Luv Into Phl

[skyflyr69]

Well that does it for this furloughed f/o. While anxiously awaiting MDA and all other "cost cutting" and "revenue increasing" measures to save our Airline, this shocking news from WN signals the LCC's (all of them) bullseyes being placed on each and every of our airplanes, to include the new Embraers. This Airline, (US) I'm afraid cannot withstand the pressures of direct competition at our once monopolized Hub(s). Blame Dave or whomever you'd like, the reality is there is no room for a carrier of our makeup anymore. Sad but true, the new Goliaths of this industry are the cancerous LCC's. The flying public, be it your vacationing retirees or your weekly business travelers, care ONLY about fares. These idiots are the same people who will stop on their way to the airport for toothpaste at Wal-Mart, taking 1/2 hour of their time while by-passing the struggling independent drug store anchored at their town's corner for 30 years for a "rollback" savings of 13 cents. And while goofball employees at these LCC's are willing to work for 1/2 the wages and a fraction of the benefits historically available at REAL airlines, the rest of us are simply doomed. A "gracious" thank you to all the pilots, f/a's, mech's etc. willing to work for pennies on the airline dollar to drive the good paying jobs into utter extinction. You jetBlue freaks enjoy the NY rush hour on your next "super productive" commute to JFK anticipating pilot wages below that of my HVAC guy who just cleaned my furnace. Thanks for spreading the cancer. I refuse to submit even a resume to any LCC. Take a stand, go visit your local drugstore, say "hello" to Mrs. Wilson, then jump on WN to philly from SAN for $69; please tip your cabbie well, it will probably be me!

That sir is the beauty of the free enterprise system. the market will always go to the cheapest fare/product. UNLESS a person get's SPECTACULAR service which U rarely provides in-flight.
just recently on a U flight the rear F/A's refused to serve because of a few "bumps" pure laziness on their part. i've driven on worse roads.
took a flight back 2 hours later and the f/a's on that flight served just fine in the "bumps."
U needs to concentrate on giving BETTER service especially in-flight.

 

[skyflyr69]

These idiots are the same people who..?

Maybe one reason US is in trouble is that it has employees with attitudes that call their customers "Idiots".

G

mrman, dead on! you hit a bullseye. just look at how active the U board is compared to LARGER airlines. the U employees seem to be the biggest complainers out there. that is the big reason U will fail.

 

[N628AU]

Well you didn't have it quite right, through no fault of your own. US Airways is now reporting its casm not including fuel and special items, unlike everyone else, to make it look better at a quick glance. The real casm including fuel (not certain if including special items) is just under 11. I have read that USA's labor casm as a percentage of total is about 31% compared to SWA's 34%.

supercruiser

Supercruiser,

That is the key that management seems to miss out on. If labor costs as a percentage of total costs are lower than WN, there must be something else wrong with the picture. A key is aircraft utilization. Instituting a rolling bank at PHL would get some more aircraft flying longer, which will increase revenue, minimize delays, and reduce maintenance costs when these aircraft are flown longer legs. Seems like a win-win for everyone to me. Longer legs will also lower labor costs, you don't have to have people working so many turns on the ground. I don't know what else Dave wants. He talks about needing to keep lowering costs, but will not mention any specifics.

 

[FM2436]

Interesting insight from the Boyd Group regarding Southwest competition at PHL. Its not US Airways but jetBlue. In fact only one mention of US Airways. Reads jet-Blue and Southwest will become the power house airlines in east. I like the last paragraph which is ment for Southwest "evolve or die".

Hot Flash - November 3, 2003

Airports With Less Than A Million Passengers: You're Now Out.
Southwest & Philadelphia:
The New Low-Fare Service Environment

After almost ten years of being able to pretty much call its own shots up and down the East Coast, Southwest now has to look over its shoulder. JetBlue is now firmly in the game, and it's a factor that will change the way Southwest plans its operation in the months and years ahead.

Southwest's decision to enter Philadelphia signals a whole lot more than just another expansion city for the Dallas-based airline. Up until now, they had no significant, well-focused, and large-scale low-fare competition in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. As a result, Southwest had the luxury of being able to pick and choose new markets as it saw fit. Not any more. For the first time, Southwest has meaningful direct competition that it must address.

