overkill....
between AA and UA throwing capacity into the transcons, there will be plenty of low fares and history shows that that the competitive situation doesn't ultimately change long-term.
I'm guessing you didn't read any of the details... AA's not adding capacity. Their seats per day each way are remaining almost flat. Read below...
How is it that it takes more cockpit crew members for a 321 vs 76 using the 3 class configuration? i dont understand 2 pilots i would think 1 each in first and business for f/a and 3 in back for coach vs a 76 which i think is 5 fa in back and 1 in first and 1 in business??
Assuming today's 9 flights per day, and an optimistic 15 flight per day on the A321 (hard to interpret "low teens" as 15, but let's follow WT's "Overkill" theory....
Code:
Projected
.....Seats.....CP......FA
A321...102......2.......4
x15...1530.....30......60
.....Seats.....CP......FA
A321...102......2.......4
x12...1224.....24......48
-------------------------
Current
.....Seats.....CP......FA
B762...168......2.......4
x09...1512.....18......63
Staying with the 15 flight a day assumption, a whopping 18 customer seats per day would be added to the market.
9 more pilot pairings would be required, and using a pessimistic cabin crewing assumption on the A321, it would drop 3 FA's. Being more optimistic (5 FA's), it would require another 12 FA's from today's staffing.
Realistically, I would see the hourly service only being practical between 0700 and 1600, plus the two overnighters, which brings it up to 12 per day.
That projection would see 288 seats come out of the market (totally screwing up WT's argument), and it would only drive 3 more pilot pairings, and remove the need for either 3 or 15 FA's.
Conventional wisdom is that he with the most frequency usually wins an inordinate amount of the business market, and when the schedule is predictable (i.e. hourly), it goes up even more.
Given only ~70 seats in the main cabin, WT's prediction of heavy discounting isn't very likely to me...