SW: Just how do they do it?

[TomBascom]

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On 3/28/2003 1:03:23 PM Singleflyer wrote:

Res4LUV

I agree weather happens. That is not my point. It was SWA''s approach in helping a paying customer. I don''t know the fare basis of the ticket I purchased, but it was purchased one hour before flight time. The agent told me, the next available fligh she could confirm me on was 2 1/2 days later. She also told me I could stand by for an earlier flight that that one, but all flights for theat day would probably be cancelled. I opted for a full refund, through my travel department.

Any other airline I have flown has tried first to accomadate me on their airline first on another carrier second. SWA does not have that policy and therefore it is up to the PAX to fend for themselves in those situations. As I stated another carrier was able to get me home that day and they had the same local weather as SWA had in BWI.

The policy of not transferring you to another carrier when SWA cannot fly that day is just another reason their operating model is not for every flyer, and is not always focused on customer satisfaction
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FWIW I was going the other way during that storm. I got lucky and made it out of MHT (on US) on the last flight out. While I was checking in they were telling people on canceled flights that they couldn''t be accomodated for 3 days...

 

[KCFlyer]

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On 3/28/2003 1:03:23 PM Singleflyer wrote:

Res4LUV

I agree weather happens. That is not my point. It was SWA''s approach in helping a paying customer. I don''t know the fare basis of the ticket I purchased, but it was purchased one hour before flight time. The agent told me, the next available fligh she could confirm me on was 2 1/2 days later. She also told me I could stand by for an earlier flight that that one, but all flights for theat day would probably be cancelled. I opted for a full refund, through my travel department.

That really isn''t the fault of SWA - weather closed the airport. ORD wasn''t closed down the Monday after Thanksgiving, but many flights were cancelled. SWA flights out of MDW accomodated more people because they have more daily flights to various destinations than most of the others. UAL and AA both operate only about 5 flights a day between ORD and MCI - SWA operates 18. On that day, far more people made it from Chicago to Kansas City on Southwest than on the other airlines.

Any other airline I have flown has tried first to accomadate me on their airline first on another carrier second. SWA does not have that policy and therefore it is up to the PAX to fend for themselves in those situations. As I stated another carrier was able to get me home that day and they had the same local weather as SWA had in BWI.

True enough, Southwest doesn''t interline. The times it isn''t needed far outweigh the times that it is needed.

The policy of not transferring you to another carrier when SWA cannot fly that day is just another reason their operating model is not for every flyer, and is not always focused on customer satisfaction

Again, I have to disagree here. I was flying from STL to MCI on Southwest and our flight was cancelled (not weather related). I was booked on the next flight out, and was delayed one hour. Southwest usually operates a much higher frequency between cities than the other airlines, which means that in most cases, passengers can be accomodated on later flights without the added costs involved in interlining. And lately, Priceline and Hotwire customers are not easily given any "interlining" consideration in the event of a flight cancellation on the "major" airlines.

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[PITbull]

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On 3/27/2003 739 PM TomBascom wrote:

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On 3/27/2003 5:51:36 PM Light Years wrote:

Minimum F/A staffing for the A319 and A320 is three- one, the A works up front. The B and C work in the back, although the C''s jumpseat is up front next to the A. The 737s are the same.

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Is the actual staffing 3 or 4?

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a320 has three f/as on board since the reduction in personnel to FAA min. once in a while we get an extra on the 320 for a meal service that is rare to find now. A319, is always three.

 

[JS]

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On 3/28/2003 11:48:08 AM TomBascom wrote:

Darned near nobody pays full fare on the traditional majors. Interestingly SWA has the highest percentage of full fares sold in the industry... that suggests to me that lowering the price of full fare will result in a larger number of them being sold -- do it right and the average fare goes up.

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I agree. But consider that Southwest doesn''t have a First Class, so there''s no need to kiss up to the full-fare flyers who got ripped off on a walk-up ticket. The major airlines cannot adopt Southwest pricing while keeping everything else. That will not work.

First Class is great if you actually pay for it (at least a few bucks over full fare, like AirTran -- $35 I believe). But no one is willing to pay for it on the majors anymore, so First Class has changed from a product for sale into a millstone around the airline''s neck.

 

[TomBascom]

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On 3/28/2003 11:39:51 PM JS wrote:

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On 3/28/2003 11:48:08 AM TomBascom wrote:

Darned near nobody pays full fare on the traditional majors. Interestingly SWA has the highest percentage of full fares sold in the industry... that suggests to me that lowering the price of full fare will result in a larger number of them being sold -- do it right and the average fare goes up.

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I agree. But consider that Southwest doesn''t have a First Class, so there''s no need to kiss up to the full-fare flyers who got ripped off on a walk-up ticket. The major airlines cannot adopt Southwest pricing while keeping everything else. That will not work.

