On The Whole, They'd Rather Fly From Philadelphia

[MarkMyWords]

I can't believe I'd ever see the day that people would actually drive from NYC to PHL for a better fare! LOL


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/nyregion/13fly.html

 

[Bear96]

... people think they are the cheapest when in fact they are the price leader about one quarter of the time....

[post="255109"][/post]​

Bob, you have quoted that statistic before.

I have a question for you. Is there any other single airline that is the "price leader" MORE than 25% of the time? In other words, is any other airline the cheapest more often than WN?

Saying they are the cheapest "only" 25% of the time is really quite meaningless without some context. If they are the cheapest most often (i.e., any other single airline is the cheapest LESS than 25% of the time), then it sounds like it is fair to describe them as a price leader more often than any other airline. No?

 

[700UW]

WN carriers more passengers then anyother airline in the US.

 

[BoeingBoy]

WN carriers more passengers then anyother airline in the US.

[post="255113"][/post]​

700UW,

Only a slight correction....

WN enplanes more domestic passengers than any other airline. If international passengers were included, WN would drop several spots in the rankings.

Air Transport World does a monthly ranking by RPM's (kilometers instead of miles, actually). In that listing WN is the #6 U.S. carrier (a little over 1/3 the RPM's of AMR). We're #7 of the U.S. carriers.

Jim

 

[TechBoy]

Proof positive the the "Southwest Effect" is a real thing! It is really amazing how quickly the average person can be duped by Marketing and an image.

[post="255109"][/post]​

I think you're missing who's duping whom, Piney. It's the legacies who have been duping their customers for years by charging extortion fares for last minute purchases. The fact that WN is sometimes 10 or 20% higher that the lowest legacy on advanced purchase fares pales in comparison to the 400 to 500% more that the legacies charge for last minute fares.

As a customer, I'm not interested in an airline without F either, but to suggest that WN dupes their customers is ludicrous. They go to WN because they know that they will not be screwed. They may not always get the best fares, but they never get shafted. Not to mention that for a non-VFF, their FF program is quite good.

Like you, I will stick with a legacy (UA in my case) as long as the legacies have such a surplus of F seats that they give them away to VFFs on cheap fares. Of course, if the legacies were building their fleets (and marketing) today, they would probably have half the F seats that they do. But they are generally stuck with this problem as the first one that significantly cuts the number of F seats will lose their best FFers to another legacy. Yet another reason why the LCCs will keep winning market share.

 

[Bear96]

It was from an article that was published in the SP Times. I think I have the full copy of the Excel spreadsheets used to compile the report which was a snapshot in time of a 2 week period. I would send it to you but I don't have the authors permission. You might try searching the SP Times for articles by Steve Huettel (Hope I spelled his name right) as he was the author of the piece. It got  SW's attention as their response was quite terse and defensive IMO.

[post="255119"][/post]​

I'm not disputing the statistic that WN is the cheapest about 25% of the time. I am having problems with how you use it to claim that WN is NOT a leader in low fares. It seems to show just the opposite (unless, as I mentioned, you are saying that another airline is the cheapest more than 25% of the time -- and if so, which one?).

Let me try to put it this way. If WN is the cheapest "only" 25% of the time (and I'll accept that as true for purposes of this discussion), and any other given airline is cheaper somewhat less than 25% of the time (which appears to be the case), then on a random city pair, WN has a greater chance than any other given airline of being the cheapest.

(BTW, what is SP Times? What does SP stand for?)

 

[BoeingBoy]

Yield Management is a FAILURE in the current market.

[post="255156"][/post]​

I'll be the first to admit to not being an expert on yield management, but it seems to me you misunderstand what it is supposed to do.

The purpose of yield management is to sell the fewest number of low fare seats possible - something WN does very well as you yourself say. Yield management is very successful for them.

Throwing lots of low fare seats into the market is not yield management. Call it desperation, call it trying to stay afloat, call it anything else you want.

Jim

 

[whlinder]

Here is a link to the story that Bob claims 'proves' Southwest has the lowest fares only 26% of the time:

Link

Neverminding the fact that the SWA full fare @ $598 is pretty much unrestricted while US's $425 ticket have more rules than a schoolhouse full of nuns.

