79 hours of credit in 13 days on work isn't too bad. That's over 6hrs a day, better than Deltas 5:15 avg daily guarantee. Touche

 

This is why I would bet we IPO this fall. our contract is coming due in 2017 with the potential to open it in 2016. Indigo is known for not being kind when it comes to labor negotiations. Investors are always hesitant during labor disputes. So this only leaves two choices, IPO early in order to not have labor negotiations and attract investors, or IPO when the contract comes due, which would mean that indigo would want to resolve the contract pronto in order to not have labor negotiations. Which would you opt for if you were Indigo?

I would also guess IPO now, when contract comes due, the stock may go down a bit opening the door for the merger with Spirit.

 

Totally understand!

 

Spirit runs way more pilots per plane than WN. ~19 vs ~12. Two different models with two different utilization schedules.

 

The glut of ULCC passengers is finite, yes, but so are the stars in the heavens. The surface of this market has barely been scratched. I know it's borderline cliche at this point, but are we to believe the much larger and more mature ULCC market in Europe is just an anomaly? I doubt it. Yes, NK & F9 will grow to that size and larger because the demand will certainly drive it. You don't believe me? One word: Walmart!

Is the travel experience dubious? (I'm assuming by using that term you mean unreliable) ...Perhaps right now maybe a little. But once this model grows out of it's infancy it will be affordable AND reliable, despite being somewhat unpleasant. Kind of like a city bus; no fun for sure, but it does the trick and nothing beats the price. If your station in life won't permit other modes of transport, you're on that sucker!

 

I disagree at least a bit. I don't think ULCCs will get as large a market share in the US as they have in Europe. The reason is we have Southwest already eating up a huge part of the domestic, non legacy market. Europe has the big international legacies, and the ULCCs. They don't have an equivalent to SW.

I think the ULCCs will grow a lot, but the aggressive growth plans of both frontier and spirit combined is probably more than can really materialize

 

Actually that's good analysis - I've got nothing

I guess my only hope would be that we can draw out an entirely new and massive, even more 'discount', customer base than even Southwest can. But thats probably a pipe-dream because Southwest has the economy of scale and marketing machine to tap that same base forever.

You win Aero - now I'm depressed again

 

No, no don't be depressed! I think the ULCCs will be very successful in the USA, just not 30+% market share. We absolutely will get people flying us that otherwise can't fly at all. We sell sub $100 plane tickets all the time. Sell em cheap and they will come!

 

8 out of 10 leisure pax choose a ticket based on price and price alone

 

Is that 17 in a row?