You see, you're the type of passenger that CCY says isnt flying. (You just arent flying US is the problem. :blink: ) They dont seem to understand that for every $400 one way person they are losing or who they say isnt flying, they could be getting SOMETHING, if the difference werent so outrageous. There has to be a happy middle ground somewhere between an advance purchase roundtip 7 day and a walkup. How many people (even not business people) have to make plans in less than 7 days, but are forced away from US because there often isnt an alternative to cheap or expensive only? :angry:pk45cu said:
Us Airways Announces 'gofares,'
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Light Years
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So who is doing the car washing and such?
You're kidding about the "they don't have enough people in CCY to update all of the thousands of published fares" part, right? Most of the fares in the "first phase" have all been in the system since Southwest announced their initial cities in February, while the "second phase" fares showed up in March, right after WN announced its second phase of expansion at PHL. Amazingly, it took less than a day to get the new fares in the system in response to Southwest's announcement each time. And even if it took an entire week to update the two dozen or so fares in each of the six markets announced as part of the second phase of the GoFares initiative, they'd still have an extra two weeks left over in late June/early July to go on vacation after all that work. And clearly, if there were to be an attempt to revamp the fare structure systemwide, the company would have said something along the lines of "we will continue to roll out GoFares across our entire system" instead of "in other markets." The "in other markets" part, at least to me, implies that they're going to look at the effect WN has in its connecting markets and/or what new non-stop markets they add and then match fares as necessary.USFlyer said:
I saw the headline of the press release this morning and thought to myself, "Did they really go ahead and fix the fare structure systemwide?" I was a bit disappointed by the limited scope (since it's nothing beyond what's been available in terms of fares to WN's markets) but I did see a positive sign in the company actually doing some marketing and promotion of itself. At least people in Philadelphia will know that US will be offering competitive fares and hopefully the marketing campaign (which seems a bit reminiscent of UAL's initial Ted campaign in Denver) will generate good will and lead to increased bookings for the company. And that's the bright spot in this promotion as far as I see it -- that US Airways might actually be doing some effective marketing for once.
This move will not "send shock waves throughout the industry" as some would believe because it is so very limited in scope. The actual fares aren't new and they only apply to a dozen or so WN routes out of PHL. As ClueByFour said, "[t]his is nothing more than matching LUV." But I'll give the company the benefit of the doubt for now; maybe they will roll out a rationalized fare structure that applies to non-WN markets in the coming weeks or months. Otherwise this is just a BWI redux, with the primary difference being that WN is building up faster this time.
huh?Doc said:
What Star Alliance airlines are publishing fares from PHL to PVD, other than "US Airway's codeshare partner United"? And UA/US cannot discuss pricing.
This is just matching WN and making a big deal about it, as others have mentioned. Just because US lowered their PHL-PVD fares doesn't mean that they are going to lower their PVD-WAW fares because one segment of PVD-PHL-FRA-WAW is on a route they lowered fares on.
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Fares can be updated pretty damn quickly even though US has a large number of fares; revising all the rule provisions in all those fares is what takes forever.
usramperTPA
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Good start, hope the company folows through on this.
This all seems like "Much to do about Nothing".
US Airways is matching LUV fares, and that's a good thing. US Airways must be competitive. And the fact that they are trying to do some marketing with it is also good...
But, if US Airways does not extend this to other hubs, or even non-LCC markets from PHL, it will only be a matter of time until a LCC enters the market.
For example... PHL-MKE. No LCC, probably not part of GoFares. But I can see a scenario where AirTran adds the route, or Midwest becomes a low-fare carrier over time.
Until US Airways goes to a simplied system-wide low-fare model, they are simply inviting LCC's to each market, one market (usually the next highest price market) at a time.
By the way... a low-fare pricing model does not mean lowering the price on every seat... When AWA did it, they RAISED their lowest junk fares, revenue manage them so they are harder to get, while lowering their highest fares. The combination of these two items raised the average fare level. That is what US Airways needs to do... Not to necessarily be the lowest price guy every day all the time. Southwest is often not the lowest price carrier, especially 21-days or more in advance. Several times, I have tried to get a Southwest deal where Southwest was sold out at $99 each way, but the other carriers matched and had seats available at the $99 fare.
US Airways is matching LUV fares, and that's a good thing. US Airways must be competitive. And the fact that they are trying to do some marketing with it is also good...
But, if US Airways does not extend this to other hubs, or even non-LCC markets from PHL, it will only be a matter of time until a LCC enters the market.
For example... PHL-MKE. No LCC, probably not part of GoFares. But I can see a scenario where AirTran adds the route, or Midwest becomes a low-fare carrier over time.
Until US Airways goes to a simplied system-wide low-fare model, they are simply inviting LCC's to each market, one market (usually the next highest price market) at a time.
By the way... a low-fare pricing model does not mean lowering the price on every seat... When AWA did it, they RAISED their lowest junk fares, revenue manage them so they are harder to get, while lowering their highest fares. The combination of these two items raised the average fare level. That is what US Airways needs to do... Not to necessarily be the lowest price guy every day all the time. Southwest is often not the lowest price carrier, especially 21-days or more in advance. Several times, I have tried to get a Southwest deal where Southwest was sold out at $99 each way, but the other carriers matched and had seats available at the $99 fare.
