I Have A Question Or Two

[PD]

Why would an airline who fail to compete successfully in the past continue to run a business as if nothing has changed? What do I mean, it seems as if the only thing USAIR does differently now than in the past is now they try to squeeze both the employee's and the customer?
For example my wife needed to go a conference in Denver, she would leave on a Wed and return Friday or Saturday. She would have preferred to fly USAIR because she's very uncomfortable with flying but does go with me on some business trip. However the ticket was around 7 hundred dollars while the competition was at 263. Of course if she stayed to Sunday the fare was the same. She asked why and I simply explained USAIR likes their planes empty on Saturday so they can give free tickets for overbooking on Sunday.

Why would an airline who wants to win back customers force them to sit on a runway for over 4 hours in a Dash 8 on a hot Friday in Philly?
It happened Friday, we got one small cup of water and anytime someone got up the FA acted like we were some kinda of criminal. Face it Philly goes to hell in a handbasket if someone sneeze's. It seem like they are trying to force every connection on the East Coast through there, and it ain't working.

While it's nice that USAIR fly's to the Caribbean what good does it do the business traveler who has to get around the mainland United States.
Sometimes I have to work and sadly none of my customers are in the islands.

 

[Doc]

First of all I would like to look up those fares. I'm sure there is more to that.

Second NO airline makes empty planes one day to help with another day the fact that you believe that makes me wonder what you do for a living.

Sometimes planes get stuck on the ramp waiting for takeoff weather etc...
But they are not catered for that. Things are tuff all around.

Personally I think ticket prices all tickets prices should go up about 30%. In every business when problems occur what ever they may be they raise the price of the product to make up for the loses but our industry we are so scared to lose buts in the seats and the traveling public cries that we are gouging them just look at the price of gas do you really believe that the power outage caused so many problems that gas goes up 40cents.

Please…….. I guess 9-11 was just a blimp on the screen…….

 

[AtlanticBeach]

Doc-

I agree with most of your post, except for fare differential between US and other carriers. The fares quoted in PD's post are fairly typical of what is going on in the marketplace. Yesterday, I had to buy a walk-up one way ticket - DL quoted $204 and US wanted $686. Guess who got the business?

The other legacy carriers (even United) have modified the top end of their domestic fare structures and are seeing a better mix of fares and increased income. Your desire to raise low end fares is reasonable. The market might support a 10% increase, but certainly not 30%.

 

[PD]

Doc perhaps you misunderstood some of what I was saying. First off I don't call sitting in a small commuter for fours hours on the runway stuck "on the ramp" and I don't care bout being catered. Fours hours is unaceptable.

My crack about Saturday planes being empty was a poor attempt at humor. The fact is some airlines no longer require a Saturday night stay.

As for industries just raising price's when time's get tough! What bubble do you live in, go ask any company that sells Walmart the last time they got a price increase. When computer sales tank do prices go up or down for the consumer, when car sales are off to the auto makers pull back rebates and raise prices. I wonder when USAIR decided to buy from Airbus did they do so because they got a better deal. Certainly they didn't give two hoots bout the folks at Boeing (hmm was it the price).


Oh and the other fare was from Frontier, although Airtran and Delta offered the same fare.

 

[MarkMyWords]

PD -

First off, welcome to USAviation. Second, I would like to address the point about your sitting on the ramp for 4 hours. While it was unfortunate that you were subjected to that amount of time on board an airplane, on the taxiway, your anger and disgust might be better projected at the ATC system or the weather that caused your delay. Our airplane was there, on time, crew available, bags and customers loaded, fueled, catered, etc but due to weather and delays in rerouting aircraft by the FAA we were not able to get you in the air as quickly as you expected. While we make all attempts to try and make our customers comfortable in situations like this, and yes, 4 hours is extreme, there are circumstances that are beyond our control. It would have probably been better to take you back to the gate to wait things out, but I can assure you that we had no idea that you were going to be sitting out there so long. The FAA has a habit of moving the time bar in 30 to 60 minute incruments.

 

[deltawatch]

Yes PHL is a tuff place to make a connection due to space restraints and ATC problems, but guess what 75 percent of the passengers on a PHL flight are not connecting, they are local. That’s why Usairways focuses on the market, that’s were the money is. In other hubs about 90 percent are connecting.

As fare as the Saturday night ticket requirements, there is a reason but I’m not sure I can explain it so you’ll understand. Restrictions on tickets and pricing are what hold seats for those who need them at the last minute. All airlines do it. Each airline knows statically how many calls they will receive from companies desperate for seats at the last minute. If the airline made every seat available at an unrestricted low fare they could sell every seat three months before to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s visiting the grandkids or to college kids flying home for the weekend. These folks wouldn’t fly if they couldn’t find a cheaper ticket. Once the airline has attracted enough of them they let the fare and restriction hold the rest of the seats until closer to flight time so the big boys that fly around and close million dollar deals can get a seat last minute and get rich taking care of business. That’s the way the airlines get maximum revue onboard each aircraft. Next time you are quoted a high fare without many restrections less than two weeks before flight time, remember thats the only reason that seats still there.

As far as the Caribbean add-ons go, don’t worry only the mainline flights are being shifted there. Soon Dave will have 400 new RJ’s (some of them pretty big if ALPA caves) to hop scotch around the east coast for you.

 

[DCAflyer]

As fare as the Saturday night ticket requirements, there is a reason but I’m not sure I can explain it so you’ll understand.

Deltawatch,

There is a very simple (and now wholy obsolete) reason for requiring Saturday nite stayovers. In the boom years of the 1990s and into the first year of the new century, people flying on business generally did not want to stay on a trip until Sunday morning. Their alternatives were ( a ) purchase a lower fare and stay over Saturday night, ( b ) pay a walkup fare of about ten times that of a 21-day advance fare, or ( c ) if their destination was someplace fun, they'd work a deal with their company to stay until Sunday, fly the spouse or s/o in on Friday night, and the company would pick up the cost of the hotel for the weekend and spouse's airfare because it was still much cheaper. Now, with the economy the way it is, combined with the advent of teleconferencing and companies closely watching the bottom line, they are unwilling to pay $2 grand when they can pay $250 and require a Saturday night stay. I other words, companies are requiring their travelling employees to plan their travel, in advance when possible, according to price. Unfortunately, some airlines have had their heads in the sand and have failed to formulate an adequate competitive response to this new reality.

In addition, some corporate clients of law and accounting firms are now requiring their attorneys and accountants to book through the corporate travel office of the client corporation so that the lowest fares and prenegotiated hotel rates can be realized.

Add to all of this the new hassle factor for flying, and you will see that business people really don't want to fly anymore and will avoid it at all cost.

 

[deltawatch]

I agree with everything you say. What airlines are faced with is that fewer business travelers are calling for last minute tickets. Statically the airlines have to make available more and more restrictive-cheap tickets to fill seats. Usairways is holding fewer and fewer seats with the “coach fareâ€￾. This looks good as far as advance bookings go, but it’s actually bad for the bottom line. Business travelers are also taking a seat on what I call the cherry pickers (Southwest, etc) when possible. The bad thing is Southwest will never have a network that will help a business traveler more than once in a while. Right now if all the network carriers said we want to become like Southwest, the business traveler would be screwed. The rental car business would boom! Airlines would only serve two cities in each state and only run flights on a few high volume routes. If you had business in MYR and SAV, ATL would be as close as you could get without a rental car. No one really knows how this whole thing will play out. At some point the network carriers will even the playing field fare wise, and if there is still a network left the cherry pickers may be in for some big changes!