Schedule changes

[wings396]

I Had wanted to post this under the previous post before it was locked We did very well out of several small stations using 737’s and other narrowbody A/C over the years. Out of our station we did very well to PIT until the connecting banks were cut along with the passengers connecting choices. Now the CLT service is being reduced from a point where it was already lacking. Some stations only offer 1 or 2 flights a day to CLT . This does not always offer our passengers a departure time that is convient for them. Other than a double connection, their only other choice is DL thru ATL with 4-5 trips a day. I flew out of TYS a while ago, and we only offered DH-8 A/C to our CLT hub while DL was flying MD-88 equipment to ATL. If there is enough demand for DL to use an MD-88, why do we only offer 37 seats to our Southeastern Hub? I was on the DL flight, and it was ¾ full on a Saturday afternoon. Once we get 37 passengers booked, the overflow is going to Delta….Don’t we want or need this revenue? This airline has lost track of its core strengths that made profitable in the past with service from small cities. We need to step up to the plate and get back into the game, or else we will never make a profit. A lot of the smaller stations had high yield traffic, and still can if we don’t give it all away.

 

[supercruiser]

>>We did very well out of several small stations using 737’s and other narrowbody A/C over the years.

 

[CaptBud330]

I can verify what you are saying aboutTYS. I wrote to "Super Dave" and he told me "Ben Baldanza was the best in the industry and "they" (the management) knew what they were doing. I should just concentrate on flying my plane". Guess he told me. Personally, I wouldn''t give you 2 cents for our market planning.Gotta run and catch my full 37 seat Dash.

 

[Dea Certe]

CaptBud,

Did Dave give you any clue what they are doing? Honestly, I''m baffled.

Dea

 

[wings396]

I had been told at one time by our brilliant marketing dept, that we don''t react to the competitions moves....Instead we wait to see how much of our business they took away before deciding what to do about it..It seems that this strategy holds true today, as we continue to lose marketshare. My station will soon be invaded by Southwest and Airtran, and the company will sit back, let it happen, and wonder what happened afterwards. We already gave up full nonstop Florida service only to have another carrier pick it up.
These guys had better wake up and focus on what made a profit in the past, instead of what they can use all of these RJ''s for. Granted there were some larger A/C flying into small stations that were not pulling their weight and needed to be cut. From where I stand and what I have seen take place, it seems that most of our local revenue losses have been self inflicted by STUPID moves. We were in an ideal position to remain the dominant carrier that could fill the void left by OA that cut back...but instead we have followed them down the drain...

 

[deltawatch]

They returned a couple of mainline flights back to GSO. They had pulled all mainline flights to CLT after 1030am out. When it was called to their attention that Delta was adding MD88 service to ATL as hard as they could to pick up our slack the mainline flights were put back.

GSO is centrally located less than 100 miles from Raleigh Durham, Winston Salem, and Charlotte the three largest cities in the state. GSO is able to pull passengers from either or.

Southwest is big in RDU and pulls Usairways passengers from GSO. We lower our fares to stop the shift to Southwest, then CLT passengers start driving to GSO (RDU is to far) to take advantage of the lower fares. Usaiways response was to pull seats out of GSO, but they didn’t realize this would open the door for DELTA and airtran to add seats in GSO and steal our GSO and CLT passengers, get them back through ATL.

I bet someone like JetBlue will soon hit GSO in a big way because of its central location. I hope U realizes how this would affect CLT. RJ’s are not going to cut it.

 

[ClueByFour]

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On 6/4/2003 4:17:03 AM CaptBud330 wrote:

I can verify what you are saying aboutTYS. I wrote to "Super Dave" and he told me "Ben Baldanza was the best in the industry and "they" (the management) knew what they were doing. I should just concentrate on flying my plane". Guess he told me. Personally, I wouldn''t give you 2 cents for our market planning.Gotta run and catch my full 37 seat Dash.

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To be brutally honest, if Baldanza was the best in the business, he would never have left AA.

