NWA Stopping Recalls

[General Lee]

Funny how NW never wanted to add the fuel surcharge when DL and others wanted to. They could have had a little bit of extra revenue there.



Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[AnimalTale]

Funny how NW never wanted to add the fuel surcharge when DL and others wanted to. They could have had a little bit of extra revenue there.



Bye Bye--General Lee

General,as an outsider to both Delta and NWA, I observe this: Delta and NWA are both even now with that silly pricing Delta has just implemented and the continual dissolving of Delta mainline flying in favor of additional growth of the DELTA REGIONAL PARTNERS (SKYWEST<COMAIR<ASA etc..).

Just an observation

 

[Carl S.]

Animal Tale,
Where did you fly the 727,would it be NWA???? By not matching any price increases for the last 3 years, NWA has forced the industry into a "WAL-MART" price setting.There is no such thing as even in compition, just elimination, and now more NWA pilots will remain on the street due to NWA's desire to not follow logic and raise fares as costs(i.e. Fuel) go thru the roof.

 

[General Lee]

General,as an outsider to both Delta and NWA, I observe this: Delta and NWA are both even now with that silly pricing Delta has just implemented and the continual dissolving of Delta mainline flying in favor of additional growth of the DELTA REGIONAL PARTNERS (SKYWEST<COMAIR<ASA etc..).

Just an observation

You don't understand the new fare structure. The highest fares, the walk ups that cost $1500 each way, will be cut, not the bottom fares. We have huge LCC competition in ATL alone with Airtran, and they have been offering $500 walk ups to the same destinations on the East Coast and now West Coast. We have a better product and better freq flyer program, and now we will affect Airtran and fill our first class section with paying customers, not nonrevs. If you could not see this coming, then you haven't been paying attention. Also, we have expanded our mainline flying by 6% by decreasing turn times at our hubs, which has given us an extra 28 aircraft a day in reality. Then we closed our DFW RJ hub. We are making core changes for the better, and if NW doesn't like it, too bad. They should have helped before when we tried to increase the fuel surcharges, but NW always declined....


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Ualexpress]

We have huge LCC competition in ATL alone with Airtran, and they have been offering $500 walk ups to the same destinations on the East Coast and now West Coast. We have a better product and better freq flyer program, and now we will affect Airtran and fill our first class section with paying customers, not nonrevs.

Bye Bye--General Lee

Not so sure about the better product statement especially on the east coast runs. I jumpsat on AirTran the other day from ATL to BOS on a 717 with XM radio on it. It was great. Sure it isn't TV, but a business class seat and XM radio made the time go by fast. I couldn't believe the variety of stations XM has, made me want to go out and get XM. The service was good with friendly FAs. Thanks AT for the ride.

 

[filejw]

In defence of the NWA fare people they have said when asked about fare increases in the past."SWA , Jet Blue and the internet is what drives prices.If they raise prices then we will. " Driving prices down is not on the agenda if they can avoid it.DL has ruined the budget so to speak.They had planned on bring in 12 billon and now they think it will be only 11.5...Thats life.....

 

[General Lee]

Hey, they can still keep their fares the same, it's just the competition will charge lower. We have a heck of a lot more LCC competition than NW, and we have to create change, not just follow it, to survive. We have lowered their expenses by $2.3 billion a year ($1 billion a year from 7,000 total pilots alone). So, they have the ammo.



Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[smellthejeta]

DL Fares

Hey General,

DL's getting some flack for revenue deflation with the new Simplifares program. While I am too uneducated to tell you whether or not it's a spot on program, it's both innovate and practical (at least as far as the network carriers are concerned), so I hope it works for you guys.

First things first, it's about friggin' time an airline makes a reasonable attempt to fill F with revenue pax that are NOT frequent fliers getting courtesy upgrades from rock bottom fares. I'm a low level FF on a particular SkyTeam carrier, and frankly, I cannot figure out why my 5 transcons a year at $250 a pop makes my butt worth putting in F for no extra charge, or furthermore, why they'll actually let me sit in F for paying a $250 fare. Some carriers use fare class restrictions for their international upgrades, but the major problem with that is that those upgrades are still done a week before departure. IMHO, if a customer pays a higher fare for the sole purpose of a possible upgrade, there should be some rebate if a customer can't be upgraded. Anyway, pricing domestic F at a price that is affordable is a good start. If the seats were a little better than souped up exit row coach seats, I would seriously consider paying $800 for the trans-con that I just booked in coach.

Next, I'm happy to see somebody do something with revenue generation. For too long, everybody has been focusing on cost and cost control, ignoring the revenue side of the house; which, not to to state the obvious, is broken. Those stupid Saturday stay rules and $100 change fees have got to go. For one, not every leisure traveler has the standard Sat-Sun off days, and not every leisure traveler has $100 to spend on change fees. Dropping the Saturday stay was smart, but the problem with ANY change fee is that changes arent' "free" anyway. They still come with the disclaimer that you must pay any applicable fare increases. I'm sure you know that if you made a last day or last minute change to a reservation, that you would have to buy the equivalent of a full fare ticket, which is much greater than the change fee. If it were possible to change most itineraries and not pay a fare increase, then $50 would be an appropriate surcharge.

Next, I think adding some more flexibility to tickets would be a way to get people to may modest increases in fares. Perhaps by paying an extra $50 at time of booking, passengers might be able to make confirmed changes to the time of day (but not date) of travel. I know I'd be willing to do that in a lot of cases.

The other thing DL ought to do is completely revamp DL.com. It sucks. If you want to buy a ticket, you can either search by price or search by schedule. With the first option, it will give you the first xxx cheapest tickets, and there's no way to force it show additional flights that may be slightly more expensive. The other option lets you pick by flight, but doesn't tell you if you could save a few bucks by flying slightly earlier or later. NW, CO, and Expedia all have some form of a search by schedule AND price, where it displays every flight leg by leg and the associated prices. It's also nearly impossible to pick which fare rules you want to buy; it seems that you either get cheap seats or the expensive ones, and nothing in between. Southwest has a GREAT website in that respect -- it shows you all the available fare buckets and associated rules. It really is great.

Another thing DL needs to do is revamp SkyMiles a little bit. I know other airlines have monkeyed around with earning miles based on fare paid, and giving less than 1 mile earned per mile flown on the cheapest fares. That was a PR disaster, even if it had to be done. Instead, they went back to the old system but reduced the number of FF seats available in each flight and market. This is pissing people off too. If it were up to me, I think an equitable solution would be to raise the amount of miles needed for a freebie ticket to somewhere between the "cheap" seats and the "not cheap" seats but then do it WN style and give a ticket out if there's an open seat. The FF program (or should I say miles) have no meaning to the consumer if they can't use them. Even if the award seats cost a little more, knowing that one could actually redeem the miles might drive business to DL. It's either that or chuck SkyMiles altogether (not a bad idea, but a PR disaster).

Although DL is not my "carrier of choice" within SkyTeam (I picked mine long ago when DL did not serve my hometown), I do travel on DL when it makes the most sense for me to do so, and if DL can attract more business and make money, I hope simplifares works for you guys.

 

[MICK]

Hey at least they started calling some pilots back. AA continues to furlough!

 

[pilotyip]

and there will at least 10,000 applications on file at NWA the instant they announce they plan to start interviewing again.