First Class is great if you actually pay for it (at least a few bucks over full fare, like AirTran -- $35 I believe). But no one is willing to pay for it on the majors anymore, so First Class has changed from a product for sale into a millstone around the airline''s neck.

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There are plenty of people willing to pay a reasonable premium. What we aren''t willing to do is to pay 5x to 10x over cost when 3/4 of the plane is flying below cost.

You''re absolutely right that US Airways cannot expect to succeed charging Southwest''s prices! That isn''t what anyone here has suggested -- what the airline should do though is to carefully examine the SWA pricing philosophy and structure and then model it at a level that works for US with intelligent adaptations to US'' unique situation. The current fare structure is rapidly driving 6 large airlines into extinction -- it doesn''t work.

US Airways has strong differentiators that justify a premium. But you have to have a model that allows you to leverage them and you have to market them to reap any rewards from them. US presently lacks a fare structure that will allow someone to pay a reasonable premium for those differentiators (and there is a very strong bias preventing anyone who wants to from doing so) and is making no effort to market them (and I''d argue that a lot of rhetoric from Fort Fumble actually works against those positive differentiators.)

 

[JS]

TomBascom, would you be willing to pay 78% more for a First Class upgrade over the average coach fare?

On the domestic flights, First Class pitch is 38" and coach is 32" (A320, A321, and 757; others are within an inch). First Class has 4 seats per row rather than 6 in coach, which means that one First Class seat takes up 38/32*1.5 = 1.78 times the area of one coach seat. That's just for the seat area, without increased flight attendant staffing over FAA minimums and no significant meal or beverage cost.

 

[TomBascom]

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On 3/29/2003 5:08:50 PM JS wrote:

TomBascom, would you be willing to pay 78% more for a First Class upgrade over the average coach fare?

On the domestic flights, First Class pitch is 38" and coach is 32" (A320, A321, and 757; others are within an inch). First Class has 4 seats per row rather than 6 in coach, which means that one First Class seat takes up 38/32*1.5 = 1.78 times the area of one coach seat. That''s just for the seat area, without increased flight attendant staffing over FAA minimums and no significant meal or beverage cost.

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Nope.

The right number, for me, is between 20% & 30%.

Your 78% number only makes sense when planes are always full -- and if you''re in the situation supply & demand will let you charge that

(Flip back through the thread -- there is no staffing above FAA minimums.)

Currently I take a lot of time and energy to try and find reasonable fares that are more flexible than V but less expensive than Y. If I find them and they''re in that range then I buy them. They are as rare as hen''s teeth and generally only available on routes that SWA competes on. But the amount of effort that I have to put into that process is insane -- I doubt that very many customers bother, they just take the default offering which is the cheapest possible fare.

This is a fine example of another simple thing that SWA does differently than US -- on the SWA website you tell them where you want to go and when. They then show you all the fares with a clear indication of which ones are actually available for sale on which flights. You then pick the one that best meets your needs. It''s very simple.

Contrast that with USAirways.com. First tell it that your dates are flexible, then tell it where you want to go, now pick a fare (with no clue what restrictions it has) , oops that one is sold out for all the returns that you want, start over (get used to starting over & no matter what you do don''t use the "back" button!) Ok, now that you''ve finally found days that you can use that fare (and you''ve clicked on the "rules" page to see what gibberish you''re being saddled with) you can try to find flights that depart at times will work for you...

USAirways.com is positively baroque. True, there are tricks and shortcuts that you can learn that take some of the pain out of it and if you do it enough you get a feeling for what rules go with what fares (although you still better check because you never know when Ben will have a brain fart) but jeez, come on, it shouldn''t be this complicated to spend a little extra money. I can choose to spend a little more with SWA on a whim and a mouse click -- with US I have to spend at least half an hour just to discover if it''s possible...

 

[PITbull]

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On 3/30/2003 7:38:23 PM skyflyr69 wrote:

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On 3/25/2003 656 PM PITbull wrote:

Their Flight attendants are paid $47.77 top out hrly rate, and their average duty day is 10:30, as opposed to our 14:00.

And they have no ATSB guarantee coming or furloughs. No "earth shattering" concessionary sacrifices as their "survival" plan. And,they are the 6th largest carrier.

They have had to face the same obsticles with 9/11, soft economy, high fuel prices, competition, added security costs, and labor costs, as U, UA, AA, DL, NW, CO.

