Northwest Flight Grounded for Summer

[jenny@nw]

Northwest Flight Grounded for Summer
Beth Shayne


Northwest Airlines says they are grounding the flight as part of their "restructuring."

The troubled airline already filed for bankruptcy. Now, they are canceling flights in a variety of cities, including the Lansing flight to Minneapolis from July 3 to August 21.

They will re-book anyone who is already scheduled.

The only hub city that Northwest will fly to during that time is Detroit.

 

[Don Smith]

Northwest Flight Grounded for Summer
Beth Shayne
Northwest Airlines says they are grounding the flight as part of their "restructuring."

The troubled airline already filed for bankruptcy. Now, they are canceling flights in a variety of cities, including the Lansing flight to Minneapolis from July 3 to August 21.

They will re-book anyone who is already scheduled.

The only hub city that Northwest will fly to during that time is Detroit.

I'm sure you've seen the lines in DTW for the Lansing flight Jenny. The only flight to Lansing that isn't packed is the early AM flight but the rest are always oversold and EVERYONE always shows up. Yet nwa in their finite wisdom is shorting the Lansing market. They continue to shoot themselves in the foot. This type of deliberate business suicide needs investigated. Maybe the MI attorney general should get involved.

 

[finman]

I'm sure you've seen the lines in DTW for the Lansing flight Jenny. The only flight to Lansing that isn't packed is the early AM flight but the rest are always oversold and EVERYONE always shows up. Yet nwa in their finite wisdom is shorting the Lansing market. They continue to shoot themselves in the foot. This type of deliberate business suicide needs investigated. Maybe the MI attorney general should get involved.

Have you ever considered that maybe there is a more profitable route that this flying is being moved to? It's not about just flying profitable routes, it's about flying the most profitable routes that you possibly can with your existing capacity. If there is a more profitable route that can be flown that produces higher RASM than the Lansing route, then it would be poor management to not adjust the route structure accordingly. The LAN market is still served by DTW, and the LAN-MSP route picks back up after August 21.

I know you guys love to jump on every news article and try to ridicule the developments that are being reported on, but you might want to limit your cynical jabs to those items that you at least have a cursory knowledge of.

Suggesting the governement get involved in marketing decisions is a little baffling. I assume your not being serious, unless you're a raging communist? The last time I checked, it's not illegal to make a bad business decision (which I assume is the premise of your silly suggestion)

 

[robbedagain]

but you are screwing the very ones who pay your high salaries by getting rid of the flights. I can see may be the one that doesnt generate as much rev but to get rid of all the ones for that particular city. That is just another page torn out from the old US MGMT.

 

[finman]

but you are screwing the very ones who pay your high salaries by getting rid of the flights. I can see may be the one that doesnt generate as much rev but to get rid of all the ones for that particular city. That is just another page torn out from the old US MGMT.

As usual, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but I'll clarify what is happening and hopefully that registers.

There is one LAN-MSP non-stop flight, and that is being suspended from July 3 - August 21. There remains 6 daily flights from LAN-DTW (4 mainline, 2 regional). As you can see, this is a pretty minor adjustment. Those pax that were scheduled to go through the MSP hub will now go through the DTW hub.

 

[jenny@nw]

all and all this isn't the first time NW got rid of lucrative flights due to miscalculations.
Well one person's loss is another person's gain. Hmmmm. How long does it take to DTW to LAN? It's not a long drive. At least my car doesn't cancel.

 

[finman]

all and all this isn't the first time NW got rid of lucrative flights due to miscalculations.
Well one person's loss is another person's gain. Hmmmm. How long does it take to DTW to LAN? It's not a long drive. At least my car doesn't cancel.

DTW-LAN flights aren't changing. It's just the one MSP-LAN flight that is being suspended. As far as driving, what percent of those DTW-LAN passengers do you think are originating in DTW? I'd guess it's a very small minority.

 

[robbedagain]

finman, why dont NWA cancel the one DTW-LAN flt that doesnt generate rev then keep the MSP-LAN flt that way the pax still have another choice? that is what I am trying to say. But NWA cancels the one flt and I am sure that will make customers all that much more happier to connect thru DTW

 

[finman]

finman, why dont NWA cancel the one DTW-LAN flt that doesnt generate rev then keep the MSP-LAN flt that way the pax still have another choice? that is what I am trying to say. But NWA cancels the one flt and I am sure that will make customers all that much more happier to connect thru DTW

This is a fairly pointless conversation. A very minor change to the schedule occurred that removed 1 of the 7 daily flights from LAN. This type of change occurrs all of the time as marketing attempts to optimize the schedule on an ongoing basis. Unless you have some marketing data that shows that this decision is a net revenue loser, I think it would be best to let this non-event die.

