ELP_WN_Psgr
Senior
- Nov 29, 2003
- 419
- 0
Princess, let me ask you this....
If airlines had not been deregulated, where would all these airline employees work? Hint: not at airlines.
Had airlines continued to be regulated, you would have seen a perpetuation of the old "let's pay our employees more so they won't strike, then let's get the CAB to give us a fare increase" model.
Had that happened, like I said elsewhere...the have's would have flown, and the have-not's would have driven or not traveled at all.
The massive industry growth has been the result of the have-not's getting on the plane and going places. You might decry the so-called decline of what was once a glamor industry, but the very real truth is, as a glamor industry, the airline business would have been tough to get a job in.
The growth fueled increases in the size of airlines, which meant they could hire a bunch of people. A lot of the people currently at work at various airlines would be elsewhere if the industry had not enjoyed all that growth.
A market economy gives entrepreneurs the freedom to succeed but it also gives them the freedom to fail. The airlines you mentioned which fell by the wayside, invariably, were the victims of their own stupidity, greed, or other calamity.
Harding Lawrence at Braniff hated the idea of deregulation. Simply hated it. Not without good reason.....an intrastate carrier which he invested a whole lor of money in trying to kill had managed to evade federal regulation by operating solely within the confines of a single state and had expanded markets with low fares and taken the lion's share of the O&D traffic between those points away with better service. When deregulation happened, Harding thought it would be a temporary phenomenon.....so he mortgaged everything to put Braniff in as many markets as he could, figuring that when the regulatory window slammed shut again he would be "grandfathered in."
Back to the issue of USAirways employees wages. It's not what they get paid, it's how much work they do for their pay and how much revenue they generate for the company.
The problem isn't sloth....the problem is an inefficient system.
Hub and spoke isn't necessarily a bad way to do business, as long as you don't try to run 6 banks of flights with 200 flights arriving and departing within 12 minutes of each other and the 2 or 3 hrs between banks everyone sits around and twiddles their thumbs.
A hub is a natural confluence.....a place that generates a good deal of O&D traffic...so that you can fly people to and from the hub city. Some people will want to go someplace else, which is fine, you let them make a connection or sit on the plane for a 1/2 hr intermediate stop. But you ought not run a 3:47 pm departure from Charlotte to Atlanta simply because you are wanting to provide incoming connecting passengers a way to get to Atlanta. You ought to put flights in markets where there is a sizeable O&D, and let the connections take care of themselves.
I'm not so sure. The real problem is not the wages. It's how they use their personnel resources. It may happen, but I am not sure I like the idea of management using labor inefficiently and subsidizing this inefficiency with artificially low wages. I think it would be better to leave the wages alone and attempt to resolve the systemic inefficiency.
Well, you're half right.
Had Southwest not moved their operations to then-abandoned Houston Hobby, they'd have been dead. Of course, there were no restrictions on anyone serving hobby....Texas International ran one flight in there a day from dallas (to get it to the hangar for maintenance) and with no advertising, no taxis, no rent cars, no parking at the terminal...they used to carry decent loads. Southwest simply took it one step further. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to force a carrier to use a different airport. Houston is a geographically big place....Hobby is 10 mi S of downtown, and IAH is 25 mi N of downtown. A lot of the residential growth has been to the North, so IAH is not as bad as it used to be. Hobby is still a picnic to get to from downtown, which appeals to folks commuting in for a business meeting or such.
As far as DFW is concerned, I don't guess we'll ever know. I don;t think going out there would have killed Southwest, but it would probably have slowed down growth considerably. When it takes twice as long to get to the airport to catch your flight, fewwer people making 250 mile jaunts will opt to fly. One thing is for certain.....after all these years, if Southwest was out at DFW you would see a much different American.
What is really funny about deregulation is that its big proponents were Ralph Nader, Ted Kennedy....folks over to the left of the spectrum. The last people you would expect to lead a crusade to give up govt control of anything.
If airlines had not been deregulated, where would all these airline employees work? Hint: not at airlines.
Had airlines continued to be regulated, you would have seen a perpetuation of the old "let's pay our employees more so they won't strike, then let's get the CAB to give us a fare increase" model.
Had that happened, like I said elsewhere...the have's would have flown, and the have-not's would have driven or not traveled at all.
The massive industry growth has been the result of the have-not's getting on the plane and going places. You might decry the so-called decline of what was once a glamor industry, but the very real truth is, as a glamor industry, the airline business would have been tough to get a job in.
The growth fueled increases in the size of airlines, which meant they could hire a bunch of people. A lot of the people currently at work at various airlines would be elsewhere if the industry had not enjoyed all that growth.
A market economy gives entrepreneurs the freedom to succeed but it also gives them the freedom to fail. The airlines you mentioned which fell by the wayside, invariably, were the victims of their own stupidity, greed, or other calamity.
Harding Lawrence at Braniff hated the idea of deregulation. Simply hated it. Not without good reason.....an intrastate carrier which he invested a whole lor of money in trying to kill had managed to evade federal regulation by operating solely within the confines of a single state and had expanded markets with low fares and taken the lion's share of the O&D traffic between those points away with better service. When deregulation happened, Harding thought it would be a temporary phenomenon.....so he mortgaged everything to put Braniff in as many markets as he could, figuring that when the regulatory window slammed shut again he would be "grandfathered in."
Back to the issue of USAirways employees wages. It's not what they get paid, it's how much work they do for their pay and how much revenue they generate for the company.
The problem isn't sloth....the problem is an inefficient system.
Hub and spoke isn't necessarily a bad way to do business, as long as you don't try to run 6 banks of flights with 200 flights arriving and departing within 12 minutes of each other and the 2 or 3 hrs between banks everyone sits around and twiddles their thumbs.
A hub is a natural confluence.....a place that generates a good deal of O&D traffic...so that you can fly people to and from the hub city. Some people will want to go someplace else, which is fine, you let them make a connection or sit on the plane for a 1/2 hr intermediate stop. But you ought not run a 3:47 pm departure from Charlotte to Atlanta simply because you are wanting to provide incoming connecting passengers a way to get to Atlanta. You ought to put flights in markets where there is a sizeable O&D, and let the connections take care of themselves.
I'm not so sure. The real problem is not the wages. It's how they use their personnel resources. It may happen, but I am not sure I like the idea of management using labor inefficiently and subsidizing this inefficiency with artificially low wages. I think it would be better to leave the wages alone and attempt to resolve the systemic inefficiency.
Well, you're half right.
Had Southwest not moved their operations to then-abandoned Houston Hobby, they'd have been dead. Of course, there were no restrictions on anyone serving hobby....Texas International ran one flight in there a day from dallas (to get it to the hangar for maintenance) and with no advertising, no taxis, no rent cars, no parking at the terminal...they used to carry decent loads. Southwest simply took it one step further. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to force a carrier to use a different airport. Houston is a geographically big place....Hobby is 10 mi S of downtown, and IAH is 25 mi N of downtown. A lot of the residential growth has been to the North, so IAH is not as bad as it used to be. Hobby is still a picnic to get to from downtown, which appeals to folks commuting in for a business meeting or such.
As far as DFW is concerned, I don't guess we'll ever know. I don;t think going out there would have killed Southwest, but it would probably have slowed down growth considerably. When it takes twice as long to get to the airport to catch your flight, fewwer people making 250 mile jaunts will opt to fly. One thing is for certain.....after all these years, if Southwest was out at DFW you would see a much different American.
What is really funny about deregulation is that its big proponents were Ralph Nader, Ted Kennedy....folks over to the left of the spectrum. The last people you would expect to lead a crusade to give up govt control of anything.
.
