Thanks again for all of the responses. I will repond to each:
Side stick-n,
I do have a lot of drive, and I wish more at Delta had it to. I am an avid aviation watcher and I keep up with all of the news and articles etc...Would it be better for us (the Majors) if we didn't have LCCs? Sure. Do I wish that? No. Not every carrier can take care of every type of passenger. It used to be that the cost concious passneger would fly on Southwest , along with six stops, across the country for a low price. Then you got planes that could fly nonstop, and expanded from there. That was fine with us too, because we had our own type of passenger that wanted the first class seat, flights into larger airports, etc...Then came a couple more LCCs, and more, which was ok until the tech bubble burst. The economy went down hill fast, and 9-11 didn't help matters. Then the internet allowed people to wait until the last minute to buy tickets, which left people at my airline wondering what the loads would be--instead of knowing a month in advance. That was scary, but things are coming back. As the economy rises, so do the fares, and the tight reigns on capacity at the Majors have helped. In the mean time most of the Majors have tightened their belts ( we let 16,000 people go), and created ways to go after the cost concious consumer. (Song, TED etc) Will these ideas work? Song has done very well and is expanding. It takes a while to get a brand name going, but with weather like this Noreaster right now in the NE, people will be flocking to FLA and warmth---and some will go on Song and like it a lot. TED, on the otherhand, will be fighting out of one of their hubs, and may have a harder time gaining meaningful profits--but will still affect Frontier in some ways.
You stated that in some years the LCCs will be the Majors, with the legacy carriers flying mainly INTL. Well, I doubt the legacy carriers will give up their hubs and 1000s of RJs to feed those INTL flights. Delta's mainline domestic feed may eventually consist of Song and Rjs, and that Song product will still be good competition to any of your LCCs. The CASM, as reported by Fred Reid, at Song was near 7.0. Remember that Song 757s have 199 seats, and employees that are paid less, and the flights are longer with the a/c utilization of 13.2 hours a day. Throw in a pilot paycut, and it will lower even more. And, to say that the LCCs costs are not going up is wrong. The longer Jetblue has those planes, the more it will cost in maintenence (unless they had that wonderful deal with Airbus...), and pilot costs--along with other personel will go up. Fuel prices too, even though Southwest has a good hedge program (so does Delta, but probably not as good as SW). (Also, don't we own Iraq now??)
And we both know that the LCCs aren't the only reason that Delta and the other Majors aren't doing that well---it was having 500 airplanes empty right after 9-11, and most of the European flights empty during the Iraq war, etc. But, as those problems go away (for good I hope)--those same planes will start to fillup (like last Summer), and we are expecting better results over this Spring and Summer. We had a great Thanksgiving Holiday---on the last Sun we filled 96% of all of our flights--the best day ever for us. Thanks for responding.
SWADude,
I know you are new (check out the number of my posts---I must not have a life---my wife hates it when I am on the computer), but if you were a regular you would know that I have ALWAYS been an advocate for all of our Delta furloughs, and the other airlines furloughs. I have talked about helping them try to find jobs and I help many of them on my own time. This forum is about bringing out information for possible jobs or about giving information about the industry that could help pilots make up their minds about future employment. I sometimes offer my opinions, and people can do what they want with them. If I post an article or ask a question, it is to get some feedback. That is it.
Medflyer,
Come on man, I have been explaining the Song operation to you for a couple weeks now. Here goes one more time quickly: Some people in the big cities want only cheap fares and to go nonstop. We know that. For those people, we would rather put them on a Song 757 (used to be a DL Express 737) and keep them away from our hubs with limited seats. They fly nonstop, we fill our plane, and make some money (with 199 seats). That leaves the same seat open in ATL that that guy was going to take for someone in Peoria, who would fly an RJ through ATL and connect to FLL on one of our 767-400s. That same seat in ATL is now more expensive (or at a premium) because people in Peoria cannot go nonstop to FLL, and have to pay a little more. We charge more for the hub flying, and would rather keep the cheap fares from the large cities on SONG. The flying between the big cities will have the cheapest fares, and the smaller ones will have to fly through the hubs if they want to go somewhere---$$$$$.
Coopdog,
You are correct. FLA is not super profitable nonstop from the NE(unless you fill your planes), but through ATL we pack our 767-400s etc with people from many many small towns that will pay extra to get to the beach and warm up. We also have CR7 service to Key West----which is very popular thru ATL, and very full at an expensive price--and no going thru MIA or FLL. (Piedmont used to fly those F28s down there, and Eastern flew a 727-100)
Bye Bye--General Lee
)
