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Song!!!!!
- Thread starter Ace757
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General Lee
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Ace,
Well, if you ask the Jetblue guys, they will tell you that Song is tanking and there is no way Jetblue will ever be beaten. As far as I know, someone stated that we have a 70% load factor, which apparently isn't very good.( I thought it was pretty good---for an airline brand that is just emerging, but the Jetblue guys know differently---since they were an automatic success right away......) We only have 12 planes on it right now, and we should have 36 on it by the end of DEC. It is my opinion that when the weather gets colder and people want to go to FLA from the NE, more people will fill those flights and people will notice it more. They have been having a problem with the TVs that go in each seat, and apparently they have delayed the installment until early next year (from the original OCT date). I am sure somebody was fired over that, but they are trying to work it out. They have started some West Coast flying as of late --from LAS to MCO, TPA, and FLL, and they are starting LAX to FLL and MCO eventually. From what we hear at base ops--things are going well......But what do I, or any of the Jetblue guys, really know?
Bye Bye--General Lee
Well, if you ask the Jetblue guys, they will tell you that Song is tanking and there is no way Jetblue will ever be beaten. As far as I know, someone stated that we have a 70% load factor, which apparently isn't very good.( I thought it was pretty good---for an airline brand that is just emerging, but the Jetblue guys know differently---since they were an automatic success right away......) We only have 12 planes on it right now, and we should have 36 on it by the end of DEC. It is my opinion that when the weather gets colder and people want to go to FLA from the NE, more people will fill those flights and people will notice it more. They have been having a problem with the TVs that go in each seat, and apparently they have delayed the installment until early next year (from the original OCT date). I am sure somebody was fired over that, but they are trying to work it out. They have started some West Coast flying as of late --from LAS to MCO, TPA, and FLL, and they are starting LAX to FLL and MCO eventually. From what we hear at base ops--things are going well......But what do I, or any of the Jetblue guys, really know?
Bye Bye--General Lee
General Lee
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Networ-King
Well-known member
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- Jan 11, 2003
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- 625
General......
Delta's got 13 757 on song as of today and the load factors are in the 80% as per the Deltanet info.......
go to flysong.com and check out a city pairing and look how many seats are available on the plane for that flight on that day. Song doing better then management expected, but management is doing exactly what eveybody expected....... making empty promises of TV's and MP3 players by OCT, which we all know won't be in the planes by then. Lets hope their next emptly promise of early next year comes to fruition.
Delta's got 13 757 on song as of today and the load factors are in the 80% as per the Deltanet info.......
go to flysong.com and check out a city pairing and look how many seats are available on the plane for that flight on that day. Song doing better then management expected, but management is doing exactly what eveybody expected....... making empty promises of TV's and MP3 players by OCT, which we all know won't be in the planes by then. Lets hope their next emptly promise of early next year comes to fruition.
Ty Webb
Hostage to Fortune
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- 6,524
Loads might be good (Geez, whose aren;t right now?) but it's only part of the equation.
What are the yields?
What is the net?
As AirTran CEO Joe Leonard put it- "It's a high-cost low fare carrier".
I think if it works, what will happen is Delta Mainline will be reduced to mostly international and trans-cont heavvies, with Song flying point-to-point and the RJ's, which already make up 49% of the ASM, will provide feeder and point-to-point.
If it doesn;t work, the shareholders will cll for Leo's head. He has been losing tons of money trying to "keep market share", which may prove to have been brilliant, or may prove to be a colossal mistake that will find them filing Chapt 11 too. You can't lose $2.5 million dollars a day, forever, and the Gummint Cheese program has pretty much run its course.
We shall see. One things for sure, it will be interesting to see how it all works out.
What are the yields?
What is the net?
As AirTran CEO Joe Leonard put it- "It's a high-cost low fare carrier".
I think if it works, what will happen is Delta Mainline will be reduced to mostly international and trans-cont heavvies, with Song flying point-to-point and the RJ's, which already make up 49% of the ASM, will provide feeder and point-to-point.
