Post from the Southwest board

[wings396]

I hate to paste stuff from another airlines board, but this further proves how we leave good markets and SWA swoops in to fill the void.



wnbubbleboy
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Total Posts: 17
Last Post: 6/5/2003
Member Since: 8/21/2002
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Has anyone else heard the rumor that Allentown is our next city that we are headed to? We are hearing this at BWI. I have heard rumours before some were true like BUF/ORF. Could this be as well?

 

[Hope777]

Piney, they might not all drive from Phl, but I''m sure they will drive right down route 78 from Central/Western Jersey. EWR-ABE down 78 is only a 45 minute or so drive! I''m sure ALL airlines in EWR will feel the WN effect.

 

[wings396]

Bob, they will drive from PHL in a second. A lot of passengers already make the trip from the PHL outskirts to ABE due to the convienent access to the airport. If Southwest shows up at ABE, they will draw off both EWR & PHL at the same time. Please note that passengers from the MDT area are taking the drive to BWI for Southwest already. Some of the people from the MDT, AVP areas will come to ABE for Southwest service as well. It could be a potential goldmine for Southwest at ABE. There is a very large area that they can draw from, which most of is heavily populated. US Airways has been fully aware that Southwest may invade ABE at any time, but sad to say they have no defense in place. It will put a traffic drain on PHL worse than they could have ever imagined...more lost revenue due to a lack of a solid business plan. We didn''t really need all of those passengers anyway.

 

[nycbusdriver]

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On 6/5/2003 10:34:45 AM Pacemaker wrote:

US Airways is as helpless and defenseless with a cost structure @ 10 cents ASM as we were at 13.5 cents. The obvious plan is to continue outsourcing as much work as possible to UAL, Start Alliance partners, and a big chunk to Express. The term "mainline" almost sounds like a joke around here anymore.

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It appears that "mainline" USAirways will be little more than a glorified travel agency before all is said and done.

 

[Pacemaker]

US Airways is as helpless and defenseless with a cost structure @ 10 cents ASM as we were at 13.5 cents. The obvious plan is to continue outsourcing as much work as possible to UAL, Start Alliance partners, and a big chunk to Express. The term "mainline" almost sounds like a joke around here anymore.

 

[gilbertguy]

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On 6/5/2003 10:34:45 AM Pacemaker wrote:

US Airways is as helpless and defenseless with a cost structure @ 10 cents ASM as we were at 13.5 cents. The obvious plan is to continue outsourcing as much work as possible to UAL, Start Alliance partners, and a big chunk to Express. The term "mainline" almost sounds like a joke around here anymore.

And yet we continue to lose money....or is this the ultimate goal of this management, to position US for some grand scheme.....

 

[TomBascom]

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On 6/5/2003 10:34:45 AM Pacemaker wrote:

US Airways is as helpless and defenseless with a cost structure @ 10 cents ASM as we were at 13.5 cents. The obvious plan is to continue outsourcing as much work as possible to UAL, Start Alliance partners, and a big chunk to Express. The term "mainline" almost sounds like a joke around here anymore.
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This is completely untrue. You have defenses -- there are significant marketable differences between US & SWA that are not being exploited by the genius in marketing. Many others cannot be exploited even if he were so inclined because they are effectively canceled by entrenched customer hostile ticketing and fare rules.

 

[wings396]

You are correct, we could go head to head with SWA and survive. We offer a broader system network along with the FF program as well as the codeshare with UA. But this company has chosen to run away instead..guess what you can only be run out of so may stations before nothing is left. I see that DL is stepping up to the plate with MD-88 equipment from ATL-MYR to compete with Hooters Air...we will either skip town or bring on the big bad RJ threat.

 

[Dea Certe]

We handed the West Coast to SWA on a silver platter back in the early ''90''s. Remember Project Highground?

Anyone else remember Herb K''s interview with Larry King? When asked what three things were most responsible for Southwest''s amazing growth Herb said : US Air, US Air and US Air!

Just how far can we retreat into our "core market" before we fold completely?

In another thread, Dave S supposedly said Ben Baldanza was the best in the business. Best at what? I''m serious.

Dea

 

[TomBascom]

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On 6/5/2003 3:32:30 PM Dea Certe wrote:
In another thread, Dave S supposedly said Ben Baldanza was the best in the business. Best at what? I''m serious.
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He''s got a lock on "best at pissing off customers"...

 

[wings396]

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On 6/5/2003 3:32:30 PM Dea Certe wrote:

We handed the West Coast to SWA on a silver platter back in the early ''90''s. Remember Project Highground?

Anyone else remember Herb K''s interview with Larry King? When asked what three things were most responsible for Southwest''s amazing growth Herb said : US Air, US Air and US Air!

Just how far can we retreat into our "core market" before we fold completely?

In another thread, Dave S supposedly said Ben Baldanza was the best in the business. Best at what? I''m serious.

Dea

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We continue to hand SWA our core markets....ISP was a big one, but we just figured all of our loyals would drvie to LGA...Wrong...then the BWI Blunder,but they will fly us from DCA...Wrong again...Now we are about to hand ABE to them on a silver platter...OH Yes, our loyals will drive to PHL to stay on US....Wrong again. Southwest will be #1 in many of our core NE markets very soon. The invasion has been mapped out for years and is underway....our answer...lots of RJ''s, that will show them who is king here.

 

[atoguy]

SWA is talking about ABE...I know people here in BWI who work for SWA. Some former US employees. As for the drive. People from PHL are driving to BWI for the fares. We could have kept alot here. Especially the BOS service. Airtran started that as soon as we dropped it. They also started NAS outta here. We have given everything away at BWI. All the service we had here, LAX,SFO,BDA,YYZ,BOS,SEA, all full but now gone.

 

[wings396]

Silly you, who needs all of those pesky full flights..not us, we just establish the market and then vacate it so the competition can take over. We had full MCO flights and dropped them because we could not make a profit. Now a competitor operates them instead. One would hope and think that with
our reduced costs that we could now make a go of it. At some point we are going to have to stop handing everthing away, as there is not much left to give up anymore.

 

[wings396]

On the same note, some may recall how PI dealt with the start-up of PE. They went head to head offering more perks for the same fare. In the end PI ran PE out of many markets...too bad we don''t have those guys doing the thinking for us anymore..it would have done a lot of good over the past 13 years. US has no clue what it means to defend your turf...only to retreat ASAP before they get us.

 

[fr8tmastr]

I work for ALG and used to be based in ABE until this month when they closed it. We carry alot of people to and from PHL. The old dash more often than not was at least 70 to 80% full. And many times 100% for the peak times. Letting ABE go so Southwest will be a huge mistake.