Airline prices...

[Plantman]

How come I can book a flight to New Orleans from Ft Laudedale with a seven day notice, round trip for $138.00.

The same flight on AMerican or Continental is almost double.

Is it me or should all the big airlines follow the SouthWest model:

Low executive pay,

No golden parachutes..

Excellent customer service.

Reasonable fares

I realize that business or first class travelers with unlimited budgets command more amenities than the average traveler.

I am talkng aboout the guy flying coach trying to see his family,friends vacationing on a budget.

Why were they the only airline that didn'y miss a beat after 9/11? If I understand correctly, they were on firm financial footing and were able to wait out the downturn in flying, no layoffs....etc....

What's the biggest difference between them and American,Delta....?

Thanks

[dmorrison]

You don't want to get me started. But since you started this!!

Southwest is a great Ailine. I own quite a bit of the stock.
You flew form Florida to New Orleans, a great trip in a 737.
SWA has only 737's this reduces their costs tremendously. When your maintaining a fleet of cars and all you have is 300D's you cost are reduced. You can get a discount on the brake pads since you buy 12 pairs at a time. Your mechanic has to work on just 1 car not 12 different types. He will really get to know it. He doesn't have to keep the supplies to maintain the 300D the E300 the S500 the M320 the E320 etc. etc. So your parts inventory is reduced tremensously.
You don't do bagage. They take it, put in on the plane and when you get to point B the take it off and you get it. Oh I'm sorry your going on another of our flights. GO GET YOUR BAG AND RECHECK IT. On the larger airlines you check it once and it will be waiting for you at your destination no matter how many connections you have. EVEN if you change to Delta from American, We will connect your bag. SWA doesn't do squat. That bagage system cost money.
You want a meal, it cost.
You want a terminal building to get into for your flight, It costs. SWA uses older terminals that have usually been built by the large airlines.
Now your going from Podunk Florida to London, Do you really want to take SWA to Boston then SWA to Goose Bay, you see the 737 can't fly across the atlantic. So after Goose Bay you should be able to make Shannon or maybe London if the winds are favorable. But if they are then plan on a stop in Iceland on the way home for fuel. The headwinds will be to strong going westward.
So you want to go non stop. That requires a 757er or a 767. Very expensive airplanes and the usually sit on the ground more than the SWA 737 due to arrival and departure times for the European flights. We can fly it 20 hours a day, but you run into some problems. The people don't want to fly at the times we would be leaving. So the international aircraft are not utilized the way our domestic aircraft are. Additionally because they are 2 engine overwater aircraft they require more maintenance. The 737 does not require as much.
Don't even think of a flight form Florida to Tokyo. Remember SWA still only has 737's. So your looking at FLL to the Dallas area, sorry the FLL runway is short so you can't carry the fuel to make Salt Lake city. Now leaving DFW you can make it to Seattle. Then refuel, Go to Anchorage, then Shymia, and finally Tokyo.

Our fleet at American consists of F100,S80,757,767,777,A300.
The cheapest aircraft was the S80 $25,000,000 a copy, we own 362 of them. Thats a lot of capital investment ( $9,050,000,000 in just S80's) The 777, we own 42 at $150,000,000 each. Now these aircraft are worse then a Mercedes. If you think parts on your Mercedes are expensive, Try buying an aircraft part. The electronic display for my attitude indicator is $75,000, I have seen 8 of them replaced in the 12 years I have been a Captain.
A coulple of weeks a go we had a S80 do a nose gear up landing at JFK. The damage to the aircraft will probably cost our company around $250,000. Not including the lawsuits by the frightened passengers who were not hurt at all.
Aviation is very expensive. But more than that, Maintaining an aircraft is expensive.

So SWA is a good Airline. I won't argue with you on that. But when you want to go any distance it cost money. More fuel, bigger aircraft, more food, movies, music, etc. etc. etc. things that SWA does not invest in nor have to maintain.
Airlines have the most perishable comodity in the world. Each time the aircraft leaves the gate, we can never ever sell that seat again, but were paying for it. The cost of moving it, ( for every 100 Lbs of fuel you carry, you burn 10 pounds to do it, So the weight of that seat cost fuel but we have no revenue), maintaining it, and paying the purchase price of it.
If a grocery store had to throw out all their produce each time they closed the doors for the night, How expensive do you think those vegetable and fruits would be?? We can never sell that seat, that left empty, again.

