Low fare carriers at PHL ?

[AirplaneFan]

I was curious why JetBlue has not mentioned PHL as a possible new city for service. It seems that U has fared better than most regarding low-fare carriers in their hubs. Obviously Southwest has coverage at Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Detroit, Cleveland, Houston. Of the hub-n-spokes, only US Airways does not have Southwest in any of its hub cities.

Of course if you consider BWI a hub city of 10 years ago then obviously Southwest was in a U hub city, but U has now pulled it down.

 

[usairways85]

PHL has
3x daily flts from MDW on ATA
13x daily flts on AirTran
2-BOS
5-ATL
2-FLL
3-MCO
1-TPA
2x daily on Midwest from MKE
1x daily on Skyway from MKE


Out of these few airlines Airtran has the most potential. During winter months they sometimes run 16 or 17 dailies. They also just got 3/4 new gates in PHL that they can easily operate more flights out of.

 

[wings396]

Look for Southwest to show up at ABE in the near future. ABE is close enough to PHL to put a hurt on traffic. Our management does not believe that people will drive to ABE for Southwest, so they are not planning any type of defense against them. Even if our fares are in line with SW, the easy access of ABE along with the lack of ATC problems will make the drive well worth it.

 

[A320 Driver]

Southwest just said in the last two weeks that they would be picking up no more new cities other than those already announced through at least 2004.

A320 Driver

 

[autofixer]

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On 7/26/2003 11:02:41 AM A320 Driver wrote:

Southwest just said in the last two weeks that they would be picking up no more new cities other than those already announced through at least 2004.


A320 Driver

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Is that "De Nile" or the Deleware? They WILL come to ABE...the crop is ripe for the picking. The entire western catchment basins of PHL and EWR are at risk, or prime for the taking, depending on your perspective. The situation for the mature carriers continues to deteriorate...I cannot believe that institutions and individuals continue to sink money into these failed business models.

 

[A320 Driver]

I'm not "De" anything. I'm just repeating what they said. If they come they come. More "chicken little" converts won't do anything except make more people who are powerless to effect change more afraid.

A320 Driver

Surviving my little slice of hxxx every day.

 

[A320 Driver]

From what I've seen since 1989, this company couldn't head off a competetive attack anyway. My introduction to U management (yes I was PI) was at the old schoolhouse in PIT with a ridiculous person that will remain unnamed walking to the front of the class and writing the names of various airlines on the blackboard. He pointed at United, American, Northwest and Delta and stated "we can't compete with these airlines and we know it, so we'll focus on these" pointing at Eastern and Peoples Express. This should explain much since those two carriers are out of business. We're just flat out of people to compete with!
This is a true story. Kinda left a lump in my throat when I heard this guy explaining U's competetive theory. Lump's still there.

A320 Driver

 

[mga707]

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On 7/26/2003 4:49:42 PM A320 Driver wrote:

From what I've seen since 1989, this company couldn't head off a competetive attack anyway. My introduction to U management (yes I was PI) was at the old schoolhouse in PIT with a ridiculous person that will remain unnamed walking to the front of the class and writing the names of various airlines on the blackboard. He pointed at United, American, Northwest and Delta and stated "we can't compete with these airlines and we know it, so we'll focus on these" pointing at Eastern and Peoples Express. This should explain much since those two carriers are out of business. We're just flat out of people to compete with!
This is a true story.
----------------​

Then it could not have occurred in 1989, as People Express was merged into Continental (along with New York Air) on February 1, 1987.

 

[A320 Driver]

1989 was when we combined operationally, however the meeting was prior to our mirror image training and I have no idea what the exact date was. Now, I didn't make the reference to Peoples Express, so it wasn't my mistake to make. I only relayed what I observed that faithful day in good ole PIT.
What we are seeing today is not a new problem. It's not hard to make money when the bulk of your routes are unduplicated, but it's a whole new day in the airline industry. Very few routes are unduplicated now so we better be about the business of figuring out just who we are and what our particular brand repesents.
New thinking is where we thought we were headed after the paycuts. We arrived at the same old place with basically the same old thinking...we just have less money to live on now.
There was probably twenty or so of us in that classroom that day U, PSA and PI backrounds. We all gave each other the "what's he nuts?" look after we saw this little demonstration so it's not a U problem. It's a LEADERSHIP problem...but that's not new either, is it?

A320 Driver

 

[wings396]

You are correct that SWA has said it will not open any new cities until 2004. At that time ABE could and should be at the top of their list. They have been sniffing around at ABE for a while. By 2004 ABE will be nothing more than an RJ mecca. Southeast has already taken our #1 ranking away at ABE by outboarding us by the thousands. By fall, NWA will be the only major airline with Mainline service to DTW, and they only operate one DC-9 a day with the rest being RJ's. Our bright Management feels that the
"Southwest Effect" is not what it used to be due to lower fares all around, including PHL. So the plan is no plan, let SWA take ABE over and drain PHL traffic at the same time. With all of our concessions I had hoped that we would be able to go head to head to defend our once stronghold turf......wrong again.