Originally Posted by
dondk
excellent points. Mergers are #1 on my list. No one needs to be running 10 flights a day into BFE because 2 big boys merged and now you have the mainline and regional redundancy.
Lift may be 80%, but I find that hard to believe. Many are STILL furloughing, many are reducing lift (DAL, AMR). Lift is subjective because it is controlled by management. C'mon, you're on the DAL side, SKYW my be seeing 80% loads, but what is happening to the other DAL regionals? Their flying is being reduced. Those who control the airframes control the lift. They influence it, not the passengers. I use to see that with Airways back years ago... 3 flights going to BWI, the 1st 1/3 full, but the 2nd was 1/2 full. they cancel the 1st and move everyone to the 2nd to get a full flight. They would swap the airframe to somewhere else or keep it as a spare. Sure loads were up, but they really weren't. It was completely manipulated.
Lift industry wide is over 80%, here at SKW we’re around 82.3% for June 09 compared to 80% in June 08. 09 YTD SKW is at 77.7% which is up .8% over 08 YTD.
http://www.skywestonline.com/Admin/S...%20Traffic.pdf
When I commute to work on mainline I'm in the jumpseat 99% of the time with just a handful of seats open for non-revs. You should know that the 80+% is an average which means there are flying going out at 50% capacity and there are flights that are oversold by 5% or so. Certain markets will see the bulk of the capacity reductions and once the next round is complete there will only be one direction to go.