Post from the Southwest board

[Dea Certe]

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On 6/5/2003 433 PM TomBascom wrote:

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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"...

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Tom,

I''m afraid I''m inclined to agree with you. And frankly, there''s only so much the front line can do to smooth the ruffled feathers.

Thank you for your business and I hope you will continue to contact our management to express your dissatisfaction. It seems Dave doesn''t listen to us employees but I hope he will hear you and the other customers, the ones who spend their time and money on US Airways.


Dea

 

[rvolkcpa]

We live in Sussex County, NJ and prefer to fly from ABE over EWR. The drive to ABE is 75 minutes, vs an hour to EWR, but the parking and airport experience make it worthwhile.

US and DL both had nonstops to MCO. The US flights appeared to always be full. Both were dropped after 9/11, and now SouthEAST operates to Sanford, Fort Lauderdale and St Pete 5 days per week.

I can''t see much passenger interest in connecting SW flights via BWI, but I do believe that there would be enough traffic at ABE to justify several nonstops to Florida and Midway. I assume that SW offers significant connecting opportunites to the west coast at Midway, which would challenge current UA, US, DL, NW and CO service at ABE.

I would hate to see a Southwest invasion happen to the terrific US employees at ABE, but from a passenger''s perspective it would be great.

 

[wings396]

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On 6/6/2003 7:39:49 AM rvolkcpa wrote:

We live in Sussex County, NJ and prefer to fly from ABE over EWR. The drive to ABE is 75 minutes, vs an hour to EWR, but the parking and airport experience make it worthwhile.

US and DL both had nonstops to MCO. The US flights appeared to always be full. Both were dropped after 9/11, and now SouthEAST operates to Sanford, Fort Lauderdale and St Pete 5 days per week.

I can''t see much passenger interest in connecting SW flights via BWI, but I do believe that there would be enough traffic at ABE to justify several nonstops to Florida and Midway. I assume that SW offers significant connecting opportunites to the west coast at Midway, which would challenge current UA, US, DL, NW and CO service at ABE.

I would hate to see a Southwest invasion happen to the terrific US employees at ABE, but from a passenger''s perspective it would be great.



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You are correct about the MCO service. DL pulled theirs, while US kept it up for a few more months. PA was also running their Sanford flights, but they left as well. This left US the entire MCO market, with people driving in from miles away. But this was not enough to keep it going, so US pulled the plug and now as you said Southeast is hauling all of those passengers that we didn''t need. It is this train of thought that continues to cause us to lose marketshare by the day. It is the same deal, no matter what station it is. US had they only mainline service in many small markets that gave us an edge over the others with props and RJ''s...now we are just like the rest with no competitive edge...and yes there were some very good loads with high yeilds on mainline flights from small outstations.

 

[Pacemaker]

I agree we''re "helpless" either because they want to be for some ulterior motive, or more likely because they don''t know any other way. It''s endemic. It doesn''t have to be this way but it is.

 

[mga707]

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On 6/6/2003 7:39:49 AM rvolkcpa wrote:

I can''t see much passenger interest in connecting SW flights via BWI, but I do believe that there would be enough traffic at ABE to justify several nonstops to Florida and Midway. I assume that SW offers significant connecting opportunites to the west coast at Midway, which would challenge current UA, US, DL, NW and CO service at ABE.
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On the thread over on the WN board that launched this tangental thread, the main argument against Herb starting ABE service is its too-close proximity to BWI.
You are correct in your MDW/West Coast assumption--currently there are WN nonstops to SAN, LAX, OAK and SEA, as well as (of course) LAS and PHX.
As a westerner, I''d much rather see WN start COS and/or FAT (two other long-rumored ''short list'' cities), but they do seem to have this current East Coast fixation...

 

[mga707]

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On 6/5/2003 3:27:03 PM wings396 wrote:

I see that DL is stepping up to the plate with MD-88 equipment from ATL-MYR to compete with Hooters Air...----------------​

Hmmm...somehow I think Delta is missing the point here as far as what differentiates their product from Hooters--both ''points'', in fact...

 

[mga707]

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On 6/5/2003 8:52:35 AM PineyBob wrote:


As A loyal US Cockroach I have heard ABE, ORF, BUF & GRR as the "next" site for SWA to invade. All kinda make sense. ----------------​

FYI: BUF and ORF have already been sucessfully "invaded", in '00 and '01 respectively.

 

[Hello Newman]

And the markets we don''t leave continue to suffer
from our declining service levels....