SWA now getting involved with slot (s) possibilities

[WorldTraveler]

The information is publicly available and filed with the SEC. It isn't hard to find it.

I'm not sure what your point is with the LGA slots but no legacy carriers expressed any interest in them.

The real question is whether B6 is comfortable with what it has at LGA?

 

[WorldTraveler]

Nobody said anything about being owed.

You've used the "DL is #2 at DFW" talking point before. I'd just like to know some of the background behind it.

You know, "exchanging ideas" and all that.

fair enough... what is your question?

DL had about a 15% of the local DFW market when it had a hub at DFW that was up to about 250 flights/day, IIRC. They cut the hub down and still ended up with about 8% of the market. DL and US have been pretty close in size at DFW and was larger than DL when US operated more flights DFW to the west.
DFW-CLT is a very market for US which is precisely why the DOJ is concerned about the combined AA/US strength going east.

ATL-DFW is the top market for DL and AA is very close to the same size in the local market. DL has a larger hub at ATL and carries more total passengers. DFW is also a Strong hub for DL originating int'l traffic even without operating any current int'l flights.

Not sure if that is what you are looking for and if not, please ask.

 

[700UW]

Fuzzy math there Pastor?
 
According to DFW's web page, Delta and Spirit each have 3.7% of the DFW market share, tied for third behind American and American Eagle, US is fourth with 3%.

 

[WorldTraveler]

so you don't want me calling you son or Josh calling you a stock clerk but you want to call me a pastor?

I'm not your pastor and I'm not even sure why you feel this need to insert religion in this board, including other people's association with it.

This is an aviation chat board.

Unless of course you and the moderators and other users would like to open up the board to erase any and all boundaries between the board and participants' private lives - already whatever they may include.


Specific to you comment about NK, I have noted that they have increased their boardings of late. You do realize they have added a number of new flights at DFW?

You also will note if you choose to see that I have never cited one month's boarding statistics for any airline at any airport because they are subject to considerable variation.

Since you didn't bother to post a time frame for the data, we have no way of knowing what you are talking about but all data has a context. It would be helpful if you would go to the effort of including it.... but then you have a habit of quoting out of context and incomplete data.

Kev,
are you happy with the response? You seemed quite interested in getting one before.

 

[Kev3188]

fair enough... what is your question?

Really? I've only asked about a dozen times.

Oy...

DL had about a 15% of the local DFW market when it had a hub at DFW that was up to about 250 flights/day, IIRC. They cut the hub down and still ended up with about 8% of the market.

I have assumed by "2nd" you meant pax carried. The above seems to bear that out. Assuming I'm correct:

Okay, 8% (ish) of the local market. What did everyone else (spots 2, 3, 4) have?

DL, had 21 flts./day. How many seats(ish)? How many flts. and seats(ish) did everyone else have?

I'm not looking for qualifiers, or other granular responses. Just a broad overview of what I've noted above. If it's not 8% of the TOTAL local DFW market passenger-wise, then specify.

To me, this sounds like saying "AA (or whoever) is 2nd in the local MSP market." Sure it sounds nice, but given that DL dwarfs everyone else, how big of statement is it to make? 2nd place amongst a bunch of relatively teeny operations isn't a big deal.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Kevin, you will have to do your own research or I can send you spreadsheets offline.

That it too much data to adequately present online in a text format.

I'm not sure what your point is anyway. What do you want to SEE from the data and what question are you trying to answer?

Data has a purpose and a context. What is the QUESTION you want to answer and for what timeframe?

DL, NK, and US are very close to the same size in passenger boardings right now. Revenue is very different.

If you want me to give you the number of seats that were offered as of, say, Aug 1, 2013 by about 5 carriers, then I can do that online. If it's more than that, it needs to go offline

Let me know how you wish to proceed but I can probably help you with the level of detail you want offline.

 

[Kev3188]

I can't make it any clearer. You can use whatever metric (pax carried, revenue, etc.) you use when you say that DL stayed #2 in the local DFW market. If you knew they were number 2 after AA, how did you come to that conclusion? What data did you have for #3, and how does it relate directly with DL's operation?

If you choose not to answer ONLINE that's fine. I have zero interest in an offline discussion.

 

[WorldTraveler]

I'll pull some data and post it for you.

 

[700UW]

Those weren't one month, that was a yearly total

 

[eolesen]

Kev, the pre-2005 schedule was almost all narrowbodies except for one or two 757's which flowed ATL-DFW-LAS or ATL-DFW-LAX.

in 2003, that 59 per day worked out to ~9000 seats a day. Connection had ~200 ops per day for around 10,000 seats, for a consolidated 19,000 seats a day.

Today, they're around 3,000 seats a day.


As for the share claim... Sure, I'll believe WT when he says DL "retained" 8% of the local market.

From memory, AA had ~60% of the combined DAL/DFW market, WN had ~15. If DL also had 15 (doubtful, but I'll play along), then everyone else was fighting over the remaining 10%, which is entirely possible given how little presence UA, US, and CO had at the time. It's been a decade, so I may be off by a few points here & there.