Of course, with the notable exception of the pile of debt over at CoEx, Seigel has never done anything to speak of, either.

The more and more I watch the moves out of Fort Fumble, I don''t believe this to be a coincidence.

 

[wings396]

The only idea they have is to cut off revenues to stem the losses...ever think that this is not working yet???? With all of the cost saving advantages we now have, this company should be going after the competiton and expanding marketshare. If we can''t make a profit now, we never will at this rate. Our losses my shrink, but so will the company. We will get down to 100 or so mainline a/c and only lose a few million. All of the LCC''s are still running us out of town, nothing has changed. Of corse we will keep flying the Shuttle hourly, with 1/2 full a/c. That is not a losing proposition, is it.

 

[TomBascom]

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On 6/4/2003 4:17:03 AM CaptBud330 wrote:

... I wrote to "Super Dave" and he told me "Ben Baldanza was the best in the industry and "they" (the management) knew what they were doing.
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Thanks! I needed a laugh this morning!

 

[nycbusdriver]

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On 6/4/2003 4:17:03 AM CaptBud330 wrote:

I can verify what you are saying aboutTYS. I wrote to "Super Dave" and he told me "Ben Baldanza was the best in the industry and "they" (the management) knew what they were doing. I should just concentrate on flying my plane". Guess he told me. Personally, I wouldn''t give you 2 cents for our market planning.Gotta run and catch my full 37 seat Dash.

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That sounds eerily like the Ed Colodny quote of: "We know how to run an airline." And look where the Colodny/Schofield team got us.

 

[OldGuyinPA]

Why does this surprise anyone.
We will never lead anything, because we still have no leaders.
After all Dave is still listening to Al C. (Executive Vice President Customer No Service) on how to staff the company. They seem to believe that 1.5 agents are enough to board a 757 and a few agents and lots of kiosk will take care of customers ticketing needs. I think that they might be in for a few flight delays this summer.

 

[USFlyer]

In theory, the kiosks should work like ATMs. I never speak to a teller anymore unless I''m depositing spare change. ATMs take care of all of my other needs 98 percent of the time. Airline ticketing shouldn''t fundamentally be anymore complex, so over time this will get worked out. (Obviously passport checking for intl itineraries, etc. will still need to be handled manually by a person, as it should.)

 

[deelmakur]

I have been flying in and out of HPN for years. PIT flights were primarily mainline. It''s now an Express station only. Last Friday evening, I flew PIT-HPN. The end of the work week. When that flight was an F-100, you would see upwards of 75-80 customers on board. Try 7 last week. You reap what you sow.

 

[nycbusdriver]

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On 6/4/2003 3:43:24 PM USFlyer wrote:

In theory, the kiosks should work like ATMs. I never speak to a teller anymore unless I'm depositing spare change. ATMs take care of all of my other needs 98 percent of the time. Airline ticketing shouldn't fundamentally be anymore complex, so over time this will get worked out. (Obviously passport checking for intl itineraries, etc. will still need to be handled manually by a person, as it should.)

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That's a very good point. I use rail travel and city mass transit quite a bit, and I always buy my tickets and fare cards from machines. They take coins, paper currency and credit cards. And it's easier than having to yell through the agents' bullet-proof windows!

 

[wings396]

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On 6/4/2003 4:29:35 PM deelmakur wrote:

I have been flying in and out of HPN for years. PIT flights were primarily mainline. It''s now an Express station only. Last Friday evening, I flew PIT-HPN. The end of the work week. When that flight was an F-100, you would see upwards of 75-80 customers on board. Try 7 last week. You reap what you sow.

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This is exactly the type of blunders that I am talking about. We probobly had the market cornered there in HPN and offered tons of connecting options to the passengers..then came the self inflicted destruction of PIT. We used to see 20+ different city connecting bags to PIT, now 5-6 is about it. We offer less choices, and the passengers go elsewhere...usually to DL thru CVG.
We had a lot of business travel at one time with a very high yeild out of our station. Most are still flying, just using other airlines since we don''t offer what they need.