NWA Stopping Recalls

[General Lee]

Smellthejeta,


Delta is trying to make CORE CHANGES, and that is tough for any large corporation. We have started to advertise again, and get the word out. We all took large pay cuts, and we want to fight and win. Simplfares is going after the cost concious businessman who can't afford the $1500 one way ticket, and a lot of those went to Airtran or Jetblue for the $500 ticket. Now, we will win them back and fill first with paying passengers. As far as Skymiles, I think they have tinkered with it again to make sure more people are happy with it, and now they don't restrict the fares types that count on your Skymiles account----any ticket counts towards your eventual Meddalion status. Also, we have added a bunch of new flights to warm city destinations for our Skymiles members---like double flights per day from ATL to HNL, and more to the Carribbean. That should allow more people to get more seats to warmer cities. I think the marketing people are aware of the Delta.com site, and hopefully they will make it more user friendly. Thanks for flying on us.


Mick,

It helps when 1000 senior Captains leave between last May and this past Jan. Also, we increased our domestic schedule by 6% by decreasing the turn times at the hubs and flying the same equipment more often thoughout the day. That helped a lot.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[smellthejeta]

Smellthejeta,
As far as Skymiles, I think they have tinkered with it again to make sure more people are happy with it, and now they don't restrict the fares types that count on your Skymiles account----any ticket counts towards your eventual Meddalion status. Also, we have added a bunch of new flights to warm city destinations for our Skymiles members---like double flights per day from ATL to HNL, and more to the Carribbean. That should allow more people to get more seats to warmer cities.

The thing with SkyMiles is that a large segment of the leisure market doesn't care about Medallion status. I never did until I moved to the west coast. They care about turning those 25,000 miles they earned over three years of car rentals, hotel stays, credit card usage, and the occasional trip to grandma's house into another another trip to grandma's house over a three day holiday weekend. Fact is, it was a PR disaster to restrict accrual rates and fare types eligible for SkyMiles accrual, even though the need to do so was obvious. The restriction on the use of "saver" awards or what have you by limiting the inventory available or Blackout dates for SkyMiles redemption is having the same net effect, although it is less visible. Adding more ASM's to a destination has as little or as much affect on the availabity of award seats as inventory management wants it to have. As much as you may want to say that leisure travellers don't make airlines profitable, in this day and age you need both the businessman and the vacationer to survive. In order to do that, you need something for everybody.

 

[merikeyegro]

It doesn't matter what DL or NW try to do as far as fares go, companies with a better competitive structure - be it costs, revenues, management, FF, etc. - will survive in this current environment. NW and DL can't raise prices because they'll lose market share. It's called commoditizing. In other words, airlines compete on price and little else. It's been happening slowly for the past decade with the Internet being the driver. Sites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia make fares transparent and easy to search. Unless someone sees the difference between the service NW provides for $225 and the service UA (for example) provides for $150 as worth the difference in price, the $150 fare will win every time. So, NW could keep prices up at $225 and be stubborn about changing them - which will cost market share - or it could begrudgingly lower its prices and keep up with UA.

It's a race to the bottom, as you all would say, but there ain't much than can be done. This is going to continue until the industry shakes out. Now, if the gov't would stop granting U an extension on its ATSB loan and the BK judges would get on UA to get a plan going, there might be some relief. However, until then, it ain't gonna happen. Just simple economics. I feel sorry for all of you.

 

[AnimalTale]

I feel sorry for all of you.

Dont feel sorry for anybody, At least we are doing what we want, for however long it takes. It still beats instructing or sitting behind a desk! IMHO

Cya

 

[flyswatter]

I understand that DL recalls are because of attrition and the push to keep Air Tran in check.. Last annual report put SWA loosing cash without the hedge fuel contract, so even the best of the best can not operate at current fuel prices.. Even their little safe haven is experiencing a few hiccups.. Too much growth too quick, with lack of attrtion