Firms' Cost Cuts Leave Consumers Stranded

[Fly]

Firms' Cost Cuts Leave Consumers Stranded

Many readers of this column probably registered the Christmas week havoc in America's air travel system fleetingly, through news reports of snow-covered runways, piles of misdirected suitcases at Midwestern baggage claims and travelers bedded down in airport terminals.

Again, I eliminated a few paragraphs (as to not upset the powers that be :huh: ), so here's the entire article.

 

[aafsc]

Firms' Cost Cuts Leave Consumers Stranded

MOD Note- PLEASE do not quote an entire (especially lenghty) post to reply with a couple of lines. It makes the boards very difficult to read and takes up lots of wasted space.
Thanks.

[post="236647"][/post]​

Everyone seems to forget that there are more people flying now than there was before 9/11 but the airlines have laid off a large chunk of their workforces.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Fly,
I don't think I ever defended Delta or Comair's handling of the Christmas Day cancellations and I am certain that Delta will get a butt whipping when the DOT gets through with them. If fact, I'm very surprised that Comair thought they could get by with using a crew scheduling system that was something like 14 YEARS OLD when just about everything in the computer world is obsolete in no more than 5 years.

I do have to ask how many people were inconvenienced by UA and AA this work at ORD? How many flights did UA cancel over the Christmas holidays because of crew shortages; somehow that number went unreported while US's employees were accused of sinking their airline. The media has done a nice job of singling out US and Comair for their Christmas Day fiascos which certainly require attention. However, you and I know that there are far more passengers inconvenienced on a bad weather day in ORD, DFW, ATL, or DTW than what Comair could fly if they operated every flight in their system or the number of seats US has through PHL.

I'm not defending what happened at any airline at Christmas Day. But let's keep it in perspective of all of the service cuts that Americans have endured in countless industries. How many automated voice prompts do you have to endure to speak to a live person at the companies with which you do business; it's way more than I want to go through when I know no automated voice can answer my question (and I have no problem w/ automation in the right place). Given that Delta has invested very heavily in automation that is supposed to even allow passengers to get their hotel vouchers and new flight coupons from an unused gate reader, I am surprised that things are as bad as was portrayed here (but don't doubt it if that is what was reported). Employees have to have the customer's interests as their first priority in order to make the automation work for the customer. Given that morale is bad at all the airlines, including Delta, I'm not surprised that these customers were so badly treated. All of the airlines that want to turn themselves around have to restore morale among their employees, including ones like AA and DL that I am particularly bullish about. Given that Arpey is one of the most employee focused CEOs AA has ever had and yet morale there still stinks, every airline including Delta must work overtime to get employees back on their team. That is the number one advantage the LCCs have. Bar none.

Let's also not forget that LCCs do not largely operate hub operations and when they do they are still not in the big, congested and weather prone hubs. While the LCCs do alot of things well, I simply cannot accept a comparison of their customer service during bad operations to what the legacies do.

Will be out of pocket for a few days in order to get my lobotomy. Have a great weekend.

 

[Art at ISP]

Rumor has it that COMAIR's scheduling system was based on the Commodore 64 computers of almost 25 years ago...could that even be possible????????

 

[laura62]

Isn't the entire United States of America air traffic control system operated by computers from the 1960's? I heard the only people who knew how to fix them are retiring. Perhaps the FAA and the DOT should look into them?

Unimatic ain't no spring (computer chicken) either. But it doesn't keep airplanes in the air.

 

[casual rat]

Rumor has it that COMAIR's scheduling system was based on the Commodore 64 computers of almost 25 years ago...could that even be possible????????

[post="237172"][/post]​

Maybe the 'Pong' game took up too much RAM!

 

[mweiss]

Everyone seems to forget that there are more people flying now than there was before 9/11 but the airlines have laid off a large chunk of their workforces.

[post="236680"][/post]​

That sentence is misleading. While both clauses are true, they paint an inaccurate picture.

Yes, there are more people flying now than in August of 2001. But the returning passengers are flying FL, F9, B6, HP, AS, and WN more than AA, DL, CO, NW, US, and UA.

Yes, the airlines have laid off a large chunk of their workforces...except for the LCCs.

Put the whole picture together, and what you see is a shift in the market.

Granted, I'm painting with overly broad brush strokes, but it's more verbal shorthand than anything else. The point is that aafsc's sentence, which is oft-repeated around here, is misleading.

 

[FWAAA]

That sentence is misleading. While both clauses are true, they paint an inaccurate picture.

Yes, there are more people flying now than in August of 2001. But the returning passengers are flying FL, F9, B6, HP, AS, and WN more than AA, DL, CO, NW, US, and UA.

Yes, the airlines have laid off a large chunk of their workforces...except for the LCCs.

Put the whole picture together, and what you see is a shift in the market.

Granted, I'm painting with overly broad brush strokes, but it's more verbal shorthand than anything else. The point is that aafsc's sentence, which is oft-repeated around here, is misleading.

[post="238827"][/post]​

Depends on how one measures "more people flying."

By all measures, capacity remains down from pre-September 11. Total flights are still down 7%, according to the DoT:

Today, there are 29,564 scheduled commercial-jet departures, up 9% from two years ago. Total flights still lag behind pre-Sept. 11 totals of January 2001 by 7%.

In an interview, Federal Aviation Administration chief Marion Blakey said air traffic is coming back to pre-Sept. 11 levels but is doing so “in different patterns, and with different characteristicsâ€￾ than before. Two big hub operations at St. Louis and Pittsburgh have closed in the past two years, and a third, Delta's at Dallas/Fort Worth, closes this month, reducing the operational burdens there. But low-cost carrier and regional jet growth elsewhere more than offsets that.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money...city_11.art.htm

Many of the flights added back are smaller airplanes, like RJs. Since 2001, AA alone has grounded 74 F-100s, 14 762s, about 28 MD-80s and a handful of 757s. UA has grounded some of its 747s and 777s. Yet most carriers have added lots of RJs.

RPMs and ASMs are still down from September 10, 2001 levels.

LCC growth, while impressive, has not yet filled the void from the legacy downsizing. Most legacy carriers chopped 20% of their capacity the week of September 11, 2001, and most have yet to restore it.

 

[mweiss]

You're right that it depends on how one measures it. For example:

Number of Revenue Passenger Emplanements (Millions)
1999: 635
2000: 666
2001: 622
2002: 714
2003: 642

Revenue Passenger Miles (Billions)
1999: 652
2000: 693
2001: 652
2002: 641
2003: 633

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics

In other words, emplanements are up, but miles are down. Sounds like more people traveling shorter distances.