Southwest's Crusher

[luvn737s]

All name calling and no serious answers. My what fine little brown ambassadors WN has hired.

 

[WNjetdoc]

Bubbleboy, excellent post brother, now get back to work or I'll tell you know who, .

 

[wnbubbleboy]

Bubbleboy, excellent post brother, now get back to work or I'll tell you know who, .

[post="198659"][/post]​

Shhh.....I think she's on to me. :unsure:

 

[wnbubbleboy]

All name calling and no serious answers. My what fine little brown ambassadors WN has hired.

[post="198635"][/post]​

Actually we're BLUE. UPS wears brown. KC Flyer may be right about you...................Now............ where's my ingore button?

 

[WNjetdoc]

Actually we're BLUE. UPS wears brown. KC Flyer may be right about you...................Now............ where's my ingore button?

[post="198706"][/post]​

Thats funny Bubbleboy, were not brown, thats UPS, .

I know the reason you're so happy, the games over and Pitt just crushed the sorry arse Chickens, I mean Eagles. Great game brother.

 

[DCD]

[post="197275"][/post][/right]

When I fly. If I want. I know where..... etc. Did you ever think that the once or twice a year passenger might not want to have to get up from a window seat and search around for a flight attendant or that they might appreciate it if service employees show a little interest in providing service. Remember they are not the seasoned well traveled airline employee like you and after all you are not a self-service gas station attendant are you?

 

[luvn737s]

I apologize for any hurt feelings. Farewell.

 

[Borescope]

Looking at assigned seating.. Hmm.. Why? Don't feed me the technology part.. Bottom line, people don't like to get stuck with the middle seat if they don't have to.

[post="196641"][/post]​

Actually the TSA is requiring every airline to assign seats so that if a situation happens onboard, they will maybe be able to find out how they are dealing with.

 

[firstamendment]

Yes, a flight attendant is entitled to a break--15 minutes. However, the company policy is that you are up and checking the cabin every 15 minutes. Now whether you like it or not, if you are an AA flight attendant, your contract says that the company, not you, gets to define what constitutes the duties of the flight attendant. You may choose to ignore the company's policies, but there is also a clause in the contract regarding "restriction of output" which can get your fanny fired. The flight, by the way, is blocked at 1hr, 59m, but is usually about 1hr, 40m.
The sour f/a was on his jumpseat for at least 1hr, 15m of that time.

Now maybe you haven't read a newspaper or looked at TV news since Sept. 10, 2001, but I have a quibble with a flight attendant who never looks up from the screen of their laptop computer except to make nasty faces at people trying to get into the lav.
Aren't you just the charmer? Lazy, bitter, and foul-mouthed. No wonder we are in financial trouble if you are an example of the flight attendants currently working. And, you can cut out the instructions to me to get over myself. I AM A FLIGHT ATTENDANT. Co-workers like you embarass me deeply.

[post="197330"][/post]​

Hearing problem there, Jim? I said when I was flying as a pax. Sorry for the missunderstanding. I am not high maintanance. When working I do my very best, but I do believe the aircraft is much like a library surrounding and I choose to not bother people. Many feel f/a's should be out constantly. I don't, so If that is lazy, then that is your opinion. You, Jimbo, do NOT know me and on these threads this is my chance to vent frustration. I can assure you that after years of the bs we have encounter, we know how to hate the company and love the job. When AA has been thru what we have been thru at US for 16 years, you just might be less jugemental and understanding. Turmoil with your company , although you have been furloughed, I believe, is fairly new when it comes to survivability and sometimes people have to blow.

I love my job. Read my last two threads on US board..thankful nonrev. It includes a current situation. If I were lazy , bitter, or foul mouthed, a young boy may had been dead today...so please understand that we are all on edge and there may be a day when you just don't feel like playing the role of Polyanna.

 

[KCFlyer]

Actually the TSA is requiring every airline to assign seats so that if a situation happens onboard, they will maybe be able to find out how they are dealing with.

[post="199368"][/post]​

Does this mean I might get arrested if I move from seat 12A to Seat 17C when the flight isn't full? That flat out won't work unless the flight is full ( and the 9/11 flights weren't even close to being full), or, if an "inventory" of those in assigned seats is conducted prior to takeoff, and then there's the question of what happens once the plane is airborne.