Please explain the restrictions on US' $425 fare and why there are so many of them.

 

[usairways_vote_NO]

The number of customers willing to pay for BloFares is no enough to offset the Fact is that if you and I had to get to LAX TODAY from PHL on SWA it would be $598.00, service would be what it is. US will charge between 1,078.00 and $1,218.00 depending on departure. This creates the perception that US is to high priced and in this case they are.

[post="255156"][/post]​

Actually depends on what side of fence you are on. You are seeing it from consumer side (USAirways too high priced) but USAirways employees who's table need to be set may see it as Southwest too low priced. Wonder where CCY sees it?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Bob,

Let me amend the last part of my post above....

Where U (and other legacies) fail is in inventory management (for lack of a better term) and pricing. Can't sell enough seats at what you call BloFares (the pricing part) so have excess inventory. Rather than see that inventory go to waste, they throw low fares out in order to get something rather than nothing for those seats. Voila, WN often has higher prices (but not BloFares).

Jim

 

[usairways_vote_NO]

I would if I could, LOL and I guess that's the point. You tell me what this means to a customer? then look below at SWA's rules.

Anyone notice a difference?

[post="255165"][/post]​

Let me guess the difference is Southwests is OW and USAirways is RT?

Actually that is a disgusting display of garbage on USAirways part.

 

[usairways_vote_NO]

And for UVN's point regarding airfares and wages. Might I remind you that SWA employees are generally well compensated.

[post="255169"][/post]​

That is true though isn't Southwest's labor force more junior and not topped out? But anyway Southwest isn't USAirways as you have have so many times pointed out. I neglected to insert "USAirways" as the employees which I was referring to as needed to set their table, after all we are on USAirways thread, I did edit my original post to reflect that. Thank you for pointing it out.

 

[whlinder]

You'll find that 'garbage' on any fare from any carrier in a GDS. It is probably worse for US than for a LCC. The problem is how it is presented. No customer can be expected to know that stuff. However, agents should be good at it.

The only part that really matters to the customer is whether or not the ticket is refundable, and whether or not there is a charge for changing the ticket. US needs to present this is a much better, easy to understand format. The rest of that garbage is basically meaningless to the customer unless they want to know how and why fares price the way they do.

Tell me whether or not this is easy to understand:

Fare details for D14TWS

ADVANCE PURCHASE SPECIAL FARE FARE

BK CODE

D -



PENALTY

CANCELLATIONS BEFORE DEPARTURE TICKET IS NON-REFUNDABLE. NOTE - CANCELLATIONS MUST BE MADE PRIOR TO SCHEDULED DEPARTURE TIME AND WILL BE SUBJECT TO A 25.00 USD FEE PER PASSENGER WITH THE REMAINING BALANCE APPLIED AS A CREDIT FOR TRAVEL ON XX WITHIN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS. CHANGES BEFORE DEPARTURE CHARGE USD 25.00 FOR REISSUE/REVALIDATION. NOTE - CHANGES MUST BE MADE PRIOR TO SCHEDULED DEPARTURE TIME AND WILL RESULT IN A 25.00 USD FEE PER PASSENGER PLUS ANY DIFFERENCE IN THE APPLICABLE REBOOKED FARE. IF THE NEW FARE IS LOWER EXCESS FUNDS CAN BE USED FOR TRAVEL ON XX WITHIN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS



RES/TKTG

RES MUST BE MADE AND TKT PURCHASED 14 DAYS BEFORE DPTR. SGMTS USING THIS RULE MUST MEET ADV TKTG. SGMTS USING THIS RULE MUST BE CONFIRMED.



DAY/TIME

APPLIES AT ANY TIME TUE/WED/SAT.



SEASONS

NO SEASON RESTRICTIONS APPLY.



BLACKOUTS

NO BLACKOUT RESTRICTIONS APPLY.



FLT APPL

APPLIES TO ANY XX FLIGHT TO/FROM XXX.



STOPOVERS

NO ENROUTE STOPOVERS PERMITTED. A STOPOVER OCCURS WHEN THE PASSENGER DOES NOT DEPART AN INTERMEDIATE POINT WITHIN 4 HOURS.



TICKET RESTRICTIONS

NO SALES RESTRICTION APPLY.



