Be an "Airline Analyst"

[roabilly]

I would like to get input from the best Commercial Aviation minds at our disposal… (That’s the posters here) concerning your vision of the Future of the Airline Industry.

Sarcastic quips are accepted, along with serious and creative future business models!

Include your views on organized labor…fuel costs, and the alternatives…fare structures…equipment types…route structures…possible government regulation… mergers, and acquisitions…etc.

In other words…where will we be… five…or…ten years from now?

And… no… I ain’t workin’ in Management!

 

[SolidCactus]

My guess is that fuel will come down, and stay around $100 ish per barrel. I think that the airlines, all of them except for Southwest will continue to go in and out of bankruptcy, with the average bankruptcy happening every ten years per airline. The hub system is terribly inefficient and the the concept of a constantly changing cost of goods (fuel, maintenance, and labor to name a few), aviation is just an extremely complex model, that changes so quickly that companies just can't adapt.

 

[orioleman]

solid ,
If the hub and spoke is MANAGED CORRECTLY . it can be very profitable. Unfortunately

we DO NOT have that kind of leadership. it's funny how management Cry's about labor cost . but

yet they vote themselves 200% bonuses on the backs of employees.. I don't see them taking that

away. . So to answer your ?? Roa . LABOR is not the PROBLEM at US .. and we will continue to fight

the cause for the blue collar man/woman that keeps this airline around.

 

[SolidCactus]

solid ,
If the hub and spoke is MANAGED CORRECTLY . it can be very profitable. Unfortunately

we DO NOT have that kind of leadership. it's funny how management Cry's about labor cost . but

yet they vote themselves 200% bonuses on the backs of employees.. I don't see them taking that

away. . So to answer your ?? Roa . LABOR is not the PROBLEM at US .. and we will continue to fight

the cause for the blue collar man/woman that keeps this airline around.

I agree Orioleman, I do think it can be very efficient, BUT there are so many variables that can make it so inefficient. I think the problem with the hub system is, picture what a 2 hour ground stop does at a hub. The rest of the day, the airline will virtually fly every plane at a loss, with passengers missing connections and cancellations galore. I think that is the major advantage that WN has. They fly their routes like a bus. If a flight gets delayed 2 hours, that flight is just 2 hours late for the rest of the day, trying to make up the time by turning the plane fast.

 

[BoeingBoy]

I think the problem with the hub system is, picture what a 2 hour ground stop does at a hub. The rest of the day, the airline will virtually fly every plane at a loss, with passengers missing connections and cancellations galore.

There's a pretty easy fix for that - as evidenced by what other hub/spoke airlines have done - but the folks out in the Sand Castle haven't a clue what it might be.

Jim

 

[roabilly]

Hmmm…

Interesting points regarding hub and spoke. In my own view, if aviation fuel costs remain relatively high… the hub and spoke model may actually become more advantageous.

We know that the future of the smaller Regional Jets has been called into question due their limitations on passenger loads, and fuel burn.

It would seem to me… that the future use of larger, more efficient aircraft would then dictate a need to efficiently transfer the larger passenger numbers to their ultimate destinations. This would make cities with profitable hub facilities in place even more valuable.

This trend is already being seen at the smaller airports nationwide that have lost air service.

 

[roabilly]

solid ,
LABOR is not the PROBLEM at US .. and we will continue to fight
the cause for the blue collar man/woman that keeps this airline around.

"O"...

I couldn’t agree more! I think that the Union Leadership should begin to commit significant resources to organizing all non-represented and under-represented work groups in this industry.

“Industry standardâ€￾ has become a benchmark in negotiating non-bankruptcy agreements in terms of compensation. We need to increase the value of this point of reference with aggressive organizing industry wide.

 

[SegmentKing]

how about rewarding our customers instead of taking everything away from them?

why does the company always have to be a follower... HP never was and it was a pretty cute airline, didn't FlightFund even win tons and tons of awards??? When they did BOB in 2004, I was on a test flight and it was pretty damn good stuff.... I'll try to dig up pics of the chicken, beef, and hot pocket.

 

[SpinDoc]

There's a pretty easy fix for that - as evidenced by what other hub/spoke airlines have done - but the folks out in the Sand Castle haven't a clue what it might be.

Jim

Jim:

One answer may be to use efficient hubs in the first place, ie. underutilized airports. There is a nice mostly empty hub in SW Pennsylvania that rarely has WX or ATC problems. It is the perfect connecting hub, and has a decent amount of O&D to boot.

Maybe someday US and the politicians will lay their swords down and find that there are mutual benefits to re-hubbing this airport.

Aw, darn. My alarm clock just went off. What was I dreaming about again?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Preventing one hub's delays from flowing over to other hubs is even simpler than that.

Jim

 

[Bobbie]

I'm no expert on the airline industry, but I know it from a passenger perspective... It doesn't seem to me like there are enough planes at US Airways to operate a significant hub in Pittsburgh at this point unless another hub were to be dropped.

In those first and second bankruptcies, they ditched a LOT of planes and started all of this transcontinental regional jet nonsense. With fuel prices like they are, regional jets don't really work well or so I'm told.

 

[flydude]

deleted

 

[hulagirl]

solid ,
If the hub and spoke is MANAGED CORRECTLY . it can be very profitable. Unfortunately

we DO NOT have that kind of leadership. it's funny how management Cry's about labor cost . but

yet they vote themselves 200% bonuses on the backs of employees.. I don't see them taking that

away. . So to answer your ?? Roa . LABOR is not the PROBLEM at US .. and we will continue to fight

the cause for the blue collar man/woman that keeps this airline around.

I can only see that they have issues with fuel costs. Where is management complaining about labor costs?

 

[FM2436]

Airlines will start collecting $650 to $700 per passenger for a ticket. Planes will fly primarily to big cities, and not a lot of small communities. There will be many fewer flights. Air travel will be a throwback to the era before deregulation. Flying will be a luxury.

Sound familiar?

 

[Bobbie]

Airlines will start collecting $650 to $700 per passenger for a ticket. Planes will fly primarily to big cities, and not a lot of small communities. There will be many fewer flights. Air travel will be a throwback to the era before deregulation. Flying will be a luxury.

Sound familiar?

Air travel may become a throwback to the era before deregulation, but that wouldn't involve planes flying primarily to big cities. The major airlines were largely point-to-point prior to deregulation and they stopped in every little town along the way picking up passengers, in full sized aircraft. If anything we'd be flying larger aircraft to smaller cities along major routes. There are many airports that, today, don't have passenger service at all and pre-deregulation had 727's passing through daily.

Those were the days!