Missed opportunity

[CaptBud330]

Frustrated...you bet. I have no clue who is calling the shots at scheduling or revenue generation at this company. Recently, University of Tennessee Knoxville played University of Florida in a heated football rivalry. The following day, there wasn''t a seat to be had from Knoxville to Charlotte. All the Florida fans were heading home. We could have sold out an A330 if we wanted. Why doesn''t this company have a college sports team coordinator to take advantage of homecoming games at the varous big college towns we serve.

 

[Lilninj]

That is a great question. The only extra flights I have ever seen due to any sport was for the superbowl and not every year either, depended on where it was held. They certainly do lose a lot of revenue from not selling what they know will sell out and be able to sell the full Y and full F seats to boot. They certainly can plan for sport events as they are scheduled long in advance. Maintenance and all can be rescheduled to accomodate the extra flights. Alas, it is yet another example of U not doing the logical move or even the financial move! If that mentality has not changed, no codeshare, no bankruptcy, no new labor contracts, and no new financing will save this airline. Too bad.

Perhaps U will be reincarnated as a true discount carrier with all Airbus aircraft within the US, as one person with lots of cash really wants to do. It's no secret that the owner of Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson, wants to create a new discount carrier within the United States. Perhaps when US fails to show enough profit after emerging from bankruptcy, he'll have his chance to come in and buy up the routes and airbus aircraft too. Maybe then, those 330's will be flying into Heathrow.

 

[gilbertguy]

What I have never understood is on holidays why extra flights are not added since selling them out would be no problem. Many years in FL during holidays even peak FL travel season every flt was oversold and denied boardings taken....4-6 per flt.....then free tixs were given out to these folks....

 

[Hope777]

I did notice that this past weekend we had several charters up to Green Bay from CLT. One was the Panthers, but there were a few others. I'm sure we made more money from the Agency that Chartered the aircraft then if we tried to sell the seats on our own.

 

[chipmunn]

The company is not on a suicide mission and there is more to just putting a flight on a segement for a specific event.

Chip

 

[UAL777flyer]

I'm not sure how US Airways handles this. But at UA, there is a dedicated group within my department who strictly handle weekend, holiday and charter flying, looking for every opportunity to cancel weak performers on the weekends and allocate the aircraft to markets that need extra lift. As for possibly selling out an A330, that doesn't mean the flight would even cover cash. One of the biggest misconceptions in this industry is that if a flight is full it is making money. That is certainly not true. And if added flights are not generating cash for the airline, they shouldn't get added. Because you're sourcing the aircraft from other places. So when you factor in canceling a weak flight on a saturday and sourcing the aircraft for an upgauge somewhere else, the flight must generate enough cash to make the whole thing worthwhile.

It's very easy to criticize scheduling or other departments for something like this. But it is not as easy as it seems. Trust me, I deal with it each and every day. It's an extremely complex process involving MANY variables and lots of analysis. Unless you have a good understanding of how schedulers/route planners do their job, I think it's unfair to lay blame. It would be akin to someone in Human Resources criticizing how a pilot flew an approach.