Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
Scambo,
You know my position on our outsourcing. The current crop of 70 to 76 seat jets have roughly MD88 operating numbers per ASM. There will be a niche for them, but as American drops the MD's and leaves us with the highest comparable CASM, the market is ripe for the C Series, or something similar.
The reasons for optimism in 2012 and 2013 are a number of long term initiatives which should begin bearing fruit. We will have the new Atlanta international terminal coming on line just as AirTran/SWA starts capacity adjustments. That should help us both operationally and on the revenue side. Progress is being made on our JFK terminal which should help us in 2013 and network is begining to make noises about bringing a fight for business traffic in LAX. It appears we are ready to take advantage of any disruption in American's operation.
We are under fleeted for a lot of this. Partners will be used to fill far to many holes and we must address that in our negotiations. But, there is enough here to think Delta will have to bring mainline capacity on line and grow staffing.
Operationally, we are running better than we have in years and our targets for 2012 have increased to solid industry leading levels. When you see the resources coming on line to support these levels of performance it looks positive.
The wildcards will be Europe, Fuel and possibly Asia. If Iran tries to block the Strait of Hormuz it would be interesting until there were three more Kilo Class subs on the ocean floor.
I agree on two points: Operationally we are run better and long term initiatives should bear fruit.
I have been hearing about a pullback in ATL - which goes counter to the DAL I grew up in, but nonetheless it is what I am hearing - specifically in my category a full pullback in ATL with rebasing in NYC.
Additionally,the whole AA thing has to play out. Until that situation solidifies somewhat there can be no strategic forward guessing. I still hear DFW and MIA are in our sights. (not my morbid thoughts, just parroting).
Until our PRASM is below SWAs, our management will like our fleet as is. My opinion.
PS Europe is not a wild card. Greece will default, the euro will tank, then the other weak economies will follow suit. They will go back to their own currencies or completely change the debt laws for the eurozone. Either way, europe is not a wild card. I remember pre-euro, there was a commercial that said something like: "You dont need a single currency, you have mastercard, accepted everywhere." A lot of truth in that statement.