If it doesn;t work, the shareholders will cll for Leo's head. He has been losing tons of money trying to "keep market share", which may prove to have been brilliant, or may prove to be a colossal mistake that will find them filing Chapt 11 too. You can't lose $2.5 million dollars a day, forever, and the Gummint Cheese program has pretty much run its course.
We shall see. One things for sure, it will be interesting to see how it all works out.
Last edited:
General Lee
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Networ-King,
Yup, I know about those promises, and you are right. But, you and I don't really know what has happened between Delta and the TV maker Matsushista (SP???). Maybe they promised Delta that it could be ready in OCT, and they were off. We couldn't buy the LiveTV system from Jetblue, so we looked for someone else. They also will bring that new Song list deal (the pax picks 12 songs from an onboard library), which sounds inovative. When it gets cold this Winter I still don't think Song will have a problem filling seats to FLA---as long as the prices are right. The TVs hopefully will be in there soon and will help keep people around next summer.
The loads have been fairly full lately, and Delta has placed the Song 757s on city pairings that will be full anyways--like LGA to FLL and JFK to PBI. It will all work out eventually.
Ty,
Where did you get the $8 million a day loss? I think that is way off. And, we only have 13 757's on it currently--but will have 36 by the end of the year. The planes have 199 seats, and when the flights are jammed full this winter, the costs will yield profits. They have increased the block hours to pay off the fixed costs and have more chances to make those profits each day. Even Joe Leonard said in his confrence call to the analysts that he thought fares were going up. That will help Song because we have more seats on our 757s, which will help with the bottom line. And, the costs will benefit from an eventual pay cuts from us--the pilots---but as I keep saying--we will get paid back in the end. This is another cycle Ty--and we are starting that upward trend--look at the economy. When the IRAQ oil thing gets worked out, gas prices will tumble (they are still at $30.00 a barrel) and all of the airlines will do a lot better--and it will help Delta a lot because we buy A LOT of gas. Things will get better--they have to.
Bye Bye--General Lee 
Yup, I know about those promises, and you are right. But, you and I don't really know what has happened between Delta and the TV maker Matsushista (SP???). Maybe they promised Delta that it could be ready in OCT, and they were off. We couldn't buy the LiveTV system from Jetblue, so we looked for someone else. They also will bring that new Song list deal (the pax picks 12 songs from an onboard library), which sounds inovative. When it gets cold this Winter I still don't think Song will have a problem filling seats to FLA---as long as the prices are right. The TVs hopefully will be in there soon and will help keep people around next summer.
The loads have been fairly full lately, and Delta has placed the Song 757s on city pairings that will be full anyways--like LGA to FLL and JFK to PBI. It will all work out eventually.
Ty,
Where did you get the $8 million a day loss? I think that is way off. And, we only have 13 757's on it currently--but will have 36 by the end of the year. The planes have 199 seats, and when the flights are jammed full this winter, the costs will yield profits. They have increased the block hours to pay off the fixed costs and have more chances to make those profits each day. Even Joe Leonard said in his confrence call to the analysts that he thought fares were going up. That will help Song because we have more seats on our 757s, which will help with the bottom line. And, the costs will benefit from an eventual pay cuts from us--the pilots---but as I keep saying--we will get paid back in the end. This is another cycle Ty--and we are starting that upward trend--look at the economy. When the IRAQ oil thing gets worked out, gas prices will tumble (they are still at $30.00 a barrel) and all of the airlines will do a lot better--and it will help Delta a lot because we buy A LOT of gas. Things will get better--they have to.
Bye Bye--General Lee
Last edited:
Ty Webb
Hostage to Fortune
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- Dec 10, 2001
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- 6,524
If fares do pick up, that's great for all of us.
If fares do pick up substantially, and business travel returns, then "Leo's Gamble" of taking huge losses to keep marketshare will probably look pretty darn smart.
If anything else happens (ie another terorist attack involving airlines, prolonged recession, loss of an aircraft in flight, etc.) then it will be a huge waste of cash.
