November Traffic Up

[N628AU]

Well, the company has reported traffic is up 8.3% on 1.6% less capacity. The most interesting thing is there was not the standard blurb from BBB about "leisure traffic remaining strong and business traffic continuing to lag behind." I have no idea what this means, but I am always nervous when the company strays from the usual.

What are the chances that the company is pretty silent on this, like the results of A/C 700's maintenance visit, because upper management was wrong?

 

[iflyjetz]

Congrats to U's employees on great numbers. Sounds like the industry is finally starting to turn.
All the best for U in 2004.

 

[thepoohbear]

Why do the morons running this thing continue to say the glass is half empty...if you know what I mean? We used to have flights go totally full out of my city , only to be discontinued because we could improve the loads. Ever hear of adding capacity.The company no longer has the BALLS to fight the competition for our passengers. Go head to head with them. Instead they want to make us a division to be sold off.All of the employees left and the ones who have been furloughed made this company what it was.Just to have the MGMT piss away the moneyand our futures.

 

[PITbull]

Management will not admit that the industry is improving, and so is the economy in general. They are hoping to keep the majority of the employees in the "darK' with their doom and gloom speeches on the hotlines every Friday, so they can bleed more from the employees. This way, if they get their costs even lower, they never have to worry about competing, because we will have the lowest labor costs in the industry with the continued demand of concessions.

I said this a long time ago, and I will say it again.....this was all about "busting the unions". Sure, there needed some modifications to all the agreements after 9/11 and the slump in traffic. But the economy is rebounding, and the concessions should have been just for a few years. WE gave an enormous amount, some things are now permanent (furloughs, medical, reserve system, sick pay penalites, pensions terminated etc), and we were not even in Section 6.

This was all about creating division among the ranks, groups, and union to union, across the entire industry. Hell, AFA had to merge to survive.

I dare someone to say now that there was not an attempt to bust us all from these hired outside "busters".

 

[USA320Pilot]

This week's airline industry revenue news is interesting with two of the strongest LCC's, Southwest and JetBlue, pre-announcing lower numbers and Continental suggesting to analysts that fourth quarter earnings are unlikely to meet First Call consensus estimates.

Meanwhile, US Airways reported its November 2003 passenger traffic last Thursday and it was better than expected. The Arlington-based airline said its mainline revenue passenger miles for November 2003 increased 8.3 percent on a 1.6 percent drop in available seat miles compared to November 2002. The passenger load factor was 72.6 percent, a 6.7 percentage point increase compared to November 2002.

In a prepared statement US Airways' Senior Vice President of Marketing and Planning Ben Baldanza said, “The demand for air travel in November was very strong, especially over the Thanksgiving holiday, when we ran a near-perfect operation. Although we are somewhat encouraged by these results, we must stay focused on finding ways to further reduce unit costs as this volume of traffic is driven primarily through low fares."

What's interesting is that analysts believe the probability that the Southwest, JetBlue, and Continental issues are "completely isolated is low and are therefore reducing earnings across the board for both the fourth quarter and 2004."

Furthermore, the analysts had hoped for significant strength in the holiday period, but it now appears that the industry is less confident in current revenue trends, however, why was US Airways a November exception?

Regards,

Chip

 

[ITRADE]

I wonder if part of the YOY calculus for this year is partially dependent upon the fact that the Thanksgiving 2002 season saw November 30 on a Saturday - cutting off the busy Sunday - whereas Thanksgiving 2003 was wholly captured by the November calendar.

 

[GadgetFreak]

Im a little surprised to see a discussion about low fares here. In my experience coming out of LGA the fares on US are often very high. The worst I have seen is more than 6 times as high on US. And I dont fly LCCs, Im comparing to UA and especially AA. I have passed on several flights in the last few months on US due to fares. I have thought for a long time that the problem with fares is twofold, some are way to low and some are way to high. I think US really needs to consider dropping the standard Y fares (I think to few people use them) and raising the discount fares so that the net would be a lot fewer fares. They should then price that at a slight to moderate premium over the LCCs and provide better service. What I see now is cutting service to approach that of the LCCs and really high fares. That cant work. I know I have ranted somewhat about this before but someone in management has to look at the competition in terms of both service and fares. When AA is offering non-stops from JFK-LAX for $300 in coach and US is $2200 in coach with a connection they arent going to sell a lot of those $2200 tickets. Oh, and at the same time AA was offering JFK-LAX for about $900 for restricted first class. US management really needs to maybe check out their competitors on occassion.

 

[BoeingBoy]

ITrade,

You are right - the year over year comparisons for November were affected by Thanksgiving Sunday being in November this year vs in December last year.

Chip,

Why do you say U was a November exception? Our mainline traffic was up 8.3%, but Express division was down 10.4%. CAL was up 8.7 without breaking out express. Looking thru the traffic reports, some airlines reported Express separately, some did not. Without all the facts it's hard to make a comparison.

 

[USA320Pilot]

BoeingBoy:

BoeingBoy asked; Why do you say U was a November exception?

Chip answers: When this post was made, the only companies to discuss the data were Southwest, JetBlue, & Continental. All three indicated lower numbers, but US Airways indicated higher numbers. Thus, the exception to the four airlines discussed.

Regards,

Chip

 

[BoeingBoy]

Chip,

Just wondered since by the 8th all of the big airlines had reported November numbers - actually by the 2nd or 3rd.

I did see where CAL, LUV, & JBLU discussed the 4th quarter outlook but didn't see U's forecast anywhere.

ITrade's comments on Thanksgiving Sunday making November look better year over year also illustrate why December won't look as good - though the improving economy will mask some of it.

Jim