Southwest Window

[dicko]

ALPA is politics, a lobby, a bunch of greasy, venal, debauched, profiteering praetorians. There's also a negative side to their business.

Pure gold. Absolute gold. ?

As far as the allegation that SWAPA is a bunch of "selfish pricks looking out for #1"...well, the man has a point.

 

[waveflyer]

I never thought of that as outsourcing, but I suppose you could call it that for the purpose of this thread. No matter, I never really cared for it anyway, and I was happy to see it gone.

Why would you not call it outsourcing?
Was it any different than anyone's agreement?

 

[Nindiri]

I usually think of outsourcing as airplanes flying under our colors. But again, no matter, I will concede the point that it was a slippery slope situation and we can call it outsourcing if you like.

Bubba might want to be careful about feeling too smug, however, since SWA was only ending it's own relationship with Volaris about the same time.

 

[waveflyer]

Doing flying that we weren't ready to do on our own yet, - yeah, not the same.
Skywest isn't a stand alone airline. It has no marketing department. It has no ability to sell tickets. If you had them flying for you, they were using every integrated part of your system to sell tickets on their planes.
There is no grey, you sold out to the outsourcing fad like everyone else.
I haven't killed you guys for it bc you did it far less and are MUCH LESS influential than the delta and united sellouts. But you absolutely did. No question.

 

[General Lee]

Doing flying that we weren't ready to do on our own yet, - yeah, not the same.
Skywest isn't a stand alone airline. It has no marketing department. It has no ability to sell tickets. If you had them flying for you, they were using every integrated part of your system to sell tickets on their planes.
There is no grey, you sold out to the outsourcing fad like everyone else.
I haven't killed you guys for it bc you did it far less and are MUCH LESS influential than the delta and united sellouts. But you absolutely did. No question.

Yeah, you guys were too busy learning how to use VNAV and the auto throttles on those "new" 737-700s back then.... Luckily, Volaris was there for 3 years while you attempted to fly the Seaview2 or River2 hands off.... Good for you guys....



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Nindiri]

Doing flying that we weren't ready to do on our own yet, - yeah, not the same.
Skywest isn't a stand alone airline. It has no marketing department. It has no ability to sell tickets. If you had them flying for you, they were using every integrated part of your system to sell tickets on their planes.
There is no grey, you sold out to the outsourcing fad like everyone else.
I haven't killed you guys for it bc you did it far less and are MUCH LESS influential than the delta and united sellouts. But you absolutely did. No question.

No, Wave, it's absolutely the same, except SWA did it on a larger scale than AT did. Customers were going on your website and buying tickets to ride on Volaris. To hear some of you guys tell it, it's always different when SWA does something. I think if SWA furloughed, some of you would be on here explaining how it was different and not really a furlough.

 

[waveflyer]

Sometimes, we talk like it's different because it is in fact, different. Volaris wasn't a full codeshare. You bought two tickets on each airline. Just used southwest.com to do both.
More info for you:
http://crankyflier.com/2010/11/01/v...almost-a-codeshare-but-not-quite-partnership/

Now here is cranky flier's review of air tran's second shot at outsourcing-
http://crankyflier.com/2009/11/05/skywest-to-start-selling-flights-under-its-own-name/

SkyWest to Start Flying for AirTran in Milwaukee
By CF on Nov 5, 2009 | 15 Comments
You cheeseheads may still be hurting from your second Favre-related beatdown this year, but you can rejoice that you now have yet another airline coming to town. SkyWest (yes, the regional airline) will begin flying for AirTran in Milwaukee.

It?s very clear that this is happening because of the AirTran deal, but it?s not your traditional regional contract. Then again, it?s not exactly the ?innovative? and ?groundbreaking? contract that these guys are proclaiming it is. This has been done before many times. The airplanes will say SkyWest on them, but you?ll have to go to AirTran to book. It?s a lot like the deal they had with Delta back in the day.


You may remember that SkyWest was flying as Midwest Connect until Republic came in and booted them out. Like most airlines, SkyWest has more 50 seat jets lying around than they need, so they figured they could just put them back into use on routes they know and love. Only now, they?ll get passengers from AirTran instead of Midwest.

