does this plane go to paris
Senior
And to back up your logic, WN reported an increase of 8.8% in traffic for the month of Sept. Capacity fell from yoy, but load factor was up from 63.4% to 74.7%.
US Airways reports September traffic results
- Thread starter Justme
- Start date
And to back up your logic, WN reported an increase of 8.8% in traffic for the month of Sept. Capacity fell from yoy, but load factor was up from 63.4% to 74.7%.
Travelpro72
Veteran
- Jan 30, 2005
- 4,964
- 455
I keep hearing of load factors falling and it leave me scratching my head. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the absolute majority of my flights are full, full, full. Now I know we're not talking the "full doesn't equal profitable" subject but full is full. As for fees, I'm not a true fan of the nickel and diming but again....I don't see people booking away as flights are so damn full. Maybe express isn't full. It sure doesn't seem to be mainline. :blink:
Well, people don't want to pay "profitable" fares, they want to pay "great deal" fares.
"So screw them and raise fares anyway" is the common retort. Problem is, raising fares will simply cause many of them to not fly (or fly someone else who is desperate for whatever revenue they can attract).
As posted before, flights are full because airlines have lowered fares in a desperate attempt to maximize revenue, not because everyone is willing to pay whatever the airline wants.
In a different thread, BoeingBoy explained it perfectly. None of the legacies has enough of the higher-fare paying business travelers. All have some of them but none of the airlines has enough of them. Solution? Fewer legacy airlines.
Black Magic
Veteran
- Jan 4, 2008
- 937
- 553
The flights are full because they have cut flights or downsized the aircraft. Instead of having 5 flights a day to a destination they now have 2 or 3 as an example.
BoeingBoy
Veteran
- Nov 9, 2003
- 16,512
- 5,865
Maybe US is fibbing in their traffic release, but they reported a mainline load factor of 79.3% for September - down 0.8 percentage points from September 2008. Remember that the traffic figures only count revenue passengers, not award ticket holders or non-revs.
"Express" (really only PSA and PDT) load factor was 68.6%, up 4.4 percentage points from last year.
Jim
When figuring the load factor on PDT what is considered a full aircraft on the DH-8 100?
And when PSA does weight restriction how is that play into the statistic
BoeingBoy
Veteran
- Nov 9, 2003
- 16,512
- 5,865
Probably the same way that weight restrictions are treated for mainline - such as ATH-PHL when the 767 has weight restrictions. Load factor isn't the percentage of seats filled but rather revenue passenger miles divided by available seat miles. So any seats included in the available seat miles calculation would also be included in the load factor calculation.
Jim
Jim
What is the available seat mile on a DH8-200 and a PSA crj when the available seats can’t be used?
PSA is routinely weight restricted and PDT DH8-100 is weight restricted on every flight
Just wondering if that is taken into account
If Piedmont had 200's there wouldn't be seat restrictions. The problem stems from the fact that they use 100's.
vantheman63
Senior
I'll chime in here for the heck of it....
First off, if you are a "regular" business traveler, the odds are pretty good you aren't paying fees. If you are paying fees, it's the every once-in-a-while oddball trip outside of your carrier network. I know I have to check wine ALL the time....and I've never once paid to check it since the whole fee thing got going....and there's pretty much not an airline I haven't flown.
Therefore....as far as "bag fees" go, right along with what Art is saying, "the leisure travelers going from BOS-SFO once ever 3 years and scoring a ticket for $250 R/T are who those fees are aimed toward. And why not? Consistent with what Art says, "why should one of my twice a month PVD-SFO-PVD trips at $1,000 a pop subsidize someone's $250 trip?
Now, the "Preferred" or "One Pass Elite" customer that scores the $250 R/T? That person isn't paying the baggage fees anyway.
As for WN....I've flown them more than I ever have this year...and US less. But there are different reasons.
With US, I just don't care for the product. I fly US ONLY when necessary or when it's cheap. Hate it that it's that way, I really do...but I've been kicked in the wedding tackle 3 too many times.
As for WN, my reason for flying them more really comes down to (a.) the tickets are fully changeable without the stupid $150 fee and (b.) it's truly a better product.
Lately, especially with the horriffic cliff the economy fell off, my plans have been changing, almost too much. And with WN, I can make the ticket and use the $$$ another time, wihtout the $150. And because of that EXACT reason, I will actually pay a little more, up to $150 more, to fly WN over any legacy carrier.
When it comes to long haul...be it a transcon or TA, I still want a First Class or Business Class cabin....although, these days, even I am struggling to pay for it. And thats where mileage upgrades come in VERY handy.
SS255
Veteran
I agree with this. There is a threshold of tolerance insofar as total costs to fly, and if that threshold (base fare + taxes & fees) gets crossed, it becomes a deal-breaker for many people.
But airlines should not exist to subsidize the traveling public. I have always been very frank on this board that I do not expect the airlines to sell me a ticket which loses them money. What I want is a reasonably priced ticket which represents a good value for me, and which translates into profit for the airline. I do not want to pay $150 plus the fare difference to make a change to my ticket, and I do not want to pay 5X the price of the most restrictive ticket in order to allow me the flexibility to make a change. So instead, I buy the rock bottom fares once I "commit" to a schedule. I win. US loses. But US could have called a tie had they only offered me a mutually acceptable option.
When are the airlines going to step up and offer a few different reasonably-priced fare options which do not screw them at the low end, and screw customers at the high end? If US did a trial run of such a fare structure in a heavily-trafficked business market such as LGA-CLT, I'll bet they'd find that their RASM on these flights would actually increase.
vantheman63
Senior
They won't do this until they can make ends meet with a load factor int he 70% range.
I remember chatting with a TWA retiree...he was a VP or Finance back in the '70s/'80s....and he told me, in the orld days, the airlines "break even load factor" was ~70%...or at least that what TWA's was.
Fast forward to the 2000s...I remember when UA went into bankruptcy....whoever was in charge of that re-org said, "if UA's load factor was 115%, they still wouldn't make money." LOL
Right now, the downward pressure and why you see insane deals...that people like me end up subsidizing is because that seat leaving is a lost revenue opportunity forever. And they need 100% of those seats filled to have a shot at making a nickle or two.
Similar threads
