SWA wants to fly from HOU to MEX and SouthAmerica

[Double Shot]

Flop,

Quit crying

 

[outerlimits]

The poll is still in favor of not opening Hobby to SWA international flights, despite certain united IP addresses not being allowed to vote, and the fact that the writer Steffy is clearly biased to SWA.

Flop help me to understand this poll.

There is poll other there that no one, except UAL/CAL employees know about . This poll is to help make a decision?

Since when does a politician decide an issue on some secret poll?

PS no mind that you can vote as much as you want,as long as you clear your cookies on your computer,before each vote.

SO far about 7000 votes. I am guess Houston has a higher population that 7000 . ( I bet out of the 7000 votes it was actually only less than 100 people voting.)

 

[texman]

Flop, ok I get it. I see what you are saying In relation to all the money that your company has spent. Is the HOU airport in the city of Houston? Is IAH in the city of Houston? I think they are both in Harris county right? This is your even playing field. Exactly what agreement in good faith did the city of Houston have with ua/ca????? Was it a agrement to allow only CAL to do international out of iah and never allow Swa out of hobby? How would are fairs differ if they are so much higher rigth now? It sounds like you have a strong hold on that one. So why not let us bleed out of HOU doing international. HOU is our launching point. IAH is yours. How about we let you guys come in and play on our field.

Personally I think cal's argument is weak! This is a capitalist country or what's left of it! I think PCL is right. Regulate the whole industry, then we would not have this problem.

All in all I hope SWA will do international out of HOU because that's where our customer feed is out of and conintue to do so with great success.

 

[Flopgut]

Flop,

Quit crying

Here it comes. This is how you know when you're making a valid counterpoint in a SWA related debate. You hear "quit crying" or "get a beer"....

 

[outerlimits]

Here it comes. This is how you know when you're making a valid counterpoint in a SWA related debate. You hear "quit crying" or "get a beer"....

Dont knock it till you try it

PS Flop i give you alot of credit standing up for what you believe in and taking on everyone on FI.. Especially if your a CAL pilot, seeing as how the UAL pilots view you guys as second rate, and not deserving the profit sharing they got. Now that you guys (CAL) got the money in a different way, the UAL pilots have a grievance against it .

 

[Flopgut]

Flop help me to understand this poll.

There is poll other there that no one, except UAL/CAL employees know about . This poll is to help make a decision?

Since when does a politician decide an issue on some secret poll?

PS no mind that you can vote as much as you want,as long as you clear your cookies on your computer,before each vote.

SO far about 7000 votes. I am guess Houston has a higher population that 7000 . ( I bet out of the 7000 votes it was actually only less than 100 people voting.)

Well, look. This is the level this fight is taking place at. That's why Gordon Bethune is in front of the city and being interviewed by the Chonicle. This poll, these blogs and these articles and editorials will have a bearing on what the city council does.

I'm watching what Loren Steffy (Chronicle writer) is putting out hourly and writing him back about as much as I'm writing on here. I've voted (only once) and I know my co-workers are. We are tuned into this and very appreciative Bethune is helping us. That's what is going to be destroyed by SWA here. The good work that Bethune did.

*edit* Yeah, you're right about the beer!! Not a bad idea. A little early in the day yet. Or is it?

 

[Flopgut]

Flop, ok I get it. I see what you are saying In relation to all the money that your company has spent. Is the HOU airport in the city of Houston? Is IAH in the city of Houston? I think they are both in Harris county right? This is your even playing field. Exactly what agreement in good faith did the city of Houston have with ua/ca????? Was it a agrement to allow only CAL to do international out of iah and never allow Swa out of hobby? How would are fairs differ if they are so much higher rigth now? It sounds like you have a strong hold on that one. So why not let us bleed out of HOU doing international. HOU is our launching point. IAH is yours. How about we let you guys come in and play on our field.

Personally I think cal's argument is weak! This is a capitalist country or what's left of it! I think PCL is right. Regulate the whole industry, then we would not have this problem.

All in all I hope SWA will do international out of HOU because that's where our customer feed is out of and conintue to do so with great success.

I appreciate that you're trying to see my point. I think the agreement that exists is that all international flying in Houston take place out of IAH. The city council has to approve Hobby being re-instated as an international airport.

I think the chance that CAL/UAL prevails is about 1 in 3. If we don't, I think/hope we will go to Hobby to offer competing flights. (notice Smisek says 1300 workers will be "displaced"? I think that is about the number we would have to use to fly out of Hobby. I think he's signalling to GK that we'll be coming) Here is the call I'm making, and I know it might sound crazy: I don't think the city is going to let us go to Hobby. The deal GK ultimately wants is no/little competition. He wants CAL/UAL to go the way of Braniff, so he's cleverly playing things out just as was done at Love Field...

 

[texman]

I appreciate that you're trying to see my point. I think the agreement that exists is that all international flying in Houston take place out of IAH. The city council has to approve Hobby being re-instated as an international airport.

