SWA buys ATA II

[GlobeIII]

What about the income from hauling cargo to/from the islands. Extra room on a 75/6 vs a 73?

 

[Dan Roman]

You're right, a 737 doesn't have room for extra cargo. It can't always carry the baggage of it's passengers checked in and at times it has to block seats just to carry enough fuel to make the flight.

 

[HighSpeedClimb]

You're right, a 737 doesn't have room for extra cargo. It can't always carry the baggage of it's passengers checked in and at times it has to block seats just to carry enough fuel to make the flight.

You can't be talking about a -700....No problem there...

 

[airlinepilot]

Purchase the certificate only?

Is there any reason why SWA can't just buy the gates and certificate without any equipment or planes? It would be alot easier and it would clearly fit into SWAPA's plan of you buy them, we fly them.

 

[In The Wind]

How about 100 mill. a year in code share profit alone. Prob. 150 to 200 if they have it all and manage it properly. ATA is the biggest carrier to that market. WN can now pick it up with very little cost to them. And don't worry I am sure not a single pilot at SWA would loose any seniority or money. This growth will be great for them. I expect the ATA guys to go to the bottom per the SWPA contact.

 

[50Pesos]

Flying a 737 to Hawaii is not the most cost efficiant use of a an aircraft that size. The seat mile costs are much higher than a 767 or 757. Also the airplane is not being very productive. It makes one round trip and has little time left over for any more productivity from the airplane. I think one of the reasons SWA is so succesful is because they get very good productivity out of their aircraft. Also, I'm guessing an airline the size of SWA would have a a lot of frequent flyers in their program. Hawaii is the number one choice of frequent flyers and if you start hauling frequent flyers on a 737 you have little left over for revenue pax.
That's my theory anyway!

SWA Rapid rewards only has so many seats in a certain price catagory available, to prevent this already.

 

[MDWCrashPad]

Three hour ETOPs is not something that you just begin to fly. The authority takes years to get. It requires special aircraft certification, an ETOPs approved maintenance program, crew certification, and a reliabiliity history.

Often ETOPS planes will have additional or different equipment on them. Reliability of certain components is watched very closely and detailed records are kept.

In order to get two hour ETOPS you must fly 90 minute ETOPS for a while. Engine and APU reliability data is collected. Once you do 90 minute ETOPS for a while you can begin 2 hour ETOPS. Again, data is collected. If your reliability is not sustained you will lose the 2 hour ETOPS. That happened to Pan Am around 1990 using the Pratt engines on the Airbus 310s. That increased their fuel costs by 40 million per year on the ETOPS routes.

Once you have successfully done the 2 hour ETOPS you can go for the 3 hour ETOPS. The entire process takes years. It is more of an airline as a whole procedure than an airplane specific certification. If you have been flying 767 three hour ETOPS you can get 757 or 737 three hour ETOPS in less than a year. The FAA would have already been monitoring your ETOPS maintenance program.

America West did not have any 2 hour ETOPS routes to build into the 3 hour ETOPS. That is why they were never able to get it on their own. They went to the FAA and tried to get them to agree to a simulated 2 hour program going cross country. The FAA told them that if they had a problem they could not overfly good airports to fly to their simulated ETOPS airports.

Everytime an ETOPS component breaks the data goes into the mix and you are a little closer to losing that certification. The smaller the ETOPS fleet the greater the component failure figures into the equation. The larger the ETOPS fleet, the more components that can break. And there had better be no paperwork errors, especially for the three hour ETOPS.

Basically, it is an extended process. Some of this information may be a little out of date since it has been a few years since I helped on setting up an ETOPS program.

 

[Freight Dog]

You're right, a 737 doesn't have room for extra cargo. It can't always carry the baggage of it's passengers checked in and at times it has to block seats just to carry enough fuel to make the flight.

Not true on the -700.

Full cabin, usual load of bags, ETOPS fuel, and blast off out of SNA (5700 ft runway) at max gross to Hawaii... no sweat!

 

[Erndogg]

Not true on the -700.

Full cabin, usual load of bags, ETOPS fuel, and blast off out of SNA (5700 ft runway) at max gross to Hawaii... no sweat!

Boeing did not design the 700 for ETOPS routes. What AQ,AK and ATA have done is take an INTERCONTENTAL aircraft and started running the APU the whole flight to fly over water.
That's why Boeing came out with the -900ER.

 

[Dan Roman]

Not true on the -700.

Full cabin, usual load of bags, ETOPS fuel, and blast off out of SNA (5700 ft runway) at max gross to Hawaii... no sweat!

You guys fly it, not me. So I stand corrected! I'm just basing it on pilots telling me on days when the jetstream is 100kts on the nose (common in the winter) you have to block seats or limit bags.