What If........

[SparrowHawk]

The draw of the airline business is simple - CASH. Visionaries seek the challenge of building something out of nothing. Airline caretaker managers turn a viable something into nothing. With alarming consistency.

I could not agree with you more. Well done.

Here here! You know I'm feeling pretty full of myself right now as this has turned into one of the more intelligent and civil debates here in quite a while. Thank you one and all.

Question for the both of you. Are Michael O'Leary of Ryan Air and B Ben Baldanza of Spirit visionaries? Have they seen the future?

 

[UPNAWAY]

If there is to be a next great American Airline I doubt it will be a start up but one of the legacies bought by someone from way outside the industry that tries to completely destroy the current square box everyone uses. Hell as "different" as SWA is they are still much more alike all the others than they are different. There really has been nothing revolutionary about this business for 50 years.

 

[whatkindoffreshhell]

If you want to find the visionaries, you look to Juan Tripp and Eddie Rickenbacker as the bookends of international and domestic airline pioneering respectively.

Juan Trippe and the Sky God culture at Pan Am killed the airline. Trippe was a visionary but he was not a good airline boss and would not survive in a deregulated industry.

Charlie Bryan killed Eastern Airlines just to spite Frank Borman. I'm sure all Charlie's union members are proud of him.

Again, Doug Parker should be fired simply because he allowed separate pilot contracts for seven years after the merger. Moonshots took less time to engineer.

 

[luvn737s]

Question for the both of you. Are Michael O'Leary of Ryan Air and B Ben Baldanza of Spirit visionaries? Have they seen the future?

Exploiting an opportunity is not the same as being a visionary. A true visionary would be able to sell someone the first telephone for instance (when the second had not yet been sold). The O'Learys and Baldanzas just jump in to take advantage of a circumstance that may be only temporary (and usually is once the competition sees success). Parker and the bag fees are a great example. Parker can manipulate what folks ahould expect from an airline as a vendor or employer, but he cannot truly build something that never existed before.

Visionaries look more like Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic, Not Virgin America) and less like Frank Lorenzo.

 

[Iclubbabyseals]

And speculate, I shall...

What would have been Job's product differentiation? Frankly, there is a reason as to why the airline business has become a race to the bottom as the flying public wants cheap seats which have reduced air travel to a homogeneous, near commodity good.

You missed the entire issue. Not surprising.

Steve let his "competition" race to the bottom while he provided something that "just worked".

USAirways could have provided a shuttle that "just worked". Instead, they whined. They could have provided all airbusi with gogo, but, you know, the CEO needed to renovate his house, first. Something, I imagine (yeah, I knew Steve personally) Jobs would have invested first in his company rather than masturbate himself, like the serial drunk.

The serial drunk has one talent, convincing the employees that their "job" hinges on the drunk's talent for "deals". I find it difficult that most of you actually buy on to that crap.

 

[Jester]

You missed the entire issue. Not surprising.

Steve let his "competition" race to the bottom while he provided something that "just worked".

USAirways could have provided a shuttle that "just worked". Instead, they whined. They could have provided all airbusi with gogo, but, you know, the CEO needed to renovate his house, first. Something, I imagine (yeah, I knew Steve personally) Jobs would have invested first in his company rather than masturbate himself, like the serial drunk.

The serial drunk has one talent, convincing the employees that their "job" hinges on the drunk's talent for "deals". I find it difficult that most of you actually buy on to that crap.

We can speculate all we want about how Jobs would have completely transformed the airline business, but even Jobs had limitations. For example, was Jobs going to create some amazing new passenger aircraft completely different from the standard selection of twin engine flying tubes and ushering a new era of spacious passenger comfort? Was Jobs going to offer some amazing product with broad appeal which the frugal general public was willing to folk-over premium dollars just to sit on a plane beyond the standard upgrades of wi-fi, IFE, wider seats, better food, polite FAs, etc.? Was Jobs going to alter the time-space continuum thereby allowing trans-pacific flights to take as much as time as it takes to get beverage service? Jobs would have not only had to be have been a "game changer," but rather create a whole new game. Yes, it would be a truly brilliant mind to accomplish any of those things, but Jobs was able to control his own world of software, design, hardware, and market those things to a public which decided it suddenly had a need for those things.

Jobs was a smart man, but he was no Einstein, and if Jobs had managed an airline, I wouldn't have expected any travel through a worm hole on a next day trip to Mumbai either. (By the way, "Super Dave" Osborn was a relative of Albert Einstein, and I know Super Dave.)

So Name Drops Jester.

 

[UPNAWAY]

The next revolution in airlines will be the airline that has about 50-80% less humans working at them. On could do without almost any above the wing personal, also one could probably eliminate and outsource all back office functions leaving only inflight and ground and a few line mechanics as your only employees.

 

[SparrowHawk]

The next revolution in airlines will be the airline that has about 50-80% less humans working at them. On could do without almost any above the wing personal, also one could probably eliminate and outsource all back office functions leaving only inflight and ground and a few line mechanics as your only employees.

Not surprising that we would see this differently. Livin'737's hit the nail on the head when he noted that Spirit and Ryan were merely opportunists and not visionaries. Having sold outsourcing services I can tell you first hand they are neither a panacea nor a Pandora's Box. Oft times managing contractors is often more challenging then managing your own people. Equally often the company doesn't meet it's cost cutting goals from the outsource provider, same goes for the quality of the service contracted for. Witness the US offshore call centers and their dismal performance.

The Steve Jobs type visionary airline would look quite different then the Spirit/Ryan model. Steve had the unique ability to determine what people would buy BEFORE they knew they needed or wanted it. This enabled him to charge more, deliver more and build a cult like following.

Apple and Aviation share one thing. Almost no one needs to fly or own an iPhone, however many want both. If Steve Jobs were still alive and was dumb enough and egotistical enough to start an airline he would study the industry and pick out ONE thing he knew he could do better than everyone else and he would stick to his knitting. I think in many ways it would be Virgin USA meets Midwest. I don't think you'd see a first class and maybe not a frequent flyer program. You'd have a seemless reservation system that allowed you to order and prepay for drinks, meals and whatever else he decided to sell. Premium meals sold at a profit, NOTHING would be free but you could buy "bundles" of service to meet your specific desires. I could see a near agent free airport with everything done electronically. On board serive would be polite, professional and polished but not lavish, unless of course you paid for the Chateaubriand. Steve Jobs would deliver what he always has, Value for dollar spent. Not cheap and the high cost of being cheap. Non Refundable would also mean just that. He would counter this by not having outrageous last minute fares. The business model would be as simple, elegant and profitable as an iPhone.