Also keep in mind that DL had 15%, and picked up the 2-3% NW was carrying to MSP, MEM and DTW. That means they fell to about 5% pre-merger.

Now, we're supposed to believe that being 20% of its pre-2005 size on available seats (fact), that DL is only down 50% in their market share (claim).

The only conclusion I can draw from that is DL was really, really sucking wind when the hub was in operation.

Since WT was gainfully employed by DL at the time, I'm sure he can refute that if he wants to.

 

[swamt]

"The Justice Department selects which airlines are eligible to buy the assets that the airlines must sell. It has said that the gates at the five airports will be transferred on "commercially reasonable terms: to the acquirers."
--This is where the "qualifying" will be required...


Large carriers Delta Air Lines and United were believed to have been excluded from the sale.
--Am I reading this wrong? Does this statement mean all the gates mentioned in previous paragraph? I read it as Delta and United are gonna be excluded from the sale of gates/slots at the five other airports as well...

In a side agreement with the Department of Transportation, the airlines agreed to dedicate their commuter slots at Reagan National to medium, small and non-hub cities.
--Maybe this is why Delta and United are being excluded, as the airlines have agreed to keep small, medium and non-hub cities flying. A very good move. Oh look WT, first sentence says "In a side agreement", is this where you will continue to charge that the DOJ and SWA were conducting agreements behind close doors? You crack me up...

 

[Kev3188]

From memory, AA had ~60% of the combined DAL/DFW market, WN had ~15. If DL also had 15 (doubtful, but I'll play along), then everyone else was fighting over the remaining 10%, which is entirely possible given how little presence UA, US, and CO had at the time. It's been a decade, so I may be off by a few points here & there.

Great info all around, E. That's what I was looking for. Thank you.


Specific to what I quoted above, that's kind of my point. Saying a carrier is #2 in a market tends to imply that it was a much larger share than it may have been in reality. All the more so given that we're talking about a market dominated by one carrier (AA, in this case).

 

[WorldTraveler]

Without having the statistics at hand, I will say that E's statistics are generally in the ballpark.... Nowhere does being #2 mean being "right behind" #1. All of the big hub cities with one major hub carrier have a big difference between the #1 and #2 carrier... that is the nature of large hubs.

I took for granted that anyone in the airline industry would realize that AA's share at DFW: DL's at ATL, DTW, and MSP; US at CLT and PHL; and UA at IAH, SFO, and EWR is all in the 50+% plus range.... making an 8% or even 15% share considerably smaller.

Also, I never said that DL was #2 in the combined DAL/DFW market and in this case for good reason.

DAL and DFW have very real barriers between them that prevent true competition between the two airports and between the principal carriers at each airport.

If you want to compare market share in the cities that WN can serve from DAL to the same cities which any carrier can serve from DFW, then WN has by far the dominant share of the market place.

And if you now want to look at the impact at what WN can do to AA and the N.Texas market post Wright, then don't look at the size of AA's hub at DFW which includes scores of cities that WN can't fly to right now.
Look at Houston where WN has 60% of the market - and they only fly to one airport. Look at MCI and STL where WN and AA have nearly identical revenue and share just a few years after WN started serving those cities.

but to say that DL shrank by 20% without noting that every airline did the same thing post 9/11 isn't accurate.

Short-haul traffic including at DAL was particularly hard post 9/11. A big reason behind WN's growth in longhaul domestic markets was precisely because WN's model was harder hit by 9/11 than the legacy carriers who fly longer haul domestic and int'l flights. Specific to the N. Texas market, there was a lot of shrinkage as a result of 9/11.

WN just happened to have a lot of fuel hedges that bought it a lot of time to restructure.

As we are seeing right now, WN is cutting its network even further and lopping off even more of its network... so the argument that only legacy carriers cut cities is absolutely not true.

 

[700UW]

Its a done deal:
 
http://startelegram.typepad.com/sky_talk/

 

[WorldTraveler]

Here is some additional data on current DFW and DAL/DFW market AND revenue share for the 2nd quarter 2013.
At DFW alone,
Note regional carrier statistics are included as part of their mailine partners.
AA has 62.1% passenger share and their average fare is equal to the market average fare.
DL has 8.8% passenger share and their average fare is 62% BELOW the market average fare.
NK has 8.4% passenger share and their average fare is 6% above the market average fare.
US has 6.6% passenger share and their average fare is 6% above the market average fare. (DL and US have almost identical average fares)
UA has 5.9% passenger share and their average fare is 18% above the market average fare.

For combined DAL/DFW, the average fare for all airlines is 7% below the DFW average.
Because of their shorter haul network, WN’s average fare is 37% below the average fare for the combined airports for all carriers.
For passenger share, AA has 50.2, WN has 18.2, DL has 7.4, NK has 6.8, and 5.3%.