Southwest is facing what may be its biggest challenge since Braniff and Texas International tried to freeze it out of Texas in the mid-1970s. Back then, Southwest faced outright collusion from two dinosaur airlines. Today, Southwest now faces a competitor that can - and fully intends to - successfully dive into the core East Coast traffic base which has been pretty much Southwest's exclusive playground for nearly a decade. And it's just beginning. Increasingly, consumers are going to have a choice. Not just between mega carriers and Southwest, but between competing low-fare airlines. Specifically, between Southwest and jetBlue.

The decision PHL move is clear proof that the jetBlue challenge not been lost on the folks down at Love Field HDQ. Some of the usual lightweight analysts will spout that it's an attack on US Airways. Forget it, US is just a bystander caught in what will become an increasingly nasty firefight between WN and jetBlue.

Remember, Southwest didn't get where it is by relying on a Ouija board. Too many analysts have misread the well-publicized and well-humored antics of the airline's chairman, and mistake that to mean that Southwest is just a big, fun flying furball with low fares. It's a whole lot more than that. Southwest is a tough, well-run airline with management that knows the business. Especially the low-fare airline business.

And that means they do not take the jetBlue threat lightly.

Entry of jetBlue = New WN Strategies. It's clear now that jetBlue will be a long term player. More ominously, it's not a low-fare airline. Instead, it's a low-fare airline with excellence in service - which is the formula on which WN built its business. Like Southwest, jetBlue is a airline that focuses on brand loyalty, not just dirt-cheap fares, to build its future.

Let's look at what Southwest is probably considering in regard to jetBlue:

Big time jetBlue expansion is inevitable. Southwest knows that jetBlue has over 200 airplanes on order. A lot of iron that will need to go someplace. Southwest knows that jetBlue will need to fly these machines in markets other than just JFK. And this will inevitably put jetBlue in direct competition for many of the traffic flows that Southwest now dominates. East Coast. West Coast. And in between, too.

Core-city airport service. The entry of jetBlue into Boston Logan was not insignificant to Southwest. It directly threatens much of the traffic base that Southwest enjoys at at MHT and PVD. Some of the reverse leakage driving out of Boston to fly WN is fixin' to get re-reversed back to Logan, which previously had no large-scale viable competition to Southwest. And although it really isn't a New York City airport, the same is likely happening at Islip. Cost-focused consumers in eastern Nassau and in western Suffolk Counties didn't have any reason to fly out of a core NYC airport - there simply was no concentration of low-fare service at LGA or JFK. Now there is, and the tedious trek on the Long Island Expressway toward JFK becomes much more attractive. This isn't to say that Southwest will enter more core-city airports in the Northeast, only that jetBlue has the potential to dig into WN's existing traffic base.

Service quality. It bears repeating - jetBlue does not have passengers. More correctly, it has built a cult of travelers rabidly loyal to the airline. Not much different than what Southwest has done, but jetBlue has raised the stakes, with things WN doesn't have - in-flight television, wider seats (that's the A-320 factor), legroom, and yes, seat assignment. This is where Southwest is vulnerable. It's understandable that WN is reticent to adjust its successful service formula, but this time they really do need to take a hard look at comparative on-board service levels.
This time, it's for real - jetBlue is serious competition. This is not the United Shuttle. This is not Continental Lite. This is not MetroJet. It can be argued that the consumer may well begin to compare what he gets at each airline. At Southwest, he needs to be at the ticket counter early to assure a boarding priority that minimizes (but does not eliminate) the chances of getting a middle seat between two people from a culture that has not yet discovered soap. At jetBlue, the consumer doesn't have that anxiety. He has a seat assignment. In a wider seat. With a free TV to divert his attention, middle seat or not.

With jetBlue in the picture, for the first time Southwest is in danger of having the perception of offering less for the dollar than the competition.

Planning flexibility. Another dangerous competitive sign coming from jetBlue is that carrier's recent attempt to enter the Atlanta market from California. Apparently, it failed. And that's what's been missed by a lot of analysts. When it failed, jetBlue simply left. No chest-beating. No public recriminations. They just took their A-320s and went someplace else to fly another day. Two messages here, both indicating a very tough competitor: Little emotion, and the flexibility to move quickly when things don't work out.

