BoeingBoy said:
A look at the low cost competition from the NE to Florida....
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Then where would you suggest we fly our planes? We're running out of country here guys. You dont have to get everyone to fly US, you dont have to have 8-10 flights a day in every market, but we need to be able to give our FFs an alternative on US if its even remotely possible so they dont head over to the other guys. Look at a B6 schedule in many markets. They offer 2-4 flights a day max into the hub (JFK), not every hour. Look at WN, they offer 1-4 flights in a lot of markets that you'd think, how can they do that in those city pairs? Obviously they not only carry enough local traffic, but can offer some connections in cities that arent considered true hubs in addition to through traffic onto the next city. Why couldnt we make minihubs scheduling with O&D traffic and if the connections are there thats a bonus. I thought this was what they had planned for PIT with a focus city.
Looking at the latest WN schedule I can find handy (6/03) they offer conx in BWI/LAS/AUS/MCO/MDW/RNO/DAL/ELP/PHX/HOU/STL/AMA/LBB/TPA/MCI/LAX/
ONT/SAN/BUR/MSY AND...AND get this, that is just from looking at the schedule from the first 3 cities in the timetable, Albany, Albequerque and Amarillo.
Now look at a US schedule and you see CLT/DCA/PIT/LGA/BOS/FLL and thats it for almost ALL cities unless you include the MCI Air Midwest ops or some other weird commuter connection. Otherwise its the 6 or nothing and LGA and BOS are mainly to Express flights only (and then only from the other hub cities or 1 stops) and FLL is to the new markets. Where is US on the rest? Why cant we schedule a MCO-CMH-BOS flight that just happens to connect in CMH to a FLL-CMH-MKE flight? (Just picked some cities as examples). Look at all the cities that USED to be big for US and then start there.
IND/CMH/DAY/SYR/BUF/CLE/GSO/RDU/ORF/ROC/BDL.... it isnt working the way it is now, so why not TRY something else? IF WN can make some of these city pairs work, why cant US when the alternative is 10 flights a day into CONGESTED PHL?
It doesnt matter if we have 0 nonstops to the others 10, we still are competing against them on price, only we are doing double the work with 2 flights, 2 loading, 2 unloading bags, 2 agents to have to work them at the gates, etc. How productive is that?