Wait, I could have deleted your quote?

Frontier is not a sinking ship. We are not going to fold. When was the last time you saw a profitable business fold? Never.

Our biggest and only real competitor (Spirit) is about to disappear from the market. The upstart competitor (Breeze) is bleeding money like a scene in a Tarantino film.

We have our issues, but they can all be fixed.

 

But therein lies the issue. We ALL know what the issues are at the grassroots/ground level. It took THIS long to increase turn times - I and several others mentioned that months ago. The solutions we need are everywhere around us and obvious to everyone but the people who can actually make the changes. The company makes money but doesn't function well at all. Non-functioning companies EVENTUALLY falter - either you get so bad that the customer pool dries up (some are suggesting that is happening already) or leadership just continues to make so many bad decisions that the expenses outgrow the revunue.

Look at EVERY airline that's ever failed.

 

Not necessarily disagree with you but the stuff this place needs to change is fairly easy. Increase staffing at ticket counters, gate counters, bellow the wing, etc. Stop with the bag price harassment.

Those are easy fixes. The things that are hard to get right for an airline like cost structure, we have nailed. We operate at a lower cost structure with more fuel efficiency than any airline in history. If Frontier could clean up the operation, Increase staffing levels, stop treating the passengers so poorly, and then increase ticket fares a little, we could make an absolute killing.

Will our current management team do these things? I have no idea. Maybe they need to be flushed and get fresh blood in the office. I don't know, but this place has so much potential! Our 321NEOs with 240 seats coupled with the lowest cost structure in the industry has the potential to be a serious power house. Easy fixes could be made. In the right hands, this place could kill

 

Frontier is amaze-balls.

 

But there is the real issue. We see the mess. The horrible operations. The p’d off passengers. Management see’s numbers and right now the numbers are saying we are profitable. The numbers say even p’d off pax come back for more. To them it’s fine. Barry doesn’t have to deal with it. When he goes home to Dallas he rides AA. When the numbers tell them there is a problem (no profit) then they will make a change.

 

I think the amount of social media issues, our crap performance (highlighted by the fact they restarted the incentive thing and increased turn times), along with the ATL crapshow that has been going on the last couple weeks, is a wake up call. Not to mention, investors started digging deeper in the calls.

 

I think it’s going beyond that now.

Franke may be asking why his profit margin is the same as all the others whose cost structures are much greater. Why aren’t we MORE profitable given how we operate? He’s no dummy. The very cost structures which are supposed to be advantageous (less gate agents, cheaper ground staffing, etc) aren’t proving to be that way.

We aren’t even close to maximizing profit. With the lowest CASM in the industry, why don’t we have the highest profit margin?

 

If you listen to the investor calls it is clear that management is in no way “fine” with our recent financial performance. A 6-9% margin is not good enough for them. They spend 75% of the time on these calls explaining why margins aren’t better and trying to convince the analysts that it will improve.

Our margins are down not because our CASM isn’t low enough, but because our RASM is way too low. We have grown way more quickly in the past year than they originally had planned and all that new capacity hasn’t yet produced the revenue it should. Some of that has to do with domestic travel demand being lower, and the corresponding lower ticket prices.

 

Ultimately, Wall Street (right or wrong...) "votes" via the price of the stock. ULCC is the worst performer of JBLU, SAVE, ALGT, ULCC: Stock Chart

 

i don’t disagree. We could be doing better and wall street knows it. The fact is though, franke hasn’t fired Barry. Franke owns this airline, IF he wanted changes made they would be made. The only obvious explanation is they are happy with where they are, Right now. I absolutely believe franke has something cooking in the back ground. He has a plan, and I don’t think Barry has a clue. He won’t be a part of it.