You are right, general, about the loss figure I posted being wrong- the third quarter loss is projected right now to be about $2.5 million a day . . . I have corrected my earlier post and here is a link to the info:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030717/airlines_delta_loss_1.html
Note that when the CFO refers to a cash burn rate it is not the same as a loss . . . . she says they burned $1.1 million a day in Q2, even though the actual loss (before Gummint Cheese and sale of Worldspan) was really closer to $2.5 million a day:
"Excluding federal aid and $176 million after-tax from the sale of its stake in reservations firm Worldspan, Delta posted a loss of $237 million, or $1.95 per share. Before items, the company reported a loss in last year's second quarter of $162 million, or $1.34 a share".
In any event, I think whatever you guys agree to at Song is going to become the standard for mainline operations . . . which is why, I am sure, you guys are dragging your feet on negotiations.
In any event, I am sure Delta will make it through all this, I just wonder in what form, and what lessons we will all learn looking in the rearview mirror.
If fares do pick up substantially, and business travel returns, then "Leo's Gamble" of taking huge losses to keep marketshare will probably look pretty darn smart.
If anything else happens (ie another terorist attack involving airlines, prolonged recession, loss of an aircraft in flight, etc.) then it will be a huge waste of cash.
You are right, general, about the loss figure I posted being wrong- the third quarter loss is projected right now to be about $2.5 million a day . . . I have corrected my earlier post and here is a link to the info:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030717/airlines_delta_loss_1.html
Note that when the CFO refers to a cash burn rate it is not the same as a loss . . . . she says they burned $1.1 million a day in Q2, even though the actual loss (before Gummint Cheese and sale of Worldspan) was really closer to $2.5 million a day:
"Excluding federal aid and $176 million after-tax from the sale of its stake in reservations firm Worldspan, Delta posted a loss of $237 million, or $1.95 per share. Before items, the company reported a loss in last year's second quarter of $162 million, or $1.34 a share".
In any event, I think whatever you guys agree to at Song is going to become the standard for mainline operations . . . which is why, I am sure, you guys are dragging your feet on negotiations.
In any event, I am sure Delta will make it through all this, I just wonder in what form, and what lessons we will all learn looking in the rearview mirror.
Flying Freddie
Bitchin' Blue
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- Dec 30, 2002
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- 345
~~~^~~~
Well-known member
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- Dec 21, 2001
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- 6,137
Freddie: You are right and things are probably heading that direction. Not many pay for first class, so the company is thinking about a full cabin premium coach product with leather seating and entertainment systems of some sort. The Shuttle 737's with a single class setup are being used outside their original "Shuttle" route system to experiement with this.
General Lee
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- Aug 24, 2002
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Fins is correct. Even British Airways has taken all of the first class seats out some of its 777 because first class isn't filling up---on routes to SAN, PHX and maybe DEN I believe from LHR. But, I don't think they will do that on all mainline planes---we still do attract frequent flyers who want upgrades to business or First on the longer flights to the West coast or Europe. And, as the economy gets better, one san only surmise that the business travelers will eventually roll back in and want the perks---like the crown rooms, upgrades, and free trips to the Carribean (if they can get a seat).
Ty,
You may be correct about the losses per day, and if it were $1 million per day, we would have an extra 900 days since our unrestriced cash went from $1.9 billion to $2.8 billion from March to July. But, we obviously don't want to use that, and as the economy rolls back in hopefully those fares will increase and other costs will go down--like those gas prices--which are another huge expense that could go down soon, hopefully. Yes, it will be interesting, but I think we will all be fine, and I hope too that we don't have anymore of those terrorist strikes or crashes.
Bye Bye--General Lee
Ty,
You may be correct about the losses per day, and if it were $1 million per day, we would have an extra 900 days since our unrestriced cash went from $1.9 billion to $2.8 billion from March to July. But, we obviously don't want to use that, and as the economy rolls back in hopefully those fares will increase and other costs will go down--like those gas prices--which are another huge expense that could go down soon, hopefully. Yes, it will be interesting, but I think we will all be fine, and I hope too that we don't have anymore of those terrorist strikes or crashes.
Bye Bye--General Lee
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