Originally Posted by
AV8ER
I'd be willing to bet that TSA isn't the cheapest out there, which is why there is no growth. I wonder if you put all of the numbers together if republic, skywest, expressjet and others would actually be cheaper in a lot of situations. Yeah, service and competence is better at these airlines, but how much do the majors care about it. There is always someone saying, "my experience with continental sucked, so from now on I'm flying delta." But at the same time there is someone saying "my experience at delta sucked, from on I'm flying continental". So service is important, but I bet the majors are more concerned about price. If we went back to summer 06 where TSA was trying to get the Continental contract, I'm sure CAL did think CHQ would offer a better product, but I bet the deciding factor was price. Just goes to show what TSA is. Bad quality, and I bet they can't even do bad quality cheaper then someone else can do better quality.
Depends on who we're talking about. Mesa got as big as they did as quick as they did because after 9/11 all anyone at the majors (primarily Delta, UAL and US Air) cared about was price and getting the lowest. Period. Service was a secondary concern. Mesa was able to do a fair job but as they got bigger, their bare-bones way of running an airline quickly broke down and that service became poor at best. My dad is a frequent UAL flier and man has he got some Mesa horror stories. Seemed like every other week he was calling to ask me why they would do the things they were doing or if I could find him a way to his destination non-revving on CAL since UAL/Mesa's best guess was "maybe tommorow or the next day".
You'd be surprised at how quickly passengers (and CAL's own operations people) at CAL turned against CHQ, at least here in IAH. More times than I can remember I've had passengers tell me about how they avoid the CHQ flights or how they got screwed on a CHQ flight. So yes, service is important. But in point of fact, CHQ was actually MORE expensive in the bid than XJT AND cost CAL a significant amount more in operational difficulty in their first 6 months (last number I heard was something like $70,000 per month per CHQ station in denied boarding compensation ALONE). So you gotta ask yourself, why did CAL pick CHQ when they turned out to be SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive and much less flexible than the product they already had. Most of us here at XJT think Kellner wants 170s at a regional (RAH). Yes I know, scope clause prohibits that but CAL is entering contract negotiations so they could dangle some carrot that makes the CAL guys give up scope. I hope not, but the only thing thats certain in this industry is yesterday.