So how do they do this? No union busting conspiracy here.

they also do the same jobs with less people. no mechanics on tugs CROSS-UTILIZATION etc. as opposed to U's archaic agreements with its other employee groups.
i.e. AMR uses 2 f/a's in their f-100's as opposed to 3 for U. AMR used to serve meals also on the f100 with ONLY 2 f/a's and THEY got it done with plenty of time to spare.
U has the MOST employee's per aircraft out of all airlines. ----------------​

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Skyflyr,

You have archaic information. U went through 2 concessions in 6 months and every thing got "hit" hard. Our staffing levels are at FAA minimums now, and we sell food, liquor, headsets, etc and clean 32 stations. We provide service on the ground in First Class, and we are NOT on the clock. SW does not have these extra duties for their f/as. We have also parked the F-100s in the desert last year, along with numerous other aircraft. We went from a population of approx. 10, 100 pre 9/11 to sitting at 5,700 f/as and still shrinking. We have lost 17,000 great employees from U in total today, where we sit... all in 18 months. F/a wages, benefits work rules, ranking from 16th - 21st in wages/benefits, with the enacting of the additonal 5% wage reduction starting April 1. I think mangement needs to get in line with the rest of the carriers, and start consolidating upper mangement jobs.

U has everything in place to succeed. I might not like all the methods they used, and I pursue the tuff question and stance that no one likes to take or expose, but management has no excuses not to succeed or come to labor for anything else.

 

[KCFlyer]

Ditto the others on the website. It just plain sucks. Why, if you decide to change your mind and want to make a change, can you NOT use the "back" button? I don''t know about others, but I am forced to rekey www.usairways.com to get to where it will take anything. I think SWA did over a billion dollars in revenue thru their website. I would be seriously surprised if U does more than a million - it''s just too troublesome for a casual user to work with. For a company wanting to shift a chunk of their reservations over to the web, this website is in need of some serious attention.

 

[skyflyr69]

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On 3/25/2003 656 PM PITbull wrote:

Their Flight attendants are paid $47.77 top out hrly rate, and their average duty day is 10:30, as opposed to our 14:00.

And they have no ATSB guarantee coming or furloughs. No "earth shattering" concessionary sacrifices as their "survival" plan. And,they are the 6th largest carrier.

They have had to face the same obsticles with 9/11, soft economy, high fuel prices, competition, added security costs, and labor costs, as U, UA, AA, DL, NW, CO.

So how do they do this? No union busting conspiracy here.

they also do the same jobs with less people. no mechanics on tugs CROSS-UTILIZATION etc. as opposed to U''s archaic agreements with its other employee groups.
i.e. AMR uses 2 f/a''s in their f-100''s as opposed to 3 for U. AMR used to serve meals also on the f100 with ONLY 2 f/a''s and THEY got it done with plenty of time to spare.
U has the MOST employee''s per aircraft out of all airlines. ----------------​

 

[Old PSA]

Three things to note here:
1-At WN, management and employees seem to be on the same page so the speak (for the most part). It appears management has been able to communicate the company''s goals and methods to the employees.

2-Way back when....WN copied just about everything from PSA including the hot pants and boots. They (the management of WN) has been able to keep their focus on their target and go only where they can do it their way. Or, they don''t try to fly everplace and carry everyone.

3-WN will continue to succeed as along as they keep their focus, the basic business doesn''t change to radically and most important, they can continue to grow each year. A key element of their low workforce cost is the fact that half of their employees have less than 5 years with the company and are paid at the lower end of the scale. If their growth slows down, then their cost per employee will rise as their employees move up the scale. This part of US''s problem, just about anybody left working is at top of scale.

 

[Dea Certe]

PitBull,

Sherry Henry was PSA. I''m not sure when she left, before or after the merger, but I think she was a director or maybe even a Vice President of Inflight Services. She did start out as a flight attendant though.

BTW, SWA flight attendants clean their planes at all stations.

Are we still selling headsets very often? I think we only show movies on the few long hauls we have left and the International flights.

 

[PITbull]

Old PSA,

SW has great model. Labor friendly, great communication with Employee relations. And I agree, as long as things don't change too radically in the market place, they should continue to prosper. It's amazing to observe how comfortable they are with where they are and they are not focused on trying to fly everywhere and everybody. You have great insight on what's contributed to their success. Not trying to expand to quickly, but just prodding along in growth. I have heard that before....that SW has mimicked the PSA philosophy. It's amazing how U bought PSA and never adopted any of their initiatives. Some of our best employees who have greate insight on how things should operate are from PSA.

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[PITbull]

Dea,

Thanks for the info..and where have you been?

Anyway, with regard to Hendry, she was never a VP anywhere.

 

[longonsofty]

Also, last time I looked your delayed/lost baggage numbers weren''t all that terrific either. So I''m not sure how all of this is PAX friendly.

Just a fwiw,

The February DOT #''s came out and in lost/delayed baggage
Southwest ranked 4th and USAirways 6th. Also in customer complaints Southwest ranked 4th and USAirways between 11th and 17th (only the top 10 were listed.) And while we''re at it, in on time performance Southwest was third and USAirways between 11th and 17th. I know it''s not going to change your sentiment towards WN Piney but those were the most recent numbers.

Take care