insp89,
Trying to predict what mweiss will say here....
I think it'll be a long time before fuel hedges are WN's only advantage. While there are offsetting advantages the legacies are reaching (pay, primarily), WN will still have the advantage of a single fleet type, rapid turn, high utilization business model. That'll be awfully hard for a legacy to duplicate.
Examples...
Pitot training - WN pilots generally go to A/C initial training twice in their career, when hired and when upgrading to captain. We have more than a few pilots going to initial twice a year. Each time is a month (or more) of pay with zero productivity (ASM's produced).
Utilization - even with the extensive long haul high utilization international operations of the big legacy carriers, they get less utilization out of the airplanes per day than WN does flying mostly short haul domestic.
Turn times (which contribute to utilization) - DL's new ATL schedules call for 50 minute turns (according to media reports). Mostly the same for our transformation plan (possible exception is the 737 at spoke cities where 35 is the minimum, but not necessarily the scheduled). WN turns their planes in about 35 minutes max.
One final advantage WN has is RASM, which seems odd because theirs is low compared to the legacies. But consider why it's low when their yield is pretty comparible to the legacies (4Q04 it was higher than U) - load factor. WN seems content to achieve a roughly 60-75% average LF depending on time of year. That means it's fairly easy for them to raise RASM if they need to by cutting back capacity on specific routes, primarily by reducing frequencies).
Jim
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