Would it be feasible to?

[:-)]

Would it be feasible for the struggling flag carriers to sell off their domestic ops and continue to operate over the water?

I've read this board enough to know that some pretty sharp minds reside here, so show me that my faith in you all is well founded.

Some questions: Are the domestic ops worth enough to pay down some of the overwhelming debt? Is the debt in fact overwhelming?

If (say for example) Delta spun off DCI and its domestic ops, could they then let the domestic side go chapter 7 and continue to fly overseas?

What about Untied? They are already in BK; could they just sluf off the intracontinental routes and continue international?

Is there any chance that a flag carrier could exist without a domestic structure? How many US origin pax does say Virgin Atlantic carry?

What would ALPA do if (once again say) Delta decided to divide with the extreme likelyhood of the domestic arm dying off.

If it is possible that a flag carrier might shut down its domestic arm, which flag carrier would be the most likely to do so?

Is it possible that a financially sound carrier like Jetblue might buy out the domestic arm of a flag in order to get the infrastructure? (Assuming that they could buy the assets at firesale prices.)

OR, will they all just hope that another carrier dies off and some of the overcapacity is thereby eased?

thanks

 

[350DRIVER]

No.... It would not be possible for a "struggling" carrier to be able to remain in business by selling off their entire domestic operations/routes. You will see a decline in the less profitable routes and a shift of route structure possibly but never would you see a carrier sell off an entire domestic operation, would be instant suicide. You will more than likely see the international operations being sold off slowly to other carriers when sh!t really hits the fan, ala TWA not too many years ago. The international route structure is a big gamble in more ways than one.



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[njcapt]

Would it be feasible for the struggling flag carriers to sell off their domestic ops and continue to operate over the water?

Do yourself a favor (if you haven't already) and read Thomas Petzinger's book Hard Landing. The tales of Eastern Airlines, Twa, and particularly PanAm are examples of how selling off chunks of an airline is not a pathway to profitability (though they sold off international route networks and kept the domestic ones). It's like selling off fingers, arms and other of your limbs in an effort to improve your quality of life.

 

[wms]

There has to be domestic operations to feed the Int'l routes.

 

[:-)]

I doubt that anyone will disgree with this statement. The domestic airline market suffers from overcapacity. Obviously, the weak flag carriers are having a hard time competing in the domestic market. Selling off overseas routes, as NJCapt showed, has proven to be the wrong move.

Other than one (or more) flag carriers going chapter 7, what else can be done?

wms, why do you say that there must be domestic to feed international, I know of one CEO who flies BA to get to Europe, they don't have a domestic US feed. (He gets on speedbird at either Dallas or NY)

 

[FlyFlyFly]

Rather than urge us on to do the hard work of analyzing your proposal,

you do it and get back to us.

In my opinion it is a patently bad idea,

prove me wrong...

 

[:-)]

Rather than urge us on to do the hard work of analyzing your proposal,

you do it and get back to us.

In my opinion it is a patently bad idea,

prove me wrong...

So much for trying to generate some AVIATION discussion. I guess that I'll go over to the ZIT discussion thread.

Everyone pisses and moans about the tone of this bbs, but no one except the bi+chers ever have anything to say.

edited out