So understand the differences between the airlines. They are selling 2 different products.

Everyone today, financial advisors, the news media, etc, just loves Jet Blue. Its the way of the future. Think back a couple of years ago about an airline called ValueJet. Everyone loved them also, untill it was found out that YOUR safety was compromised. Sorry the FAA did a lousy job watching them, because Washington just loved them. People are dead, the FAA had a hugh black eye for not doing their job, and Valuejet is gone.
Jetblue, Its a very small fleet of only one kind of aircraft. They have not performed a C check on any of their aircraft, they have Airbus Aircraft, there C checks are more expensive then Boeing, Watch your ticket prices go up when that starts in a couple of years. ( a C check is a complete rebuild of the aircraft, a really great frame off restoration). They don't have any employees who have retired, no pension. They are a small company that may or maynot survive. My bet is that they won't. Why?? Remember Peoplexpress, the way of the future, untill they grew and could not manage ther operation and debt. Florida Express, Same thing. Air Atlanta, Texas Air, New York Air, Express One, Jet Express, Midway, etc,etc all these airlines have failed and they were at one point the darlngs of wall street.
For our airline to survive we need cash, At 1 billion in cash we were considered insolvent. we now have about 2.4 BILLION in cash. Thats what it takes to run a fleet of 700+ aircraft.
Of all the airlines that started up after deregulation in 1980's only 2 have survived. America West, and a freight operation. America West has been throught Chapter 11, 3 times.
destroying any investment that anyone had in that airline.

Know lets talk about safety. Everthing must work together in a flight, Or the flight could be a dangerous operation. think of Valuejet, A tire and a few oxygen canisters and you have a huge fire that melted the control cables. Ground crews must load the aircraft correctly or you get the US Air Express crash in Charlotte, Loaded wrong and you lose control. Hazardous cargo must be handled right or you could again have a deadly situation for everyone on board. Fuel must be loaded correcly and the right kind. "Passenger fuel" must also be loaded, but I dont' know of any accidents due to catering. Damage, yes leave a try in the engine intake and when you start you destroy a $2,000,000 engine. Agents are loading peolple and watching out for problem passengers. Don't put a drunk or problem passenger in a long tube, they only get worse, Then the cockpit crew has to be awake, ready, run checklist, be trained and current, That alone cost many $$$$$$$$. The USAF spent $850,000 on me in pilot traiing then thousands more to fly the C141. I did that for years and that qualified me to sit as an engineer with American. After 6 years I was able to move to the seat that I occupied in the militaries C141. My experience, 17,000 hours of flying and I have never hurt any one, physically. Emotionally, oh well. That cost money. I demand a salary that related to my responcibility. Each time I fly I am respocible for a $25,000,000 aircraft with up to 136 people on board, the liability is tremendous. One three day trip a S80 captain is resposible for about $250,000,000 in aircraft, up to 1250 lives, and will probably burn about 30,000 gal of fuel. The majority of executives don't have a $250,000,000 annual budget, yet alone in 3 days. $1,000,000,000 for a 777 captain on a 6 day international flight.
Well back to safety. American owns 235 simulators to keep all these pilots trained. I have to go to school every 9 months. Its on the same aircraft I have been flying for 12 years. This is mandated by the FAA. but I don't think you would have it any other way. We cover just about everything that could happen in the aircraft. Those little things like fires, lose of 1 or both engines, structural damage, system problems, etc,etc.
Things can happen fast at 550MPH. The training better be there and be good. Again Valuejet, One of our pilots flew in their jumpseat, At altitude they were hand flying the sircraft. We do this sometimes to keep current but we usually put it on autopilot in cruise. They were hand flying it because Valujet had not taught them how to use the autopilot in that model of aircraft. How the FAA let this get by I'll never know. We have to know every system on the aircraft, period.

Management. SWA's management is very sharp. They know how to run an airline, keep their cost down and have a formula that works. Managemant has a lot to do with it. SWA is THE most unionized airline in the industry. The only consistantly profitable one and does it quite well. Jetblue, I already see them making mistakes. They initially followed the SWA formula, They just bought a different kind of aircraft. Now different crews for different aircraft, different engines sytems, similators. This is the first mistake. More will come.