DISCOUNTS

NO FARE IS CHARGED FOR AN INF PSGR UNDER 2 YRS OF AGE NOT OCCUPYING A SEAT. INF PSGR MUST BE ACCOMPANIED ON ALL SGMTS BY AN ADT PSGR TRAVELING IN THE SAME COMPARTMENT.



REROUTE

SEE PENALTY.



TRANSFERS

UNLIMITED TRANSFERS AS PERMITTED ON THE ROUTING.



COMBINATIONS

CONDITIONS APPLICABLE TO CIRCLE TRIP/SINGLE OR DOUBLE OPEN JAW - -ALL TRAVEL MUST BE ENTIRELY VIA XX. -MAY BE COMBINED WITH ANY ONE WAY/ROUND TRIP FARE GOVERNED BY ANY RULE IN ANY TARIFF. -MOST RESTRICTIVE CONDITIONS APPLY. ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS APPLY CIRCLE TRIP - -PERMITTED. -UNLIMITED FARE BREAKS/STOPOVERS PERMITTED. OPEN JAW - -SINGLE OPEN JAW PERMITTED AT EITHER ORIGIN OR DESTINATION. DOUBLE OPEN JAW PERMITTED. END-ON-END - -PERMITTED WITH ALL XX FARES. -CONDITIONS APPLY TO ALL FARE COMPONENTS OF THE JOURNEY. -TRAVEL MUST BE VIA THE FARE COMBINATION POINT.



REFUNDS

SEE PENALTY.



CO-TERMINALS

NOT APPLICABLE.

---------------------------------------------------------

Now I've edited out the carrier that owns this fare. Tell me who you think it belongs to.

BTW, you used to be able to buy WN tickets on itn.net before they changed their format. The rules to WN's fares looked just as complicated. What WN does is present their rules in easy to read format. The real rules are similar in presentation to the ones you posted for US. US needs to present easier to understand rules, and could certainly simplify them, but in that format it will be a LONG time before it is cleaned up and easy to read.

 

[usairways_vote_NO]

No UVN I'm not USA320, both are for R/T travel which since I originally got on line was @ $425 on US it is now $878 while SWA's is still $598.00 well actually $618 with taxes. Same as it will be tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that on and on so forth and so on.

To be fair to US most other legacy carriers fare rules are very similar.

[post="255171"][/post]​

I didn't say you were 320 did I?

I wasn't commenting on what you paid. I thought you asked what the difference was between the rules that you posted were.

After quick glance at Southwests I noticed it said it was one way.

Now for SWA's rules -

Southwest Airlines Fares (YL)
Refundable Any Time:
One-way fare

Well I wasn't sure what USAirways rules said and wasn't going to wade through it so I took a stab at the difference was OW and RT .

 

[whlinder]

BUT, SWA's yield management is based on a totally different pricing model than ones at a legacy carrier. I failed to be clear on that. It's like Art says, "It's the fares Stupid"

[post="255169"][/post]​

Their yield management is based on a different pricing model because the pricing model is based on a different operations model. Simple. Everything with WN is simple. This is how they can pay their employees more because they need fewer of them.

US and the legacies on the other hand are more complicated in their operations. F class. International. Service to small cities. Interline agreements. Codeshares. Alliances. Fancy loyalty programs. A more complicated operations model costs more, and thus needs to generate revenue to cover those costs. It was done through more complicated pricing/yield management and it worked when the economy was good and LCCs weren't on virtually every market. But now times have changed, and of course the legacies are slow to adapt because change in this industry is measured in years instead of months. They have to figure out how to generate sufficient revenue from the additional costs they incur as part of having more complicated operations. Crying 'Its the fares!' as a solution for all of the industry's problems is a very narrow view. Change has to occur in pricing philosophy without a doubt, but pricing is a component of necessary change across several aspects of the operation. Pricing is tied to marketing and revenue accounting and codeshare agreements and scheduling.

US cannot continue with their complicated operation by charging WN fares. It will not work. You and FFOCUS have management's ear. Tell them what you are willing to pay for F. For being able to fly to Boise on UA. For the ability to redeem your miles to fly to South Africa. For how US will put you on DL or AA if they cancel a flight. Changing fares and rules are easy. Figuring out what to change them to in order to make money is not.