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Old 02-19-2021, 08:09 AM
  #11  
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Originally Posted by 3 green View Post
In reality, the whole blocking of the middle seats is a joke. It's ok to sit beside each other on 2 seat row but not a 3 seat row? Also, you still have someone siting all around you including in front, behind, and across the aisle..But if passengers fall for that then so be it, and I don't blame Delta for doing it. While I was a non rev recently, passengers were talking about this exact thing and saying it is false advertising promo.
There's definitely some validity to your point. Numbers wise Delta is still commanding a revenue premium in the midst of a pandemic as we make the same or more than our competitors while restricting middle seats. Whatever numbers magic they have over there in Network they need to send it to Crew Planning

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Old 02-19-2021, 08:25 AM
  #12  
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Originally Posted by 3 green View Post
In reality, the whole blocking of the middle seats is a joke. It's ok to sit beside each other on 2 seat row but not a 3 seat row? Also, you still have someone siting all around you including in front, behind, and across the aisle..But if passengers fall for that then so be it, and I don't blame Delta for doing it. While I was a non rev recently, passengers were talking about this exact thing and saying it is false advertising promo.

Agreed....shows how illogical a lot of our fellow citizens can be. BTW...those talking about this "false advertising" are even more ignorant....they realize how illogical it is, and then they pay the Delta "premium". What's up with that ? (unless of course Delta is the only option , or, somebody else is paying for the ticket)
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Old 02-19-2021, 08:32 AM
  #13  
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Originally Posted by OOfff View Post
I love that we are recalling, training at max throughput, and targeting increases to about 90% of flying by next summer and somehow that means we aren’t growing
Based on the playbook the last time LCCs moved aggressively to growth, I would guess that a not insignificant portion of the forecast is based on having to get into targeted seat/fare wars with them.

Sure, legacies know not to get into too many of these fights, but Frontier announced a pilot domicile in ATL. While one can probably argue that ATL O&D isn’t a big deal or that F9 is going primarily after SWA’s market share, Delta can’t just let it happen. Same for leaving a vacuum in NYC, etc. It needs to be filled. The U/LCCs have made it obvious that they’re going to fill in every sliver of daylight like kudzu.
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Old 02-19-2021, 08:44 AM
  #14  
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Frontier's target customer is the customer Delta would rather not compete for and keep the middle seat open. I wouldn't be too concerned. Network folks have yield management down to a science.

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Old 02-19-2021, 08:48 AM
  #15  
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Originally Posted by flyinthrew View Post
Based on the playbook the last time LCCs moved aggressively to growth, I would guess that a not insignificant portion of the forecast is based on having to get into targeted seat/fare wars with them.

Sure, legacies know not to get into too many of these fights, but Frontier announced a pilot domicile in ATL. While one can probably argue that ATL O&D isn’t a big deal or that F9 is going primarily after SWA’s market share, Delta can’t just let it happen. Same for leaving a vacuum in NYC, etc. It needs to be filled. The U/LCCs have made it obvious that they’re going to fill in every sliver of daylight like kudzu.
I don’t think anyone’s leaving a vacuum in NYC, the market still appears comatose.
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Old 02-19-2021, 09:47 AM
  #16  
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Originally Posted by Trip7 View Post
The difference between Delta and our competitors is we are currently making the same money of not more them while handicapping ourselves with no middle seat while they run at full capacity chasing poor quality revenue.

Furthermore, Delta doesn't need to add flights to grow capacity, we simply need to unleash the middle seats which is looking HIGHLY likely in April/May as we approach herd immunity.



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Where is you source for this or is it wishful thinking?
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Old 02-19-2021, 09:51 AM
  #17  
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Originally Posted by flyinthrew View Post
The U/LCCs have made it obvious that they’re going to fill in every sliver of daylight like kudzu.
Didn't Bethune say "you're only as smart as your dumbest competitor"?

We may be in just the right bracket/fishbowl to leave the middle seats open while trying to please the yield model at all costs. But that won't be sustainable in the long run. Obviously middle seats will be back on the market at some point (probably sooner than later). But hopefully the stratedgy isn't to let the (always ruthless and often irrational) competition have our route map as a menu to poach whatever they want, whenever they want, counting on DL to retreat to preserve the almighty yield. That's guaranteed to backfire long term.

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. If that means bleeding out a ruthless competitor for a while by being even more ruthless than so be it. DL can't ignore the LCC/ULCC poachers who think they can grow at will just to preserve short term yield premiums trying to get back to multibillion dollar burnbacks for EPS paydays. Lay flat transcons and any and all long haul international should be considered massive threats that justify total competitive warfare to defeat. Even low yield leisure out of dense markets should always be something to compete for because no one can afford to surrender a customer base that massive.

Letting irrational competitors metastasize long term while chasing myopic quarterly pumps will ultimately be more expensive than dealing with it earlier. Although sometimes it does makes strategic sense to let them walk fully into the choke point ambush by letting them add overhead and exposure for a while in order to cause them asymmetrical pain at the best possible time. It appeared that was the stratedgy of the legacies before all this happened and that needs to continue.

The nearly decade long detente of industry wide "capacity dicipline" was starting to come to an end before the latest macro event hit. Once recovery and return to "normal" really starts happening, all the shruken legacies should expect, and should provide, absolutely no quarter.
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Old 02-19-2021, 10:09 AM
  #18  
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Originally Posted by gloopy View Post
.

The nearly decade long detente of industry wide "capacity dicipline" was starting to come to an end before the latest macro event hit. Once recovery and return to "normal" really starts happening, all the shruken legacies should expect, and should provide, absolutely no quarter.
It will be interesting to watch and if business and international flying returns quickly enough perhaps even possible, at least for Delta. But right now UAL and AA are still burning money at a rapid rate and their last bond sales demanded an 11 and 12% coupon respectively. Both are digging deep financial holes, especially AA. And even when their business and international rebound, both are going to have enormous training churn - esp. AA.

Expecting either of them to compete effectively against the ULCCs for the low end leisure flying is probably asking them to capture a bridge too far.
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Old 02-19-2021, 10:13 AM
  #19  
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Originally Posted by AUP09 View Post
This is true. Delta is making more money on less available seats.

When we grow by removing seat caps we will be the largest airline in the world and our costs will be (virtually) unchanged.
We already are the largest
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Old 02-19-2021, 10:14 AM
  #20  
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Shrink to profitability...growth via the “network.” Haven’t we seen this before?
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