surreal1221

Why? Because they can't afford to do it in the first place?

So since they can't afford to fly, we as employees should suffer? Please.

If prices are raised, we are not going to lose even 10% of the flying population. Your fear of people all of a sudden, no longer flying, is ridiculous. I'm not saying raise prices significantly in one solid swipe. But a gradual increase in prices is what will save the legacy airlines. Yes it'll hurt the customer, but it makes no economical sense to keep lowering prices and firing employees in the hope to increase the bottom line.

You can't lower prices, inturn getting less of a profit, and firing employees, in hopes of increasing your YTD profit. It doesn't work that way.

If people can not afford to fly, they don't fly. The flying population will adjust to increased prices. They have certainly adjusted to increased gas prices, I still drive past gas stations and see a bunch of middle class wannabe upper class individuals with their SUVs filling up when gas is >$2.90 a gallon. People in this country are still going to pay for gas if it reachs $3.50 a gallon, trust me. And sure enough, if the Airlines got some balls, and actually WANTED to make money, they could increase ticket prices and people would still fly. Yes the shock the flying public would have to deal with after the press releases come out would last 2 weeks or so, ticket purchases would drop 2-5% for those two weeks, and after that. . . people would realize that they still have to fly if they want to get from ATL - ORD in less than 4 hours.

So sure, if we raise prices, less people will fly. . . period.

You lose that 5% of the population that cant afford to fly, and you turn a profit on everyone else, and the 3% of the 5% that still think they can afford to fly.

C175

What about swa? they have cheap tickets. Are their pilots underpaid? lol. You guys are wrong

Caveman

End of discussion.

Plenty of "qualified" labor out there ready willing and able to work for current wage levels. Until that changes, wages will stay the same in an semi unregulated labor market.

You or I may not be willing to work for $20/hr, or even think it's right, but there are plenty of "qualified" people that are.

I'm afraid it's a simple as that.

MikeB525

Ok, theres something I've been wondering for a long time now. When it comes to raising ticket prices, exactly how much are we talking about? Just to make things easy and to give me a better idea, lets do it based on the following:

I recently booked a round trip, non-stop flight between EWR and PHX on Continental. Since PHX is so freaking hot, summer could be considered the "off season", and I booked the ticket exactly 2 months in advance. In both directions I'm taking the first flight of the day (approx 7am), and in both directions the aircraft is a Boeing 737, either a -700 or an-800.
Continental Airlines charged me $306 + taxes/fees. How much "should" they have charged me???

My theory has always been that the actual increase in the price for a ticket would not even have to be all that much. That 737-800 carries about 160 people, so if each person paid only $20 more, that would be an additional $3200 in revenue for the round trip (assuming each pax books a round trip ticket), or $1600 in each direction.


On a side note, while it's terrible for anyone to loose a job, at least it's nice to finally see managment being forced to take it in the @$$ instead of just pilots and other "lowly labor".

Eric Stratton

My airline claims that for every dollar increase in oil it costs them $40 million more in fuel a year. They carry over 50 million passengers a year so that would be about a $1 dollar increase per ticket per $1 increase in oil.

that's very primative math.

ubermich

you know, i'm not sure that the number of people that fly would decrease dramatically. It definately would decrease, but by how much is the question.

Gas prices have been increasing more and more, but are people driving less? Some, but most people drive the same amount, and look how well the oil companys are doing because of it.

The employees can work for free and the airlines would still lose money by trying to undercut each other.

More people flying does mean more jobs, but quality and quantity need to be properly balanced.

surreal1221

Welcome to the forum.

True, and honestly, a lot of us will have no choice but to work for $20/hr as a junior FO. Just ridiculous that that is how it is. I'll suck it up like so many before me, but I will be working hard to see that it changes for those that follow behind me. Which is something that I can't quite say about the current pilot work force. The "I got mine, and you'll have to do it just like I did" mentality just doesnt sit well for me. We need to band together to help EVERYONE out.

In regards to SWA, they minimize their cost anyway they can, since day one. I praise them for that. SWA is a great airline, for what they provide (or lack there-of) and I certainly hope they continue to benefit.

I'm no 150 IQ type person when it comes to the Airline industry, I've just grown up around it. These subjects are simple economics to me. As someone's previous example, a $20 increase in ticket prices are reasonable, and would increase money coming into the company . Whatever company it may be. All the company has to say is it is due to raising fuel costs, and blame the government. It works for every other sector, would work just fine for the airline industry. Who knows, maybe then our government will get off of their ass and actually do something about OPEC and put more time and research into other fuels so that the aviation industry can utilize more of the raw oil for production of avgas and jeta, etc.

I'll let all of you guys discuss this situation further. I'm going to go back to flying a 172 for hours towards my PPL, and continue upward in the dispense of money. Once I get on with a regional and I see the day to day workings first hand, then perhaps my opinion will change, but I doubt it.

MikeB525

Thanks guys. Ok, so then I'm not that far off in estimating that the actual increase in ticket prices would be pretty minimal. In fact, I've even argued on this forum that the required increase in ticket prices would probably be barely noticable by frequent fliers, and probably unnoticable by infrequent fliers. As I've argued earlier, just a relatively benign increase per ticket would generate alot of additional income when multiplied over all the passengers carried.

Looking back on my origional question, can anyone give an opinion as to how much I "should" have been charged for that EWR-PHX round trip?

surreal1221

I'm sure you could find a rate online from say, 10 years ago. That's how much you should of paid

I'd venture a guess of close to $800-900.

Slice

Can't answer for PHX, but I lived in Wichita for a few years in the mid-90's and remember paying $350-375 for tickets a few times while there. I just looked up the same fare ICT-LGA and total is $303. Ridiculous given today's fuel costs. So my answer would be late 1990's prices adjusted for inflation and an added fuel surcharge.