700UW said:
Jim for CEO.
[post="231797"][/post]
Thanks for the vote, but you'll notice that I started this thread with a quote from diogenes. Now if he wants the CEO job, he has my vote.....
Now for some observations on comments that several have made in the course of this thread - keeping the plane and crew together.
It's amazing how many benefits flow from simply flying the airplanes more. Obviously, lower unit cost is a prime benefit, but it is far from the only one.
All the crews (well, not the international) are well aware of the of the 7+ hour (block time) days mixed in with the 1-1/2 to 3 hr (block) days. That is driven largely by aircraft utilization - when we're only flying an airplane 8-9 hours a day on average, you can't have two crews each get 5+ hours of block time on that airplane. And with the amount of relatively short-haul flying we do, it's hard to get the 7+ hours out of a crew without an aircraft change. Throw in the computer program that builds the trip pairings that only cares about whether (or how much) penalty time results, and you've got our schedules.
Of course, aircraft utilization is driven by hub schedules. The only ways to increase utilization are to depeak the hubs or bypass the hubs.
Obviously, bypassing the hubs only works where there is enough traffic to make money flying point to point - large O&D markets to popular destinations. Not hard to identify and implement, but the more you do point to point, the less feed you have at your hubs to support flights to those "not quite as popular" destinations where your hub doesn't generate enough traffic to justify the flights (but yield may be higher because every LCC isn't serving that market). So it becomes a balancing act - depeak to the extent possible and bypass where it makes sense. I can't wait to see how much depeaking we actually do (anybody have the schedule for departures from PHL for Feb?)
Another idea (not mine, but another airline's) that I've mentioned once before is called delinking - reducing to the minimum possible the cases where an airplane leaves one hub for a spoke city but returns to another hub (PHL-FLL-CLT for example). By minimizing this you minimize the impact that disruptions at one hub have on the system. Obviously you can't delink 100% - you'll still have service between the hubs. But using CLT & PHL, 2 airplanes just going back and forth between them could provide flights between these hubs every couple of hours and only those flights would affect both hubs when one hub was being disrupted.
Now, a comment about "head count". A few posters have beat this drum to death. The theory seems to be that being competitive means getting our ratio of personnel to aircraft down to or near that of some of the LCC's. Unfortunately, this is fiction but CCY seems to have bought in to the argument (and maybe a few posters are just echoing what CCY says). If we are to be a largely hub/spoke airline, we cannot operate with anything approaching the head count of some of the LCC's because a hub/spoke operation requires more people to operate than a point to point operation, period. Throw in a mixed fleet, older and more senior workforce, and the discrepancy grows. CCY's answer is to keep reducing the staffing by not (or minimally) replacing attrition and offset the remaining higher head count with lower wages/benefits. The result has become painfully obvious the last few days.
We have become an airline limping along on the normal days. Any disruption begins a snowball effect, quickly growing out of control. Having the luxury of being on vacation and only seeing media reports and comments here and on the ALPA forum, here's a "down and dirty" perspective on the last few days....
The weather that moved through the Ohio valley started the snowball rolling - delays, crew's running out of time (or out of place, crew rest requirements delaying next day's flights, etc). You start getting cancellations, missed connections, etc.
Throw in RJ's not able to carry all (or any) baggage and/or a full load of passengers because of weight restrictions, and the the snowball picks up speed. Many full flights already mean less ability to rebook the folks left behind. Heavy loads also means pretty full baggage compartments on any mainline aircraft and maybe not enough space (or weight allowence on shorter flights) to carry all the bags left behind on earlier RJ flights.
Late/cancelled flights also mean connections for passengers and baggage missed. Many full flights means these additional passengers can't be rebooked. The number of folks holding a ticket that can't be accomodated grows. The mound of baggage not making connections also grows. The snowball is reaching top speed.
Now for the final ingredient - understaffing to start with and the usual increase in sick calls that happens every year. The snowball is not only at top speed but now out of control.
Jim
