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SWA wants to fly from HOU to MEX and SouthAmerica

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LGA and DCA are slot controlled airports. HOU and IAH do not have any slot restrictions. Not a comparable situation at all.
BULL!
Very comparable... Southwest was crying about unfair competition. Competition is competition. It's rather comical that now that the playing field is leveled, and SW no longer has it's upper edge with fuel hedges, they're the ones crying the most.
 
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Hey Flop,
are you saying continental will have to displace 1300 people to hobby to staff it? Man you guys run a tight ship. NOT!!

Ya you guys are sure productive

Ha ha ha ha!!!
 
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?

Just my two centavos.

Bubba

Bubba: Thanks for a good, considerate response. Maybe that's how it will work out? I have a few doubts and a few disageements with you. But again, good post.

Thirty thousand foot viewpoint on this: CAL/UAL has got to be in a equal market, or maybe I should say be in equal standing, with the City of Houston. We can't stake our future on something and have the rug pulled out from under us. We can't accept being misled or hoodwinked on this. That airport we sunk so much money in includes facilities used my Emirates, Air France, Luftansa, BA, and all manner of worldwide operators. We didn't spend what we did, and provide Houston with a world class airport, so we can just be discarded.

And let me point out too, you guys have not walked a mile in our shoes. We have had the crap beat out of us, and you guys have had the exact opposite. So we're going to have a different response when we get attacked on all sides.
 
I will say we have not walked a mile in your shoes, but our shoes are pretty worn and for us to give up now will only kill our airline. So we just lace up, and contiue to do what we (SWA) do best, keep having fun and rocking roll.
 
Idk. But if you are trying to insinuate that CAL exploited the city you won't get too far.

No, just saying CAL has made money at the airport and will continue to do so.

We had more downs than ups and still did a remarkable amount of things for the city. Why don't you pose/compare that with SWA? They've done nothing but make money. Have they done that much more for any city? Nope...

So what? CAL didn't do that out of kindness they did it to make money, period.
 
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.

Hey, why are you abiding by the latest ruling on Love Field (no international)and going after Houston on Hobby like there is no similiar agreement? Just curious...

Hey Flop,
are you saying continental will have to displace 1300 people to hobby to staff it? Man you guys run a tight ship. NOT!!

Ya you guys are sure productive

Ha ha ha ha!!!

I don't know how many of us it might take? But I doubt we'd show up with the minimum.

Idk, Jeff pbly won't do it. He'll just use it against us on a contract. But 1300 is an interesting number that suggests he has a plan. The number 10000? As in 10000 jobs created by SWA flying out of Hobby, that suggests someone needs a drug test...
 
No, just saying CAL has made money at the airport and will continue to do so.

So what? CAL didn't do that out of kindness they did it to make money, period.

Not true. I would say that during the Bethune years we really felt like we had a partnership with the city. This city does not have much culture, but what it did, CAL was a part of. Another example is Hurricane and disaster recovery. CAL was always the last out and first in.
 
BULL!
Very comparable... Southwest was crying about unfair competition. Competition is competition. It's rather comical that now that the playing field is leveled, and SW no longer has it's upper edge with fuel hedges, they're the ones crying the most.

Slot controlled airports are, by definition, unfair competitively. Anytime you artificially restrict the market place with something like a limited number of slots, competition isn't fair. SWA had to purchase AirTran just to get slots in DCA and LGA. Otherwise, getting slots there would have been prohibitively expensive, and would have taken years to accumulate enough of them to be cost effective, just like it took AirTran years to acquire all of our slots. Other carriers that could offer a better price to consumers couldn't get slots, while the legacy carriers were trading them around with each other to maximize their profits.

By contrast, there are no restrictions in Houston. SWA isn't looking for some sort of artificial controls on HOU that will give them a competitive advantage. If UAL wants to come over to HOU and fly a bunch of international flights on 737s just like SWA, then they're free to do so. The problem is that UAL does want a competitive advantage. They want artificial restrictions that don't belong in a free market.

Again, if you want regulation, just say so. I'm in support of that. But I'm not in support of partial regulation to benefit your company while screwing mine over. Free market or total regulation. Pick one.
 
Slot controlled airports are, by definition, unfair competitively. Anytime you artificially restrict the market place with something like a limited number of slots, competition isn't fair. SWA had to purchase AirTran just to get slots in DCA and LGA. Otherwise, getting slots there would have been prohibitively expensive, and would have taken years to accumulate enough of them to be cost effective, just like it took AirTran years to acquire all of our slots. Other carriers that could offer a better price to consumers couldn't get slots, while the legacy carriers were trading them around with each other to maximize their profits.

By contrast, there are no restrictions in Houston. SWA isn't looking for some sort of artificial controls on HOU that will give them a competitive advantage. If UAL wants to come over to HOU and fly a bunch of international flights on 737s just like SWA, then they're free to do so. The problem is that UAL does want a competitive advantage. They want artificial restrictions that don't belong in a free market.

Again, if you want regulation, just say so. I'm in support of that. But I'm not in support of partial regulation to benefit your company while screwing mine over. Free market or total regulation. Pick one.

For years YOUR company avoided places like the NY/DC market by going into places like ISP and BWI, because it didn't fit YOUR low cost model. Then YOUR model changed. MY company paid for those slots, so did US Airways. You had your chance to get into those markets when those slots became available. YOUR company chose not to.
Your company got UAL do dispose of several slots at EWR when they merged with CAL, then you company purchased Air Tran, getting the slots anyway. Nice end round move by YOUR CEO. I'm all for a free market too, as long as YOUR company doesn't cry every time you don't get your way.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree.
 
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For years YOUR company avoided places like the NY/DC market by going into places like ISP and BWI, because it didn't fit YOUR low cost model. Then YOUR model changed. MY company paid for those slots, so did US Airways. You had your chance to get into those markets when those slots became available. YOUR company chose not to.
Your company got UAL do dispose of several slots at EWR when they merged with CAL, then you company purchased Air Tran, getting the slots anyway. Nice end round move by YOUR CEO. I'm all for a free market too, as long as YOUR company doesn't cry every time you don't get your way.

Southwest does not own any slots in EWR; they are leasing 10 from UAL. CAL purchased all of Air Tran's slots before they merged with Southwest.
 

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