SWA going to Denver!!!

[koko nw]

Really? You'd rather change planes in some large, delay prone airport and have twice the odds of being late? That seems a little odd. Oh well, W/E. Most folks I know prefer to get on a plane at the airport closest to their homes and get off of it at their destination.

Anyway, we are not going to DEN to "put XXX or YYY out of business". We are going because we think we can make a buck. Usually, we are right, and given the history in CO I'd say we must awfully sure to risk coming back.

I found it odd too, but statistics is a funny animal,

On time performance Aug 2005 BTS.gov

SWA 78.4%
F9 85.1%
UAL 80.9%

Now NWA,DAL and AA were in the mid to low 70's but I believe your theisis of a hub and spoke being twice as likely to be late.....well a little inflated. Sorry couldn't find yearly figures.

On your second point your shack on.

regards

 

[Tejas-Jet]

Cuz you can bet UAL will be adding more flights from DEN to everywhere SWA's gonna be flying...

Well then, this tells me that UAL must have a bunch of airplanes that are just sitting around....or they are gonna take airplanes off other routes to add these flights to "everywhere SWA's gonna be flying."

I wonder which routes those airplanes will come from....

Tejas

 

[Hvy]

WAYYYYY bad for UAL! Looks like TED (terrible exicutive decision) has his work cut out

Still clueless, aren't you?

 

[ivauir]

All your seats are leather?

Just about, there are a very small number of interiors that haven't been updated, but they should all be done soon.

 

[canyonblue]

Lot of trash talking and the game hasn't even been played yet. There are plenty of people who want to fly out of Denver so enough with the "my plane is bigger than your plane crap", we get it already. From the DEN commuters I have talked to in the past, Frontier has a good product and Ted is a good product. We have No TV, No Meals and No assigned seats and apparently our August on-time stats suck. For Frontier and United this should be a cake walk, so don't fret about it. D#mn it's great to be the underdog.

 

[F9 Driver]

Easy Francis. Just civil discussion for the most part.

Don't get 'em in a wad just yet

 

[vc10]

Misleading.

1) in almost every significant connecting market, airlines are price takers. So the fact that F9's connecting fares are similar to WN's is meaningless. You make money on nonstop fares.

2) WN's stage length is smaller than F9s, considerably. Costs and fares typically increase as stage length decreases. So it's not that surprising that WN's fares are higher than F9's. The issue is whether they're higher on the same length flights.

:laugh:
Excerpt from a letter to employees that F9 CEO Jeff Potter released yesterday. It was printed in The Denver Post yesterday.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_3136259

"...That being said, from a management standpoint, we too have been preparing ourselves for Southwest's entry, and I think it is important to note that not everything you have heard about Southwest is necessarily true. It's worth mentioning that we already compete with Southwest on about 75-80% of all F9 connecting markets (about 500 city pairs) and are competitive with them in pricing. While there is certainly no arguing their success, it may surprise you to know that based on the most recent DOT statistics (June quarter 2005), Southwest's fares were actually about 12 percent higher than Frontier's on a per-mile basis, in markets where we compete directly. Obviously, pricing power is one of Southwest's primary competitive advantages in the markets it enters, but that won't necessarily be the case here in Denver. In other words, we have been competing quite effectively for a long time...."

 

[F9 Driver]

Misleading.

1) in almost every significant connecting market, airlines are price takers. So the fact that F9's connecting fares are similar to WN's is meaningless. You make money on nonstop fares. Sorry vc, but I don't follow your logic. If you don't make money on connecting flights SWA's business model is seriously flawed (and I don't think it is.)

2) WN's stage length is smaller than F9s, considerably. Costs and fares typically increase as stage length decreases. So it's not that surprising that WN's fares are higher than F9's. The issue is whether they're higher on the same length flights.

The numbers were presented in a "town hall" meeting after SWA's announcement, and were stage length adjusted. We're very close in CASM ex-fuel & RASM IMHO.

 

[canyonblue]

The numbers were presented in a "town hall" meeting after SWA's announcement

Oh man, not another town hall meeting where the speaker "ala David Siegel " tell the employees that they are in for the fight of their lives. And no more Rocky comparisons.

 

[F9 Driver]

Naw. It just summed up what was said in the memo from the link I posted, and expanded on some of the points.

They did play "Eye of The Tiger" when Jeff Potter walked in though

 

[canyonblue]

That's good. You can see that the death match predicted by Siegel never came to fruition. Airways gained pax over the increased flying. I would imagine the same will happen in DEN.