So, I hope this enlightens you about cost. Aircraft are expensive, maintaining them is expensive, and once that seat is gone we can never sell that seat again.

Dave

[dmorrison]

Our fleet break down and costs. We are servicing this debt, just as your company has overhead costs. So do we.

56 F100's at $27,000,000ea. = $1,512,000,000.00
362 S80's at $25,000,000ea. = $9,050,000,000.00
77 737's at $45,000,000ea. = $3,465,000,000.00
147 757's at $65,000,000ea. = $9,555,000,000.00
87 767's at $80,000,000ea. = $6,960,000,000.00
34 A300's at $45,000,000ea. = $1,530,000,000.00
45 777's at $150,000,000ea.= $6,750,000,000.00

Total $38,822,000,000,000.00

38 billion in aircraft capital financing, and that is just the aircraft, It doesn't include ground equiptment, buildings,spare parts,salary,retirement, etc.
And we have about 100 aircraft sitting in the dessert in storage
or retired.

Dave

[Plantman]

Great reply. Thanks for pointing it out to me. I meant in no way to cast apersions on the bigger airlines. I was merely trying to point out what a good airline Southwest was, while at the same time questioning some of the executive pay soem of the bigger ones get.

I don't remember which airline gave their CEO stock options a few years ago that were in excess of 10,000,000, and they were struggling at the time. If that was the case it seems like management is making some very expensive mistakes.

Once again thanks for the enlightening response.

[drbrandini]

I was actually thinking the other day; how in the world do airlines make any money with the costs of overhead being so high? Even as a frequent traveler I have never paid more than $275 for a plane ticket. I'm not sure how they do it and even more unsure after I read all of the obove by dmorrison. Thanks for the indepth info.

[Kuan]

Business travel are what pays the airlines' bills, all the rest is, as we say in the restaurant industry, gravy. It's not uncommon for a business traveler to pay full price for their ticket. A full price ticket from Minneapolis to Milwaukee is about $800... roundtrip of course. A buck a mile.

From Minneapolis to Tallahassee connecting through Memphis it's $1600. Minneapolis to Fontana $1800. That's full fare coach. During the week most of those in first class are business travelers. The first commuter flight out on Monday is almost all business travelers. There are so many gold/platinum club card holders on these flights that they have to deny upgrades to some. What a bummer!

[CJ]

Why fly when you can drive a diesel.

[STORMINORMAN]

..."We are going to SCRAMBLE THE EGGS so they will never again fit back in the basket..."

May not be an 100% accurate quotation, but that's the gist of it!

On my 7,500+ mile road trip my gas costs ranged from $1.65 to over $2: got 28.6 mpg, visited Denver (twice), Dayton, OH, St. Pete, FL, Jackson, TN. Total cost in gas was under $450.

The wife's & day-in-advance RT ticket to Columbus, OH, from Portland was $288 total, including all taxes & fees. A great deal.

But what would it have cost me to fly these segments with stop-overs: PDX to DEN, DEN to DAY, DAY to Tampa, Tampa to Jackson (maybe Memphis?), then Memphis to DEN & DEN to PDX?

A lot more!

[Plantman]

Originally posted by dmorrison
You don't want to get me started. But since you started this!!

Now your going from Podunk Florida to London,
Dave

I've never been to Podunk... Although some people might call Hialeah......well, they just call it Hialeah. Nuff said.

[KirkVining]

I fly a lot. Southwest is my hands down favorite. The deal they give on one free ticket anywhere for every four you purchase over the Internet is the greatest - over the course of a year I get enough to take my whole family on a New England fall foliage tour every October. They have never lost my luggage and the service, even tho somewhat minimal in many respects, is great for the price. The people who work there seem to be having more fun at their jobs than the employees at the other airlines. The other airlines charge more to deliver me a lot of stuff I could care less about when I'm traveling on business. The meals and nice seats etc are great, but that's not what I'm there for. Just get my butt there, thats all. I see the point about the other airlines carrying greater costs because of the international routes - maybe the solution is for them to just get out of the domestic business if they can't compete.

[Plantman]

Is there anything wrong with digging up old threads?

I did this as I was in a conversation with my Dad about airlines, and was trying to explaint o him the differences pointed out by DMORRISON, hence the rehash.

I guess it's ok as long as we're not Democrats/Republican/Libertarians.