Low-cost carrier AirTran Airways appears ready to put the brakes on its rapid pace of expansion. The carrier said today that it would push back the delivery of eight Boeing 737 aircraft that it has on order. That announcement, disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, comes just three weeks after AirTran reduced its third-quarter revenue forecast because of what the company said was softening travel demand. The carrier said then that it planned to rein in growth. Reuters writes that "the planes being delayed are Boeing 737-700s, the single-aisle, short- to medium-range airliners that are the workhorses of most U.S. domestic airlines." Reuters adds that the planes have a list price of about $60 million each. profitability," CFO Stan Gadek is quoted as saying in the filing...
Airtran to delay new aircraft...
- Thread starter a320av8r
- Start date
QA4Jet-A
Veteran
...and they said the same thing 3 weeks ago when the 'Slow Down' would be put in place. This works for me as it is getting tough to find places to park the things at night. My best guess is, FL will not be the only Carrier to trim 'Growth Plans' in the near future. JMO
I concur with your sentiments on not being able to find a parking place. ATL is an obvious problem, but others are too. I flew a 3 day trip last week that, once we left ATL on the first leg of the first day, we didn't have to see ATL again until the last leg of the last day. You wouldn't think parking at the outstations would be a problem, but some of them (especially MDW) are terrible. The four gates we have at MDW are "scheduled" to be vacant for about 5 minutes between flights. I believe we serve 9? cities there, and if any one flight is delayed, the rest of the day is a nightmare. I had FAs wanting to leave 10 minutes early on every leg, and I had to explain to them why doing this into MDW would just mean landing early, but waiting 10 minutes (minimum) for our gate. It's alot cheaper waiting on the ground in MSP (in this case) hooked up to jetway power, than idling one engine on the ground in MDW. BOS is the worst, but that has a little to do with the construction in the gate area and the 5 minute pushback that blocks the alley for each flight. MCO is pretty good, considering the number of flights; but it also has enough gates.
As far as the slowdown in growth, I think our plan had been to grow into areas where other carriers had pulled back. We've reached the point where their pull back is over, and therefore so is our large expansion. With money tight, I wouldn't be surprised to see us accepting some arrangements with cities/airports/the business community to begin new service to cities that guarantee no loss for a certain period of time. The thing I have always liked about our current management team is that they don't wait for the red ink to flow for awhile, make a scientific wild-ass guess that something's not right, take a few years to "study" what needs to be done, and then come up with a new paint job for airplanes to solve the problem (that "Elton" thing a few years back was embarrassing, but it allegedly generated some profit). Our guys are proactive, and if they say this is what needs to be done, I'm all for it. Having said that, I will state that I will refuse to fly any airplane that has lime green or pink sperm looking things on it.
As far as the slowdown in growth, I think our plan had been to grow into areas where other carriers had pulled back. We've reached the point where their pull back is over, and therefore so is our large expansion. With money tight, I wouldn't be surprised to see us accepting some arrangements with cities/airports/the business community to begin new service to cities that guarantee no loss for a certain period of time. The thing I have always liked about our current management team is that they don't wait for the red ink to flow for awhile, make a scientific wild-ass guess that something's not right, take a few years to "study" what needs to be done, and then come up with a new paint job for airplanes to solve the problem (that "Elton" thing a few years back was embarrassing, but it allegedly generated some profit). Our guys are proactive, and if they say this is what needs to be done, I'm all for it. Having said that, I will state that I will refuse to fly any airplane that has lime green or pink sperm looking things on it.
- Thread Starter
- #4
Last week AirTran announced that it would slow its growth by delaying the delivery of eight Boeing 737 jets. The airline cited slackening demand in making the announcement, but here's a little more background on the story from last week's Atlanta Journal Constitution (free registration). The paper writes that AirTran CFO Stan Gadek acknowledged in an interview about four weeks ago "that AirTran had decided to slow its fleet growth plans in reaction to improved prospects at Delta, US Airways, United and other carriers."
Similar threads
