador, Panama, Caracas, Gutamala City, Sao Paulo, and Santiago) have been full since the War due to initial fears about Europe, which have since evaporated. Do you get the picture? We are growing Song to fight Jetblue, stopping Airtran's growth in ATL due to lack of gates, adding RJ's to ATL and CVG to bring in massive feed to fill our 767-400's to FLL and MCO, and filling our planes on all the INTL stuff we do. We also have a huge amount of charters we do that create a lot of revenue --like the CRAF stuff, and a weekly 737-800 service from JFK to Havana. We just completed a month of 777 charters to Maui from many places like Baltimore, Cleveland, and Richmond for State Farm Insurance and their best agents around the country. Michele Burns (our CFO) said we are in no immediate danger of going Chap 11, and Fitch just gave us an upgrade. All we have in front of us is one debt payment in 2005 that will be paid by some pay cuts. We are doing fine and as far as those 717's and A320's----we have 140 more 737-800's on their way starting in 2005. We won't be getting rid of any of our 120 757's---most of which will go to Song to fight Jetblue. Airtran is limited on how many new places they can go from ATL due to the lack of gates. Everytime they want to add more flights to new cities, they have to find gates to put them, or reduce service to squeeze in the flights. Next time you go to ATL, take a look at their half of the C-concourse. That's it for them, except for the RJ's at the tip of the D Concourse. They can expand in BWI all they want, they are just competing with Southwest, and they will lose. Where else will they go? As far as them bypassing the hubs, that really hasn't hurt us at all. They might be hurting Midex in MKE, and they have some other flights from Akron to LGA and Newport News to LGA, but other than that, their hub bypassing is due to the fact that they are getting extra planes and can't use them in ATL. They have to find small niches---like Flint to MCO. They can have Flint. (we don't even fly from FNT to ATL----only CVG)
So, you initialy wanted to fly for Delta, but now you don't. Well, ok. We have many furloughs to return, and after they come back it will be a great place to work, with good pay (even after a 10-15% pay cut), and great variety of planes to fly and places to go. Your loss. I love it here. Go to Airtran or Jetblue. Good luck.
Bye Bye--General Lee
I like your optimism. But, we still have a very very large fleet compared to both Jetblue and Airtran, and we own ATL. Our Song product can only hurt Jetblue by adding more seats on each route, and having a better entertainment product (by OCT), along with a better frequent flyer program. I am sure the Airtran people and Jetblue people are nice, but we are also working on the product as a whole. Our Song workers are given special interviews or "auditions" to weed out the grumpy people. I have flown on the Song flights and they are spunky and the passengers seemed to like that. When you said people are driving from Washington to BWI to fly on Airtran etc, I would have to say you should look at our DCA flights---they are full. We charge a premium to passengers and the flights are full. We also fly from DCA to SLC nonstop exclusively, and it is always full of politicos trying to get to the West Coast. We just added all of our Shuttle flights back---from LGA to BOS and DCA (16 flights a day to BOS and 15 a day to DCA)---and we make "bank" on those flights. All of our European flights are FULL from JFK, ATL, and CVG----totally full. My friend tried to Nonrev from JFK to Athens and couldn't get out at all and gave up after 4 days. Fred Reid said our Latin America routes (San Jose, Bogota, Lima, Liberia, San Salvador, Panama, Caracas, Gutamala City, Sao Paulo, and Santiago) have been full since the War due to initial fears about Europe, which have since evaporated. Do you get the picture? We are growing Song to fight Jetblue, stopping Airtran's growth in ATL due to lack of gates, adding RJ's to ATL and CVG to bring in massive feed to fill our 767-400's to FLL and MCO, and filling our planes on all the INTL stuff we do. We also have a huge amount of charters we do that create a lot of revenue --like the CRAF stuff, and a weekly 737-800 service from JFK to Havana. We just completed a month of 777 charters to Maui from many places like Baltimore, Cleveland, and Richmond for State Farm Insurance and their best agents around the country. Michele Burns (our CFO) said we are in no immediate danger of going Chap 11, and Fitch just gave us an upgrade. All we have in front of us is one debt payment in 2005 that will be paid by some pay cuts. We are doing fine and as far as those 717's and A320's----we have 140 more 737-800's on their way starting in 2005. We won't be getting rid of any of our 120 757's---most of which will go to Song to fight Jetblue. Airtran is limited on how many new places they can go from ATL due to the lack of gates. Everytime they want to add more flights to new cities, they have to find gates to put them, or reduce service to squeeze in the flights. Next time you go to ATL, take a look at their half of the C-concourse. That's it for them, except for the RJ's at the tip of the D Concourse. They can expand in BWI all they want, they are just competing with Southwest, and they will lose. Where else will they go? As far as them bypassing the hubs, that really hasn't hurt us at all. They might be hurting Midex in MKE, and they have some other flights from Akron to LGA and Newport News to LGA, but other than that, their hub bypassing is due to the fact that they are getting extra planes and can't use them in ATL. They have to find small niches---like Flint to MCO. They can have Flint. (we don't even fly from FNT to ATL----only CVG)
So, you initialy wanted to fly for Delta, but now you don't. Well, ok. We have many furloughs to return, and after they come back it will be a great place to work, with good pay (even after a 10-15% pay cut), and great variety of planes to fly and places to go. Your loss. I love it here. Go to Airtran or Jetblue. Good luck.
Bye Bye--General Lee
Last edited:
jetblue320
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2003
- Posts
- 572
JetBlue will buy either...
They are going to buy AWA, AirTran or Frontier...count on it! If they buy AirTran...I think it is curtains for Delta!
Nonsense. The "announcement" will be shocking (to say the least) but no, we are not buying another airline. Trust me. I know what it is and cannot (and will not) say until it is official. But, I will say that it will be great for both JBU, and for the entire aviation community. Stay tuned.............................
They are going to buy AWA, AirTran or Frontier...count on it! If they buy AirTran...I think it is curtains for Delta!
Nonsense. The "announcement" will be shocking (to say the least) but no, we are not buying another airline. Trust me. I know what it is and cannot (and will not) say until it is official. But, I will say that it will be great for both JBU, and for the entire aviation community. Stay tuned.............................
BLUE BAYOU
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2002
- Posts
- 836
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