Thread: Ok—What’s The New Base?
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Old 02-05-2026 | 03:58 PM
  #398  
waterskisabersw
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Originally Posted by Hotel Kilo
I was talking to my friends at SWA. Which got me thinking about some things. So I figured I'd ask a "larger" pool of SWA pilots.
Originally Posted by Hotel Kilo

Yeah... But you didn't "ask" a larger pool of SWA pilots.

Your post, the one that everybody mocked, was a typical delta diatribe talking about how amazing Delta is and how basically nobody has a chance against you or your vaunted business model. The only questions you asked in your original post were if we had ovens or first class seats. Questions you already know the answer to, so yeah, it came off as extremely condescending... because it was.

All these things are coming. Believe it or not, if we went out and spent $12-13B to match your net debt position, we could probably buy some seats and ovens.

Delta has a lot of strengths. Large domestic network with lots of small cities served that SWA does not. There's a lot of good in there, as there are admittedly holes in SWAs network.

Those small cities are all from hubs, a disadvantage compared to SWAs P2P connections, and while there are holes in SWA's network, is the fact that we don't serve Muskegon or Kalamazoo really that big of a deal considering we serve Grand Rapids?

Those cities are also almost exclusively served by legitimized B scale operators. Sure, that means that when (not if) SWA gets bigger airplanes, we might sacrifice some of that widebody fleet because we don't have quite the catchment that Delta/United/AA have. Personally, I'm willing to have a slightly smaller widebody fleet if it's because every SWA flight is flown by a SWA pilot. I'd also take our PDEW limits over your JV-happy contract. Your awesome product is also diluted by RJs (especially the Mitsubishi variety).

The hard product differentiators you have are lounges (SWA openly doing those), First Class (everybody expects this, and BJ and AW have openly discussed that they're looking at it), and ovens (BJ and AW have also talked about enhanced classes of service including meals).

And soft product? That's a fickle thing. I still remember the jetway posters and billboards in 2009 proclaiming the return of the red coats "you can't take shortcuts for good customer service" (or something like that). I thought it was hilariously ironic because Delta had done exactly that in the bankruptcy they just came out of: red coats went away for cost cutting.

You also talk as if the SWA business model is dying against the mighty Air Line and United, but our revenue has only been accelerating since our old entrenched management got fired.

You guys have a good product and a good network right now, but it's hardly the only functional, or even preferred, business model (or best product) out there. Hence why we're the largest carrier in almost half of the largest 50 markets in the US, why Alaska is much more popular in SEA, why United is winning in Chicago, and why American dominates in South America.

Believe it or not, Delta Air Lines cannot, and will not, be able to deply enough assets to fight and dominate all competitors in all markets. Including Austin.
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