NO SURPRISED... flew JFK to CVG the other day on a 757 with about 15 pax, I think 8 of us were non revs or dead heads. they kicked us all out of first class bc of weight and balance........ 15 PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Newest rumor is they are going to re-config the 757 with 76 seats and have Comair fly them...
(current 70 seat pay of course)

 

Based on SEC "inquiry" MESA has withdrawn bond settlement deal due to settle tomorrow.

The potential put amount tomorrow is $45 million. At the end of Sept (fiscal year-end) MAG had $64.9 million in cash. They have not reported 12/31 (1st qtr) yet their cash position is not known, but if the bondholders all seek redemption, its probably means big trouble. Mesa's press release says they can't talk to the bondholders till Wed even though put decision is due tomorrow.

 

Yea man. I'm back to the old reliable freight moving business. Everything is slow so it's not as lucrative as it once was, but it's a job. It will do until the economy and airlines start to turn north again. Hopefully this doesn't go down the crapper because this is the last card I have in my hand as of now.

On Autopilot, I think the unemployment office will be "hiring" for a while here!

 

I have not been able to access Employee Self Service on Epic for the last few days. Does anyone know if it’s down or is it my computer?

 

No access here either. I think furlough people have limited access inside Epic.

 

It's up, doesn't support firefox... so make sure you use the latest version of IE and you should be good.

 

Originally Posted by Pantera
Delta Slashes Cincinnati Fares

Monday, February 09, 2009

AviationWeek.com

In an effort to win back customers, Delta is slashing its fares at its Cincinnati hub by between 5% and 60%.

Delta slashed fares at its Cincinnati hub by 5% to 60% Feb. 6, adopting the new fare structure in an attempt to win back some of the customers it has lost to lower-fare options at surrounding airports.

Delta executives let it be known last month that the airline planned to restructure the fares at the hub (DAILY, Jan. 29). Cincinnati has been one of the airline’s hardest-hit hubs by the economic downturn because of the industrial job losses in Ohio. But, beyond that, it also has been one of the highest-fare airports in the country.

The domestic air fare report released by the U.S. Transportation Dept.’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics Jan. 28, covering fares in the third quarter of 2008, said Cincinnati had the highest average fare of any of the country’s busiest 100 airports at $597. That was $48 higher than at the next highest — Knoxville, Tenn. — and $235 higher than the average for all 100. It also was 31.5% higher than the third-quarter average fare at Cincinnati in 2000, and 3.7% higher than in the third quarter of 2007.

Perhaps more telling, the third-quarter 2008 average fare at possible alternative airports for travelers in the area was $349.35 at Dayton, $337.06 at Columbus, $317.62 at Indianapolis and $350.29 at Louisville.

In light of what the fares at Cincinnati have been, and how much they have risen, Delta’s cuts in those fares are particularly dramatic.

Delta said its 5% to 60% reduction applies to all types of domestic fares, from 21-day advance to walk-up, with reductions in every market.

In providing examples of some of the biggest cuts, Delta said one-way walkup fares to New York LaGuardia and Kennedy have been slashed from $719 to $321, and to Los Angeles from $839 to $399.

Examples of some of the steepest cuts in 21-day advance-purchase one-way fares included $185 to $82 for Charleston, S.C., $180 to $84 fro St. Louis, $149 to $92 for Philadelphia, $310 to $130 for Los Angeles and $305 to $173 for Seattle.

Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s executive VP for network planning and revenue management, said in a press release about the changes that the new fares will “make it compelling for customers to choose the convenience of flying nonstop to more than 90 worldwide destinations from Delta’s Cincinnati hub rather than wasting time and money driving to neighboring airports.”

This isn’t the only big change Delta has made at the Cincinnati hub. This month it pared back the number of daily departures from about 300 per day to about 260, operating a tighter schedule with fewer connecting banks (DAILY, Nov. 13). Delta said its “right-sizing” of the hub with better connections would improve its profitability.

During the airline’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Jan. 27, CEO Richard Anderson said he expected to see a “nice improvement” in Cincinnati from the combination of the resized and retimed network and the new fare structure.



This is a good thing! As an old CVG resident I flew on many other carriers out of SDF, LEX, DAY, and CMH. Just because I was driving to another city rarely meant i was on DAL. Maybe that's why DAL is planning on bringing Freedom to CVG??

 

Delta Announces Creation of Regional Handling Subsidiary
Comair, Mesaba and Compass Customer Services Teams To Transition

Today, Delta Air Lines is announcing plans to create Regional Handling Services (RHS), a wholly owned Delta subsidiary that will be responsible for oversight of Customer Services for Delta Connection. Today's news means that front-line and support functions currently handled by Comair's 2,600 Customer Services team members in the areas of gate, ramp, tower and baggage operations and support functions will transition to RHS -- along with Compass and Mesaba Customer Services teams -- as early as this fall.

RHS will assume responsibility for all airport ticket counter, gate and baggage handling services in approximately 100 primarily small- and medium-sized airports currently managed by Delta's wholly owned subsidiaries Comair and Mesaba.

Delta's new RHS team will be headquartered alongside Delta Connection in Minneapolis and will be led by Comair veteran Don Stephens. In addition to leading approximately 4,100 airport customer service employees from Comair, Compass and Mesaba, Don's team will also hold oversight of airport customer service functions for 170 airport locations handled by Delta Connection ground handling partners nationwide.

"Today's news obviously represents a big change in our airline's business platform, and one that will reduce our overall size by nearly half, from about 5,700 to 3,100 employees," President John Bendoraitis said in a memo to the Comair team. "As part of our Focus 2009 plan, I've talked extensively about our need to be cost-competitive. This move by Delta certainly supports those efforts to re-align our cost structure by putting us more on par with our competitors who do not have Customer Services as part of their infrastructure. It also enables us to focus solely on our core business of flying airplanes -- making sure we are the best airline."

Comair just got a lot smaller. Good luck to all those affected. Comair stations were by far thebest to fly into.

 

I used to say Comair only had ground handling left... now they don't even have that.