BoeingBoy
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US Airways digs in to fight Southwest in Phila.
Reuters, 04.29.04, 6:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - US Airways (nasdaq: UAIR - news - people) unveiled one-way fares as low as $29 from Philadelphia on Thursday to counter the toughest challenge from a single competitor in its struggle to survive.
Article
Jim
PS - some excerpts in line with what others have said in this thread...
"But Wall Street analysts, who have said US Airways has to lower fares to compete, were underwhelmed by the change. They said the move was superficial compared to fare changes at other airlines in recent years."
"Jamie Baker of J.P. Morgan called the new fares "limited in scope" and in many cases "meaningfully higher" than those offered by Southwest. "Fare reform this isn't," Baker wrote in a research note."
Reuters, 04.29.04, 6:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - US Airways (nasdaq: UAIR - news - people) unveiled one-way fares as low as $29 from Philadelphia on Thursday to counter the toughest challenge from a single competitor in its struggle to survive.
Article
Jim
PS - some excerpts in line with what others have said in this thread...
"But Wall Street analysts, who have said US Airways has to lower fares to compete, were underwhelmed by the change. They said the move was superficial compared to fare changes at other airlines in recent years."
"Jamie Baker of J.P. Morgan called the new fares "limited in scope" and in many cases "meaningfully higher" than those offered by Southwest. "Fare reform this isn't," Baker wrote in a research note."
I wonder if US Airways entry into the Star Alliance is preventing the airline from restructuring its fares system-wide? I would have to think that US Airways would not be allowed to remain in the alliance if it undercut all UAL's fares... When AWA announced its new fare structure, Continental dropped their code-share within 1 day.
Thus by practice or unspoken rule, they are "not allowed" to restructure fares comprehensively.
Thus by practice or unspoken rule, they are "not allowed" to restructure fares comprehensively.
ringmaruf
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I don't think that's a problem. Spanair and BMI both have fare structures that are considerably more "reasonable" than Lufthansa or Austrian, for example.funguy2 said:
Yeah but Spanair doesn't fly transatlantic and BMI has what, 2 TATL flights? Plus they all own each other... LH owns part of SK, who owns JK and part of BD (I think this is right, I might be wrong please correct me if I am, but I am sure that SAS owns part of JK).ringmaruf said:
They don't exactly have the capacity to have a huge influence on TATL pricing. US Airways, on the other hand, does. *A might care if US revised their TATL pricing, and would probably be upset, especially since UA/LH have antitrust immunity TATL. If US went to an HP structure domestically, it would upset UA, as they would not want US selling their own flights too low. And since UA is basically the co-leader of *A with LH, it wouldn't be too smart to burn that bridge.
Plus, when it comes to private, negotiated multi-lateral fares, the Star carriers can set agreements together... and US could very easily get left out in the cold of some multi-million dollar contracts if they screw around with their public fares too much...
DOA@Airport
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Some excerpts not necessarily in line with what some in this thread have said:BoeingBoy said:
"Gary Chase of Lehman Brothers said in another research report the removal of Saturday night stays and round-trip requirements are important steps in deconstructing long time pricing barriers.
He also said broader change might be coming once the airline completes new cost reductions.
"We have to believe that the public nature of today's announcement will make it difficult for US Airways not to eventually include all of Philadelphia and other major markets in its restructuring," Chase said.
Baker also said he expects US Airways to take a more active approach to fare reform in the future. "
ringmaruf
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I don't think anyone is suggesting that US will change it's transatlantic pricing.whlinder said:
Frankly, I don't think there's much wrong with it.
It's a start. :unsure:
Long overdue, not really any different from what they've always done between any SWA city pairs and all that but at least it's a public statement that positive change is coming.
I'm not sure what it is that is simpler. Ok, the Sat night stay isn't required for these fares but are there still 30 fares being offered in each market? What about the rest of the rules & restrictions boilerplate? It's going to take some time to figure out...
They should deliberately not match SWA's very lowest fares. And make a point about it. A campaign along the lines of "No Bait and Switch -- Real Deals at Real Steals that you can actually buy!" coupled with a heavy emphasis on the premium aspects of US -- assigned seats, laptop power, an F cabin, customer friendly Airbii, connections to Smallville, the Caribbean and Europe. Big planes...
Didn't I also see somewhere in this stuff that they're starting to spread out traffic at PHL?
Long overdue, not really any different from what they've always done between any SWA city pairs and all that but at least it's a public statement that positive change is coming.
I'm not sure what it is that is simpler. Ok, the Sat night stay isn't required for these fares but are there still 30 fares being offered in each market? What about the rest of the rules & restrictions boilerplate? It's going to take some time to figure out...
They should deliberately not match SWA's very lowest fares. And make a point about it. A campaign along the lines of "No Bait and Switch -- Real Deals at Real Steals that you can actually buy!" coupled with a heavy emphasis on the premium aspects of US -- assigned seats, laptop power, an F cabin, customer friendly Airbii, connections to Smallville, the Caribbean and Europe. Big planes...
Didn't I also see somewhere in this stuff that they're starting to spread out traffic at PHL?
