This is a copy of a post I made on a US Airways thread. However, I thought this might be interesting to folks who are not necessarily part of the US Airways debates.
I researched the CASM of most airlines. Here is what I found. All of these are operating CASM, include fuel, exclude "Express" operations, exclude "Special items", and are not stage adjusted. These are all from Q1 reports, except Spirit (they are privately held, therefore are not required to report publicly). Spirit's is from their website.
Airline CASM
jetBlue 6.08c
ATA 7.34c
America West 7.60c
Southwest 7.82c
Spirit 7.97c
AirTran 8.26c
American 9.49c
Continental 9.49c
Midwest 9.59c
United 10.18c
Northwest 10.23c
Alaska 10.36c
Delta 10.71c
US Airways 11.68c
A couple of things I found interesting:
CO's CASM was noted kind of oddly... They noted 9.76c including a special charge of 0.27c. When you remove the Special charge, the CASM is 9.49c (identical to AA's... hmmm)
Midwest's CASM had come down Year-Over-Year by almost 20% from 11.70c last year. I assume this has to do with employee concessions and adding seats on the MD-80 "Super Saver Service", they are running.
ATA's CASM was 7.34, but their RASM was 6.94c, or a loss per ASM of 0.40. That translated into a $65mil loss for Q1... Just when you thought all LCC's are profitable.
At first look, Southwest's CASM looks high for its peer group. However, their CASM was on an average stage of 600miles or so. jetBlue's CASM was on an average stage of 1300 miles or so. I looked into a UNISYS report which showed Southwest's CASM for Q2 over the last several years adjusted for stage length. It showed that Southwest's CASM at 1300 miles would be less than jetBlue's at 1300 miles, around 5.98c. Also, America West's stage length was around average 1100 miles. That means that where AWA and Southwest compete head to head (like PHX-BWI), Southwest maintains a CASM advantage, even though it does not appear so here... We discussed this in a different thread as well.
Lastly, Frontier has not yet reported Q1 earnings.
I researched the CASM of most airlines. Here is what I found. All of these are operating CASM, include fuel, exclude "Express" operations, exclude "Special items", and are not stage adjusted. These are all from Q1 reports, except Spirit (they are privately held, therefore are not required to report publicly). Spirit's is from their website.
Airline CASM
jetBlue 6.08c
ATA 7.34c
America West 7.60c
Southwest 7.82c
Spirit 7.97c
AirTran 8.26c
American 9.49c
Continental 9.49c
Midwest 9.59c
United 10.18c
Northwest 10.23c
Alaska 10.36c
Delta 10.71c
US Airways 11.68c
A couple of things I found interesting:
CO's CASM was noted kind of oddly... They noted 9.76c including a special charge of 0.27c. When you remove the Special charge, the CASM is 9.49c (identical to AA's... hmmm)
Midwest's CASM had come down Year-Over-Year by almost 20% from 11.70c last year. I assume this has to do with employee concessions and adding seats on the MD-80 "Super Saver Service", they are running.
ATA's CASM was 7.34, but their RASM was 6.94c, or a loss per ASM of 0.40. That translated into a $65mil loss for Q1... Just when you thought all LCC's are profitable.
At first look, Southwest's CASM looks high for its peer group. However, their CASM was on an average stage of 600miles or so. jetBlue's CASM was on an average stage of 1300 miles or so. I looked into a UNISYS report which showed Southwest's CASM for Q2 over the last several years adjusted for stage length. It showed that Southwest's CASM at 1300 miles would be less than jetBlue's at 1300 miles, around 5.98c. Also, America West's stage length was around average 1100 miles. That means that where AWA and Southwest compete head to head (like PHX-BWI), Southwest maintains a CASM advantage, even though it does not appear so here... We discussed this in a different thread as well.
Lastly, Frontier has not yet reported Q1 earnings.