The 50 seaters will fly from Milwaukee to Akron/Canton (Jan 5), Des Moines (Feb 11), Indianapolis (Jan 5), Omaha (Feb 11), Pittsburgh (Dec 4), and St Louis (Dec 4). All of those are Midwest markets except for Akron/Canton, which is a big airport for AirTran. Nice.

Some of you may remember AirTran?s last effort to use 50 seat jets. Back in 2002, they signed a deal with Air Wisconsin to fly as AirTran Jet Connect. That ended in 2004 when the airline realized 50 seat jets didn?t make much money. Some are already saying that this won?t work this time around, but this is a totally different model. This will work out just fine for AirTran, though SkyWest might not be as thrilled.

Before, it was a capacity purchase agreement which meant that AirTran bought the seats to resell under their own name and Air Wisconsin received a guaranteed profit. Now, it?s a prorate agreement. SkyWest is flying these routes at its own risk and AirTran gets to share in the revenue. So SkyWest has a big burden here while AirTran has none.

If you listen to the AirTran pilots, this is the end of the world. Their press release says ?Outsourcing: Bad for Business.? Hmm, not so sure about that. They do say that AirTran passengers expect to be flown on AirTran planes and that means XM Radio, wireless internet, and business class. Hmm, maybe, but they aren?t going to get that from Milwaukee to these cities.

Granted, Pittsburgh, Indy, and St Louis have mainline service from AirTran right now, so this tells me that those flights are really weak. It?s either a 50 seater that has a shot at making money or no service at all. I?d say it?s good for business with that perspective.

I suppose it?s AirTran?s fault that the pilots are responding this way. Back when they discontinued JetConnect, AirTran said they ?could operate the Boeing 717 more efficiently than the Canadair regional jets in short-haul markets.? They may have thought that sounded good at the time, but now the AirTran pilots want them to stand by that statement.

Unfortunately for the pilots, that?s just not true. When AirTran started JetConnect, they served three cities ? Pensacola, Greensboro, and Savannah. Only Pensacola is still served by AirTran today. I guess those 717s didn?t work out as well as they hoped on those lighter routes.

In my mind, this comes down to just a couple of things. SkyWest has a bunch of 50 seaters lying around and is desperate to find a home for them. AirTran wants to continue to put the squeeze on Midwest in Milwaukee. Combine the two and, voila, you have a plan.

Will this work? If I had to place bets, I?d guess no, but hey, I?ve been wrong before. If I?m AirTran, I love this deal since I have absolutely no risk and I get to strengthen my network out of Milwaukee. If I?m SkyWest, well, it?s the best I can get right now, and that?s scary.

[Updated 11/5 @ 809s to clarify that this won't be sold under the SkyWest code]
===========================

Now here's the difference from my perspective. Air tran was a domestic airline. You had every right and qualification to fly out of Milwaukee on any airplane your management wanted to fly.
Skywest offered air tran a deal, air tran pilots fought it as well as they could (I applaud you on that and do not diminish that you had several fights going on at the same time.)

With SWA and volaris, we did not have the right nor qualification to fly into Mexico. So we allowed the very limited codeshare where passengers even had to check in for both legs at both airlines and ended it freely.

See, we have something in common: Southwest Airlines, with swapa's encouragement ended both the Skywest agreement for you, and the volaris agreement for us.

You could say good job, instead of hate and cling to air tran nostalgia

 

[waveflyer]

Yeah, you guys were too busy learning how to use VNAV and the auto throttles on those "new" 737-700s back then.... Luckily, Volaris was there for 3 years while you attempted to fly the Seaview2 or River2 hands off.... Good for you guys....



Bye Bye---General Lee

I rarely fly those hands off general.

Hand flown, raw data

You should try it sometime. I've yet to land on Echo

 

[Nindiri]

See, that's what I'm talking about, Wave. Somebody points out that SWA was "outsourcing" the same as other carriers, and you write a long post explaining how Southwest customers buying tickets on our own Southwest website and flying on Volaris is not really the same as when other carriers do it. This is why so many people at other airlines have such a poor opinion of us.

Yeah, it's the same thing.

 

[SpauldingSmails]

I rarely fly those hands off general.

Hand flown, raw data

You should try it sometime. I've yet to land on Echo

I've heard you can squeeze into a 3,500' strip too.