I think the chance that CAL/UAL prevails is about 1 in 3. If we don't, I think/hope we will go to Hobby to offer competing flights. (notice Smisek says 1300 workers will be "displaced"? I think that is about the number we would have to use to fly out of Hobby. I think he's signalling to GK that we'll be coming) Here is the call I'm making, and I know it might sound crazy: I don't think the city is going to let us go to Hobby. The deal GK ultimately wants is no/little competition. He wants CAL/UAL to go the way of Braniff, so he's cleverly playing things out just as was done at Love Field...

Love field is a battle that SWA is still dealing with till 2014. SWA didn't put them selfs in that situation. Our company has been fighting for 40 plus years and will continue to do so. The only way that (IMHO) Ua is going to beat SWA in HOU is if you start to be more of a productive group.

What I am wondering is why are we building a 500,000 sqft new building at the hdqs. It must be for future growth?

 

[texman]

If we do not get a INTL terminal out of HOU, I know SAT will be more and glad to help us. Either way we will do INTl flying out of Texas. The only thing is we can not do it out of love field.

 

[SWA Bubba]

I appreciate that you're trying to see my point. I think the agreement that exists is that all international flying in Houston take place out of IAH. The city council has to approve Hobby being re-instated as an international airport.

I think the chance that CAL/UAL prevails is about 1 in 3. If we don't, I think/hope we will go to Hobby to offer competing flights. (notice Smisek says 1300 workers will be "displaced"? I think that is about the number we would have to use to fly out of Hobby. I think he's signalling to GK that we'll be coming) Here is the call I'm making, and I know it might sound crazy: I don't think the city is going to let us go to Hobby. The deal GK ultimately wants is no/little competition. He wants CAL/UAL to go the way of Braniff, so he's cleverly playing things out just as was done at Love Field...

Flop,

I'm trying to see your point as well, and to a point, I can. However, I think your fears (or your company's stated fears, anyway) are way overblown, and I suspect for dramatic effect. Supposing SWA's international HOU operations gets approved. How much harm do you truly think will occur to CAL/UAL? I don't mean the doom and gloom, "we're gonna' die" stuff that the company's lawyers have to put out in their argument briefs. I mean real harm. What say you?

My personal suspicion is none. None, other than matching fares on the few competing, near-international that can be done from HOU with our type of aircraft. And I believe that lowering fares, even slightly, will spur more people to fly to those destinations, which will ultimately result in more passengers and profit for ALL of the airlines. The reason I say this, is because this has been what's always happened in these situations before.

As other posters have mentioned, you fly huge widebodies from IAH all over the world (remember, "Intercontinental" not just "international"), whereas we can only fly so many people in 20-30 international 737 departures per day (we only have something like 150 total HOU departures per day). Trust me, that's not going to destroy any other airline or Houston Intercontinental.

As far as your "level playing field" argument, all I have to say is that's a pretty subjective term in an industry as complicated as ours. You think "level" means we should fly out of IAH. That means split our operation (and that would be a significant operational split, in relative terms comparing our total Houston size to yours), and run operations on YOUR home turf. At YOUR airport, run the way your airline runs (hub and spoke, more time loading huge aircraft, significantly more ground time). Well, that doesn't work for us, with our business model and our size aircraft.

On the other hand, OUR idea of "level," is that you're welcome to run international operations at HOU with us. You'd only be able to use smaller planes to nearer destinations (limited by HOU's runways) like we plan on doing, however. You want to do that? You can do that as well as your large, intercontinental operations out of the only Houston airport capable of supporting that, your home, IAH. Or not. Your choice. To me, "level" and "fair competition" means, you run your business your way, and to your established model, and we run ours our way, and to our model. You don't force us to do things your way, and we don't force you to do things our way. Then we see whose product the consumer picks. It seems to me that experience shows that there's plenty of consumers to go around for each of our models.

Despite your insinuation, Southwest has NEVER worked to stop any airline from using any airport that we use, even "our" Love Field. The original agreement between the legacies and DFW did at first (not us), but now anyone can fly out of Love. Other airlines have come and gone (and some are still here), but that is up to them, and their business plans. And if you're truly worried about monopolies, consider this: American Airlines flies about 90% of the airtraffic into and out of the Dallas metroplex, and that's the DFW and Love combined. That kind of gives your concerns about Southwest's DAL "monopoly" some new perspective, doesn't it? I suspect you'd come up with some similar "monopoly" numbers in Houston, combining IAH and HOU operations.

Our proposal is to spend OUR money to build this international terminal, which will bring more money (and travel opportunity) to the city. That's why they seem to like it. I don't think it won't hurt UAL/CAL at all, other than perhaps to put initial price pressure on the small number of competing routes. And then, increased passenger numbers will be pay off for all. It is, in NO way, shape or form, an attempt by GK to "kill" CAL/UAL and then takeover all of Houston, like you insinuate, and actually claim we did in Dallas (I suppose somebody forgot to tell AA that we killed them years ago; there's still a buttload of those silver airplanes in Dallas!). Can't happen.

In reality, I think you have nothing to worry about. I'm not going to tell you to "stop crying" or "have a beer," but *I* believe that what you're arguing on this thread is the same overblown histrionics that lawyers are paid to argue. You know what I mean? I believe that in a few years, people are going to wonder what the big fuss was even about. More people will get to travel south, and both airlines will be fine.

Just my two centavos.

Bubba