Roy Biggins

Just took a quick glance at the numbers. They seem to be steadily (Slowly) rising and staying consistent. This being September, I’m somewhat optimistic.

TOGALOCK

Just food for thought... We're obviously a long way away from being normal, but we don't really need to use 2019 numbers as the ultimate target of recovery. 2019 was a record year in commercial aviation in terms of both passenger numbers and airline profits. From a pilot standpoint hiring was off the charts. We don't need our respective companies blowing their roofs off with the cash influx and pilot recruiters handing out flyers at local grass strips like a scene from Independence Day, recruiting everyone from a private pilot to Cousin Eddie's drunk, crop dusting identical twin brother. We just need to get to the point that passenger loads are good, airlines are reporting a modest profit and hiring starts to trickle again. That's when I will personally begin to breath a sigh of relief. It would be interesting to compare our current TSA throughput to, say, 2014 or 2015 numbers. If these "experts" are correct and it is 2024 before we see a full 2019 like recovery, as pilots we will likely see and feel a sense of normalcy well before that.

rickair7777

Yes taking into account natural and early retirements, a return to 2015 levels could see everyone else employed in their pre-covid seat. Well not quite...

International isn't going to come back as quickly, so maybe 2015 numbers but with the inevitably higher domestic/interntional ratio would see everyone employed, but maybe with some folks flying guppies instead of WB's.

metx192

I understand the interest in watching TSA numbers, but they are meaningless. The TSA counts appear to be in the 30-40% recovery territory, but this has no correlation with revenue recovery. Just look at the pax in the terminals these days. These aren't business travelers and international tourists, this recovery is made up of low-budget and low-yielding leisure passengers. The deals you can get on a legacy ticket in domestic first class are insane. I'd wager we're only at 20% revenue recovery, which is the number we need to be more concerned about long-term. There is little to be deduced from conclusions based on TSA data.

rickair7777

Well, actually it's not meaningless to us...

Pax => Capacity => Pilot Jobs

Revenue => Profit

Short/mid-term, airlines will likely ramp up capacity to keep market share even if they break even or at a modest loss. They will not happily attempt to shoot for profitability at 30% of 2019 capacity while SWA eats their market-share lunch.

Soxfan1

I agree. You can’t double the prices of tickets with 50% of fleet parked and 50% of the fleet that is flying with open seats.

But if you can get 80% of the fleet flying with 80% LF, you can start to increase prices.

Capacity first, revenue will have to come second.

senecacaptain

TSA numbers:

You can't have profit without butts in seats. There is zero profit in an empty seat.

TSA numbers gives us butts. Indeed, that is about it tho. We do not have insight into yields, profits, etc. stuff.

Saying "full flight to Vegas today packed, there is hope!" means nothing if they were all $19 priceline tickets. It also means nothing (or very little) if that flight is one of two that day versus one of ten back in January.

senecacaptain

good points but we know that 2019 witnessed pilot hiring, fleet expansion, and profits by the airlines. 2019 is also a "baseline" and if you do not wish to use 2019, then use another year.

If you check my post above, you can use 2003 if you wish. May see 70% of 2003 by the end of the year. Not sure if that is the kind of measurement you want to use though.

2019 is the most recent "reference point"

TOGALOCK

I did see your example of 2003, but you’re right, not exactly the metric one would want to aspire to. Where did you get the 2003 numbers from? Any suggestions on where to find the figures for other years?

senecacaptain

various stuff is on this site....like any government site you will cut your wrists looking for what you need tho: https://www.bts.gov/

my graphic in post 656 is at this link: https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.go...1%20Crop_0.png