Aloha Airlines to Liquidate

[SegmentKing]

it still amazes me from reading the airliners.net message board that everyone keeps blaming go! for aloha's demise.

How about some REAL facts?

We only had 10 seats on each flight for $39 each.

When we ran $29, $19, and other fare sales, it was 2 - 4 seats. Rarely would we go over that amount.

Yet HA and AQ would FLOOD the market with $39 seats... I've even purchased one when I got stuck in KOA... figuring the plane would have 60 open seats, to discover barely 10 open. Friends at AQ (TICKET AGENTS, RES AGENTS!) told me they'd be selling $39 fares when the plane was booked to 100 pax still, and go! was at $69.

And we'd constantly go in and close out the $39 buckets, and make it OBVIOUS (not a random act) and wait 24 hours for a reaction from HA/AQ, and got none, so we'd restore them.

So, who is to blame for AQ's demise? They didn't have to match every single YV fare sale... heck, how many match Spirit's $9 fares? And when they did match, why the hell did they allow so many $39 fares, when its "below their cost" ?

I dunno. I guess I've just drank the kool aid too long.

 

[eolesen]

That argument might work if it weren't for the fact Go! entered the market after violating a confidentiality agreement with regard to financials received under what may have been false pretenses.

That illegal behavior is now a documented fact, and quoting the company line on why you're not at fault for AQ or HA's woes isn't going to garner you a lot of sympathy here.

Your CEO is a commonplace thug, and your airline is seen as being no better than a scab on the industry.

Personally, I'm glad to see Delta finally give Mesa the boot, and I will celebrate the day when other majors do likewise. UA already had to trim back YV's flying because of non-performance and gave business to ExpressJet...

I'd better not say too much more, else Ornstein might try to sue me personally the way he has other bloggers and journalists....

And we'd constantly go in and close out the $39 buckets, and make it OBVIOUS (not a random act) and wait 24 hours for a reaction from HA/AQ, and got none, so we'd restore them.

Signaling a competitor to a truce, eh? Guess what? That's possibly an anti-trust violation. Perhaps AQ and HA were just smart enough not to be baited into cooperating with illegal behavior...

 

[Ch. 12]

it still amazes me from reading the airliners.net message board that everyone keeps blaming go! for aloha's demise.

How about some REAL facts?

We only had 10 seats on each flight for $39 each.

When we ran $29, $19, and other fare sales, it was 2 - 4 seats. Rarely would we go over that amount.

Yet HA and AQ would FLOOD the market with $39 seats... I've even purchased one when I got stuck in KOA... figuring the plane would have 60 open seats, to discover barely 10 open. Friends at AQ (TICKET AGENTS, RES AGENTS!) told me they'd be selling $39 fares when the plane was booked to 100 pax still, and go! was at $69.

And we'd constantly go in and close out the $39 buckets, and make it OBVIOUS (not a random act) and wait 24 hours for a reaction from HA/AQ, and got none, so we'd restore them.

So, who is to blame for AQ's demise? They didn't have to match every single YV fare sale... heck, how many match Spirit's $9 fares? And when they did match, why the hell did they allow so many $39 fares, when its "below their cost" ?

I dunno. I guess I've just drank the kool aid too long.

REAL facts? Yours are not real. REAL fact is that Mesa approached both major interisland carriers with the pretense that they were interested in investment/purchase yet turned around only months later with the magical formula to compete against them...after seeing their books. REAL fact is that Mesa (Go) brought the average fares WAY down and consistently had the lowest fare (avg fare per the DOT...this is actually what they sold) in every market. Hopefully my attachment works...I've never tried one in here...but i have attached the avg fares by quarter by carrier. AQ was, in fact, almost always the highest of the three so it is clear to me that they were the ones being rational. Go! was the lowest 21 of 24 times...with HA being the lowest 4 times and AQ once. And you say that AQ mis-managed and had offered more cheap seats?! You have no clue. And why did the carriers match "below their cost"??? Obviously you don't understand airline economics. I would venture to say that HA and AQ would have sold a total of 5 or fewer seats in the past 1.5 years if they had NOT matched those fares. Keep pretending to know what you are talking about. Johnny O used unfair biz practices and illegal pricing tactics to run a carrier out of business. Go! is not a sustainable biz model but rather a mechanism to reduce competition. The good news is that YV has bled so much cash doing this that Johnny O has taken a company that once had plenty of $$ and plunged it towards demise. Have fun explaining that one to the shareholders.

Just saying so does not mean it is true. I have backed up the FACT with numbers from the DOT.

OK...I'm not sure what happened to my attachment. If anybody knows how to attach a word or excel doc, please let me know.

 

[SegmentKing]

Not sure how the attachment didn't come thru.

And regarding airline economics, I have a fair amount of knowledge about "how things work". If AQ couldn't manage their revenues properly, that is not YV's fault.... the $39 fares were limited and weren't always available --- fact is AQ and HA both flooded the market with the $39 seats, and are using YV as the scape goat for mismanaging their revenues.

All airlines play "cat and mouse" with both fares and buckets -- its no secret, and many airlines, including YV, have inventory scrapers as part of the YM/RM software to monitor competition... its not violating any 'anti-trust' laws unless its discussed with the carrier, like JO calling Mark saying "hey, i'll axe my fares if you axe yours"... but doing it via inventory is entirely legal, just like a fare sale -- HA / AQ matched every one we did at go!, but it was only after we published it - they would then rush to the next ATPCO load for the fares...

I'm not going to sit here and wave the Pro-Mesa flag, but I'm not going sit here and watch people bash Mesa for AQ's failures when Mesa wasn't the main catalyst... mismanagement was.

 

[eolesen]

Sorry, but it's not just a coincidence that HA and AQ managed to compete against each other for over 60 years, but as soon as Ornstein shows up, things to to crap in less than two.

Don't worry. Your day will be coming soon enough. JO's written a lot of checks Mesa won't be able to cash, and even the Chinese seem to be on to him....