Originally Posted by
rp2pilot
Time will tell. It is refreshing, however, to have someone in flight ops that doesn't just cede market share every time someone comes in and tries to poach passengers. When we had the Shuttle, we owned 50% of all the west coast traffic and were making money hand over fist with large operations in Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, LAX, Burbank, Ontario, and John Wayne Airport. I certainly don't advocate the "airline with an airline" concept; my point is that EVERY time we reduce service to an area, a competitor steps in to fill the vacuum. For the past 18 years, we (pilots) have descried the philosophy of "shrink to profitability" as nonsense and finally we have a management team that seems to agree with us. I'm neither a fan nor a detractor of Kirby, but I don't agree with the idea of shrinking to maximize short term profit margins.
Yes we are a hollow shell on the west coast compared to what we were. We shrank from every competitor for the last 20 years. I think 10 years ago they figure out it was cheaper to eat (merge) a competitor, than compete. The low cost carriers have grown rapidly the last few years. Maybe it is time again for the big predators to feed.
Alaska or Spirit make more sense to me than JB. Alaska would re-establish our West Coast operation. Spirit would get us back in the SE. JB makes us bigger in New York, where margins have always been thin.