 

[Tango-Bravo]

Since there have been no successful attempts by existing major airlines to "re-invent" themselves into a viable WN combatant, where do you think the one who will eventually hand WN their lunch come from?...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Southwest has no one to fear but itself IMO. The surest way they could "crush" themselves would be to do the following (in no particular order):

1) Pre-assign seats -- unless WN can be the first to discover and implement a way to assign seats in a far more efficient (ie less costly) and equitable manner than the legacies, this one thing alone will be "the beginning of sorrows" and very possibly in itself reduce them from profitable to break even status.

2) Start an elite frequent flyer program with perks comparable to those of the legacies. This would guarantee a sizable base of high maintenance, high-cost, low-yield customers conditioned to have a freeloader mindset in the business they do with WN.

3) Revamp their frequent flyer program to be far more generous and offer dozens of options as to how miles/credits may be used, causing most members to not only become bewildered by the array of options (incurring high costs in agents' time spent helping them sort out the confusion over freebies they have "earned") but to also develop a "something-for-nothing" (or nearly nothing) mindset.

4) Enter into frequent flyer program alliances/reciprocity with other airlines.

5) Offer a premium cabin, not primarily for those who are willing to pay reasonable premium fares, but to be a game of who can upgrade to the premium cabin from the lowest fares.

6) Make market share, load factors, attempting to be all things to people, and appeasing all the people all the time, the highest objectives in pricing and perks offered, losing all perspective of the need to generate ticket revenue that exceeds costs in the mad quest for "bragging rights" about numbers that have nothing to do with earning a profit.

7) Make labor the scapegoat for the consequences of #6, nothwithstanding the plain fact that management squanders every $ (or more) in concessions on the senseless pursuit of buying market share and load factor at any price, and upping the largess of already bloated FF and elite programs.

8) Codeshare with multiple airlines, diluting already feeble yields while incurring the added costs of being called upon to resolve issues not only of one's own airline, but those of other airlines as well. To say nothing of the countless hours of non-productive, non-profit agent time assisting customers trying to sort through the convolution of "how can I be actually flying with airline B all the way even though I'm supposedly flying with airline A from whom I purchased my ticket?" or some variation of the same.

9) Enter into interline ticketing and baggage agreements with other airlines.

10) Allow their product to be marketed by the likes of Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheap Tickets, etc, and perhaps other airlines as well.

These 10 points could be just as well titled, "How to Guarantee a Non-profit Airline" in the U.S. post-deregulation airline world. It is a sure and proven formula for increasing costs with no corresponding increase in revenue -- or even reducing revenues. Yet each of these points remains a sacred mantra of the U.S. legacies and, to a far lesser degree, even some of the LCCs.

Although Southwest has not been the same since Kelleher's departure from his position of leadership in the direction of the airline, Southwest need not fear being "crushed" in the forseeable future so long as they avoid whatever urge there may be to "re-invent" themselves along the lines of the legacies in any way(s).

 

[whlinder]

8) Codeshare with multiple airlines, diluting already feeble yields while incurring the added costs of being called upon to resolve issues not only of one's own airline, but those of other airlines as well. To say nothing of the countless hours of non-productive, non-profit agent time assisting customers trying to sort through the convolution of "how can I be actually flying with airline B all the way even though I'm supposedly flying with airline A from whom I purchased my ticket?" or some variation of the same.

9) Enter into interline ticketing and baggage agreements with other airlines.

[post="227424"][/post]​

Well, looks like they are willing to enter into a codeshare with ATA if they win the bid for ATA's assets.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041210/nyf030_1.html

Also another thread started in this forum.

 

[Tango-Bravo]

Well, looks like they are willing to enter into a codeshare with ATA

Which may mean that they will "progress" 10% of the way toward becoming a high cost carrier.

 

[mweiss]

TB, perhaps you didn't notice this, but you pretty much defined Alaska. And yet they're profitable. Not as profitable as WN, granted...but they're doing well enough, even though they compete with WN on much of their route map.

 

[blueoceans]

ALL (good) things come to an end. Maybe their true competition is not even in business/created yet. Any serious threat seems to be many years away.