 

[robbedagain]

well how well was the MSP-LAN flt doing? and how well was the early morning DTW-LAN doing?

 

[Don Smith]

....I know you guys love to jump on every news article and try to ridicule the developments that are being reported on, but you might want to limit your cynical jabs to those items that you at least have a cursory knowledge of.

Suggesting the governement get involved in marketing decisions is a little baffling. I assume your not being serious, unless you're a raging communist? The last time I checked, it's not illegal to make a bad business decision (which I assume is the premise of your silly suggestion)

Look bean counter, its about choices. nwa has the Lansing market sewed up tight. The business traveler in Lansing has no choice on who he flies with. When he has to add an additional 3 hours onto his business day for air travel through DTW instead of a direct to MSP then he loses time, money and PATIENCE. You can inconvenience the holiday/vacation traveler all the time, they just fly on price, but the business traveler paying full fare wants convenience.
My suggestion to have the AG look into this lets one bean counter check up on another bean counter...happens all the time...nothing communistic about it.
I don't think its too much to ask of a business that says they want to serve your state to acutally SERVE them.

 

[local 12 proud]

Look bean counter, its about choices.

I don't think its too much to ask of a business that says they want to serve your state to acutally SERVE them.

Don, you may as well ignore this company bootlick. he would defend NWA actions if they passed out feces on cracker to its customers. he claims to be a skilled carpenter, yet works as a company stooge for a defunct carrier on its way to the graveyard. GO FIGURE! :wacko:

 

[jenny@nw]

DTW-LAN flights aren't changing. It's just the one MSP-LAN flight that is being suspended. As far as driving, what percent of those DTW-LAN passengers do you think are originating in DTW? I'd guess it's a very small minority.

Ok Finman, I somehow got it mixed up with DTW-LAN and MSP-LAN. Wouldn't be surprised if they did some strange business moves that don't make sense. I don't know how many companies in MSP have Capital City businesses but they are right, NW has a monopoly.

 

[finman]

My suggestion to have the AG look into this lets one bean counter check up on another bean counter...happens all the time...nothing communistic about it.

Uhh, yeah, that would be communism. Having the government "check up" on the financial analysis behind a decision on the level of service to provide in a particular market would be the epitomy of a government planned economy, i.e., communism. Unless the government is paying NWA as part of some minimum service level agreement, then the government has absolutely no right to audit a private company's business decisions. I think LAN will be just fine having only 6 daily flights for a couple months. Seasonally, as you likely know, business travel drops pretty significantly during the peak summer months.

This is a pretty minor news story, Obviously from a Lansing newspaper, so it's getting entirely too much attention here. Just rest assured that your concerns are all things that go into a decision on where we fly our aircraft and at what frequency. Every time a new schedule comes out, there are minor (and sometimes major) changes to reflect Marketing's solution of the optimum marrying up of supply and demand for that schedule period. I certainly don't think every marketing decision is always optimum, but they do the best they can with the market conditions they are dealt and the fleet they have to work with.

 

[finman]

Don, you may as well ignore this company bootlick. he would defend NWA actions if they passed out feces on cracker to its customers. he claims to be a skilled carpenter, yet works as a company stooge for a defunct carrier on its way to the graveyard. GO FIGURE! :wacko:

In case you missed it, I wasn't defending the marketing decision itself, but rather explaining how normal a slight change like this is in a dynamic domestic route structure. Naturally, during the BK, those changes have been even more frequent as the available capacity has been moving around much more than normal.

I have actually learned a lot about other areas of airline operations and labor unions from you guys (and gals) that I never would have picked up if not for this site. I certainly don't claim to be any sort of one-stop shop for all things finance related, but I really don't understand why you'd find it necessary to completely ignore my insights. I have to some extent play the devils advocate on this board, since 95% of the members only have negative things to say about NWA. I'm not too pleased with some of the decisions that have been made either, but this would certainly not be the appropriate forum for me to express them. Kev and a few of the others that do seem to come from a place of reason and thoughfulness would likely be able to share my misgivings in an adult manner, but that would be shouted down by those like yourself that seem incapable of just analyzing something on it's own merits without reverting back to name calling and poisenous rhetoric.