Originally Posted by
tsquare
Probably true, and really not any counter to my point. All I am saying is that marketing/ops are more than likely putting those airplanes in more lucrative markets, and using them to the best of their ability, and in order to maximize yield. If MCO is even on that depth chart at all, we would be flying it. But with 100 purple herb turds, and Spirit, and Frontier sitting on the ramp every morning, methinks the yield down here ain't all that great. I could be wrong though....
My point with this is you have to be able to compete and win your share of pax in massive markets, many (most?) of which tend to be lower yield precicely because they are high volume. And we absolutely can't become mired in the quagmire (giggity) of route by route profitability with no other concern. If we did that, any competitor could poach any route they wanted from us whenever they wanted just by fare trashing/capacity dumping and we would be bound to reduce service or eliminate the market entirely. Once they figured out it was that easy, anyone could (and would) simply snipe every single market we have by making them "unprofitable" one at a time sending us scurrying away. Sometimes you have to take a loss now to make a profit later.
I'm not saying you don't know that, but the jury is still out regarding if our entire marketing department gets that concept. Capacity dicipline is a buzzword that will soon be tossed into the dust bin of airline history. We are about to face massive domestic and international fare trashing and capacity dumping. A relentless emphasis on short to medium term route by route profitability will destroy us on our competitor's terms.