Fleet flexibility. The addition of Embraer E-190s will be a major competitive advantage for jetBlue. Despite the comments from some ill-informed media types, these are not "regional" jets, but instead mainline airliners - think of 737-500s with better economics. For those of us who have actually been on the Embraer 170 prototype, it's very clear that the -190 is a 100-seat mainline jet that will put jetBlue in a position to enter markets and adjust capacity with extreme flexibility.
Bottom line: jetBlue is now the standard to which low-fare airlines must aspire. Including Southwest, even as good as they are.

On The Whole, They Gotta Be In Philadelphia. And that brings us back to Philadelphia (as terrifying as that sounds, at least for those of us who've had to live there.) Southwest knew that it had to make a pre-emptive strike at PHL - to snarf up gates, establish turf, and attempt to deny jetBlue a beach head there. A sound competitive move, but one that could signal a range of shifts in the future expansion strategies at Southwest. The airline can be expected to move quickly over the next 18-months to shore up its position in key Eastern markets. Probably the most apparent moves will involve connecting the dots between existing airports on the WN route system. Watch for accelerated moves into transcon and semi-transcon markets.

Big-Time Loser: Wild Turkey Sales. What not to expect is a rash of new cities on their route system. They know jetBlue is eventually going to be all over them, and they will be circling the wagons accordingly. Forays into risky new cities is not in the cards. Any airport that doesn't have a million enplanements and the potential of generating or capturing another 300,000 to 400,000 passengers can now commence singing the blues: The odds of getting Southwest service are neck and neck with a meteor strike.

So smaller airports should face realities. They can forget sending Southwest those cutesy-pie marketing promotions that center around Wild Turkey bourbon. The long-suffering and good natured folks at Southwest have seen virtually every form of trying to use Mr. Kelleher's choice in adult beverage as a marketing tool. Frankly, that stopped being "innovative" about a decade ago. If you're a small to mid-size airport, save yourself the money and the brain damage. That bottle so cleverly disguised inside a stuffed turkey holding a picture of your airport in its mouth is a lost cause. We'd suggest you drink the stuff instead.

Adjusting To The New Kid(s) On The Block. For almost a decade, Southwest has had pretty much free reign. Now it has an emerging, major competitor in the form of jetBlue. For Southwest, it means adjusting and responding to competition that wasn't there before. And responding to new competition often demands changing the way one does business.

It's evolve or die.

 

[robbedagain]

WITH WN BEING IN PHL IN MAY, I'D HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT THEY DID THAT TO TRY TO BLOCK JETBLUE IN THE LONG TERM BUT IN SHORT TERM. BUT IN REALITY I BELIEVE US IS THE MAIN TARGET BECAUSE CITIES THAT ARE SERVED BY RJS FROM PHL TO PLACES LIKE MEM, STL, AND SOME OTHERS ARE PROBABLY GOING TO BE THE FIRST PICKS BY WN AND US WILL LOSE PAX, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE OF SWA'S CHEAP FARES COMPARED TO US.

 

[A319FA]

An interesting news article that every employee should read.

Southwest Goes for the Jugular In Challenging US Air in Philly

In a small closet in the back of his office, back where he probably stashes his bourbon, Herb Kelleher had a population map of the U.S., with heavy dots in the east and a more sparely dotted west. In the early days of the eastern attack of Southwest Airlines, the chairman explained the attraction by pointing to the map: Gotta fly where the people are.

For Gen. Herb, the eastern attack has been more methodical than any sort of "shock and awe" blitz. Ten years ago, Southwest established a beachhead in Baltimore, giving it presence in the Washington region, and just as importantly a higher profile on Capitol Hill. Over time, the airline picked off the easy and logical new cities. Boston was covered to the north and south with Manchester, N.H., and Providence, R.I. New York saw Southwest planes landing at secondary stops: Albany and Islip. Midsized cities such as Hartford Conn., Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Norfolk, Va., made attractive stopping points, with Southwest encountering little resistance.

