Us Airways Says It Will Fight Southwest In Phl
- Thread starter USA320Pilot
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Wings was talking about US not defending its turf. You cut off that part in the quote. We ran from the West, we ran from Florida, we ran from BWI.mrman said:
The only time I remember defending our turf was was back with PeoplExpress and Continental Lite and those were both eons ago.
ITRADE
Veteran
Then there is the obvious problem...determing exactly what turf to protect. Give up the west, give up florida, give up BWI....but fight for PIT??!! Trust me...I love the city and have spent a chunk of my life in/near there but I hardly think that it is a prudent business decision to waste resources in defending a low demand market vs. giving up all of the high demand/high profit markets that U has already.ITRADE said:
Priorities...
In response to MDA being based in PHL, I think Pitt is the place Dave wants to be. Pitt is a much better airport to blow out the super-regional concept. Delta has been tremendously successful with com-air in cincinnatti and Dave wants to emulate that in Pitt. Pitt is a natural for this operation.
You will certainly see more regionals out of Philly, but the majority are going to be out of Pitt. Pitt is the ideal airport for this in terms of the operational aspects, they are able to turn these aircraft much faster than they can do in Philly. In 3 years Pitt will be a tremendous operation that is going to contribute a lot of profit to this company. And yes they will get a nice new deal with Allegheny County.
In terms of competing with Southwest, it is difficult to compete with a mainline and the current RJ's, but these new birds being ordered will certainly be able to compete. They will offer two classes of service and the coach is comprable, if not better, than mainline coach.
Let's not kid ourselves though, Southwest currently has a market capitilization of 15 billion while US Airways sports a 263 million cap, they are going up against a tremendous competitor with access to a ton of capital.
You will certainly see more regionals out of Philly, but the majority are going to be out of Pitt. Pitt is the ideal airport for this in terms of the operational aspects, they are able to turn these aircraft much faster than they can do in Philly. In 3 years Pitt will be a tremendous operation that is going to contribute a lot of profit to this company. And yes they will get a nice new deal with Allegheny County.
In terms of competing with Southwest, it is difficult to compete with a mainline and the current RJ's, but these new birds being ordered will certainly be able to compete. They will offer two classes of service and the coach is comprable, if not better, than mainline coach.
Let's not kid ourselves though, Southwest currently has a market capitilization of 15 billion while US Airways sports a 263 million cap, they are going up against a tremendous competitor with access to a ton of capital.
USAir also defended CLT against Valujet in CLT...but what we didn't do , the crash in the everglades took care of in the end. Does anyone care to honestly say what caused that un-happy end?..could it be the same evil that we are threatened with daily?ITRADE said:
USAirways also defended it turf in regards to Southeast moving into CLT...but not being able to obtian spare parts for their broken down DC-9's from us went a long ways in that battle too.
The same can be said of Legend...AA really turned up the heat on them...and we cut them of in regards to loans and sales of parts...in the end it boils down to logistics. AA would never extend them any aid...and we should treat B6 and WN in an alike manner.
I rememeber it being status non-gratta to extend aid and comfort to your enemies...which we do all to often to make a few bucks..yet get little to nothing in return from with great regularity.
WN is a minor exception to that analogy in thier defense...but only a minor exception in all honesty.
Shaka-shaka said:
I think that you are right. At first, I was of the opinion that U just wanted out of PIT. Since then, I've come to think that your analysis is more accurate. And I think that ACAA will deal. Using PHL to serve the O and D with rolling hubs and international service, whilst using PIT as a small jet connecting hub makes sense to me if the costs are right. Actually, I think that 737's idea of UAL LCC going into PHL and operating out of concourse D is intriguing, too. But I'm easy.
But I also think that the "IDEA" of U and UAL doing some kind of asset swap with investors that are already involved with the carriers is at least interesting.
U needs to reconfigure its operations: put bigger aircraft on longer routes and put smaller aircraft on shorter, overlapping routes. (When you think about it, it's amazing that U is still around, since they had about 6 type of different aircraft all about the same size flying over and around each other!) Maybe UAL will need some cash and maybe need to assuage creditors with the premise of streamlining operations. I does kind of make sense.
But, I suspect that the corporate boardrooms are just as 'survivor island' as these hateful threads have been lately. So, I can imagine that the corporate leaders, their creditors and investors are all looking closely at how the 'worm turns' and how each entitites prospects go to see whether cooperating or 'raiding' make more sense. You 'buddy' one day could become 'dinner' the next.
robbedagain
Veteran
AOG-N-IT: I just wonder if this mgmt of Thieves of CCY did do what you said, I'd have to wonder how many employees would be left to actually save the ship? I am certainly considering moving into the suburbs of PHL to work for SWA.
The biggest things this company can do is to (1) increase revenue by fixing the fare structure. This will stop us pandering the discretionary leisure traveller who kills employee productivity by needing more attention because they do not know the game. This leads to treating the higher yeilding business customer with better service, and a more rational fare structure would bring more of them in. (2) Make PHL a rolling bank, flying to big destinations such as LAX, SFO, SEA, and ORD more frequently. Keeping the planes in the air on long runs increases worker productivity, indirectly lowers labor cost, and decreases maintenance costs by keeping aircraft cycles lower. This will also help with operational issues. Use PIT and CLT to connect to the smaller cities. None of the LCCs are going to places like CAE, ROA, and the like anyway, so connecting them does not affect PHL O and D. The only connections through PHL should be for TransAtlantic purposes. Carribean connections should be via CLT.
Guys, the trend is running the other way. Since the UA codeshare, I am amazed at the volume of bags going, via ORD-UA, to SEA, LAX, SFO, PHX, and even SDF. These are destinations U currently serves, though I'm guessing, not for long.
I just have a small question. I was on Concourse A on PIT the other day (that is the Express Concourse I believe). I noticed ERJ's sitting off the gate just like the DH-8's that were there. Is PIT going to have to invest in different jetways to accommodate MDA/MAA? It would not make sense to base you RJ-Express carrier there if the jetways currently in place can not be used.
I know in PHL the jetways can/are used for the CRJ/ERJ's as well as the DH-8's.
And that is truly the "golden goose." US has significantly ramped up flights to central america and the caribbean. costa rica was the latest destination. i would imagine those international markets would continue to be lucrative.Chip Munn said:
I would say this is happening because UA has a better choice of flight times. Like I said, run the smaller city connections through CLT and PIT, and run PHL as a rolling bank with O & D traffic. Fly to where people want to fly, and enough times to make it at times convenient for the customer, not US Airways. Gee, customer focused, what a concept. I wonder if that is how Southwest continues to eat everyone's lunch. Treat the customers good, and the employees great. They seem to do at a low cost, too.diogenes said:
wings396
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I mean this company, not others. US Air, US Airways, has never gone head to head with any competitor, unless you consider running our way of competing.mrman said:
PI was a different story, as they ran EA out of CLT as well as keeping AA at bay with their want-to-be RDU hub. PI also put PE to shame in EWR back in the 80's.
This company has done nothing right when it comes to defending our turf, and PHL will be no different. BWI is a prime example of how well we compete. Let us not forget ISP, PVD, ORF and most of Florida. Look for SWA to have 3/4 of our gates in PHL within 10 years. I'm sure they will surface in PIT in the future as well.
Our blunders have been the story of their success.
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