But now, Herb is dropping the daisy-cutter bomb. On Wednesday, the Dallas-based airline announced plans to open service in Philadelphia in May with up to 14 daily flights. More will follow that.

Southwest's decision to attack Philadelphia sets up a battle that could be the last stand for US Airways, a weakened foe that already has been run out of Baltimore by the Southwest infantry.

Philadelphia seems perfect for Southwest. Like the map on the wall tells Herb, there are lots of people there. Philadelphia is perfectly situated to pump many more people into Southwest's network. Large-jet domestic service has been cut back in Philadelphia as US Air has gotten smaller and shifted more flying to commuter affiliates. Last year, the number of mainline domestic flights fell 7.8% at Philadelphia International Airport, and so far this year, mainline domestic flying is down another 7.9%. Trains serve the airport to downtown. Bottom line, the Philly airport can handle a big jump in passengers.

More importantly, people flying into and out of Philadelphia are paying among the highest fares in the country for air travel. An unrestricted coach ticket from Philly to Los Angeles on US Air costs $2,550. Those kinds of prices invite new competition. It's hard to understand how airlines can keep selling their product that way when Southwest is charging $598 round-trip to Los Angeles from Baltimore. US Air might as well be out on the tarmac with two orange sticks waving in Southwest.

Still, Philadelphia is incredibly important to US Air, and the carrier that just emerged from bankruptcy reorganization is probably unlikely to go without a fierce fight. J.P. Morgan estimates US Air gets 25% of its revenue in Philadelphia, which makes the City of Brotherly Love the biggest single component in US Air's network. A significant hit there, and there are few places left to which the carrier can retreat and still survive.

It's not like Southwest's 737 tanks will ride through town and topple statues next spring. In Baltimore, Southwest grew at a measured pace, and US Air shrank at a measured pace. It took several years for US Air to officially shed the notion that it had a hub in Baltimore. US Air had 45% of Baltimore traffic a decade ago and now has only 5%. Southwest has more than 47% of the passengers at Baltimore.
Over time, this is exactly how the restructuring of the airline industry plays out. City by city, traffic shifts to low-cost carriers. With low costs, they offer low prices. Customers flock to those that offer good value. The discounters cherry-pick the good routes from cities, not serving small towns or, at least for now, international destinations.

There will be room for some big network carriers willing to fly to small towns and take people overseas -- but probably only a few. Those that survive will have to be efficient, with competitive costs. Big airlines can co-exist with discounters offering better service and bigger networks, and they can even get travelers to pay more for that. But not a lot more -- maybe only 10% more, according to recent studies.

Two years ago, we had seven full-service network airlines in this country. Trans World Airlines is gone, whittled down slowly over the years for a host of reasons. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines tried to pick up St. Louis by acquiring TWA's assets. But on Saturday, American said it is sharply cutting its flying in St. Louis, dropping total daily departures to 207 from 417. That includes American Eagle, which actually will see a boost in departures there as American turns St. Louis into something close to a regional-jet hub. Nonstop service to 26 markets will be dropped -- and the majority of those markets are routes where American found itself competing with Southwest.

Meanwhile, Southwest, which already has 12% of the total traffic in St. Louis, is looking to add more. As one carrier replaces another, travelers are still served -- perhaps better served, since they find lower prices and more opportunity to travel.

So it goes.

The Philadelphia assault is a fascinating strategic move for Southwest. Typically, the airline doesn't pick fights at fortress hub airports. It will slip into markets through secondary airports, allowing existing airlines to keep their product priced high while customers drive to affordable flights at less-convenient airports. In Pennsylvania, Allentown's airport built a new terminal and has been aggressively courting Southwest, figuring it could be the next Oakland or Burbank, Calif., or Providence.

Instead, Southwest is going for the jugular. Clearly the airline senses US Air is vulnerable. Also, Southwest wanted to stake its claim to a main East Coast population center before AirTran Airways expanded too much there, or JetBlue Airways Corp. began looking for other East Coast hubs.
Like many wars, this one will be long and drawn out. The airline industry is evolving. But remember the day that Southwest said it would invade Philadelphia. It may mark a significant turning point.