Zard

you think airbus wouldn’t make deals to steal an all Boeing customer?


I’m conflicted about this in general. Wall Street looks out for Wall Street so I’m not terribly concerned about the stock price tanking. If Wall Street thinks SWA is going to spend money on capex and reinforcing the operation instead of buybacks and dividends, that ain’t the worst thing for those of us who punch a time card at SWA.

However, if you’re holding out hope that our geriatric boomer *******stixx on the board are going to come to Jesus because of this and reinvent our brand to drastically increase profits, I’ve got some beachfront property in Arizona you may be interested in. We are going to muddle along until Gary Kelly and his ilk croak. After that, all bets are off.
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Mozam

Spot on. GK and his puppet BJ suck to say the least. The top 5 below them are top notch, and have a great vision for WN .

khergan

Honest question - why can't they just keep buying Max 8s? Is it truly the end of the world if the MAX 7 doesn't come out?

WHACKMASTER

A lot of our markets truly need a 150 seat or less aircraft. Our -800s and MAX 8s are 175 seats. They also want the added performance and range of the MAX 7 for certain markets (the biggest of which is DEN-Hawaii).

Smooth at FL450

RASM and CASM move in the wrong direction when you operate the too many of the wrong sized aircraft. SWA's RASM has been trending in the wrong direction for a few quarters now...

and Max8 already struggles with some of the longer routes SWA puts it on. Think PHX/LAS->Hawaii when it's warm. Fuel stops aren't popular and the -7 would solve that problem.

Hedley

For the same reason that United can't just have hundreds of Max9's delivered instead of the -10. Production is booked out for years and they're not available in sufficient numbers.

sailingfun

The articles title is a bit misleading. They are cutting growth not capacity. Those growth cuts might not be all that unwanted by SWA management given the weakness in fares starting to occur. If they can get Boeing to have to pay for the loss of growth more better!

e6bpilot

SWA has been taking Max 8 deliveries in lieu of Max 7 for a while now. There is plenty of shuffling left in the order book deck of cards, but the fact is, SWA is retiring and needs to retire more 143 seat aircraft and is taking 175 seat aircraft to replace them. That works great on some routes, but not others. Leisure travel is largely back to the pre Covid pattern. They need to optimize their RASM numbers, and having fire sales to try and fill up those extra 32 seats isn't helping. Take a 700 -ville or -burgh market and multiply that by 3 or 4 flights a day, and you are giving away seats because you are trying to keep frequency in the market, which is a hallmark of the SWA network and a big reason why people pay more to fly on SWA than they may on their ULCC competitors.

They need a smaller gauge aircraft in the network with super low operating costs. How they get there remains to be seen, but it is looking like the Max 7 may not fit the timeline that SWA needs it to. I think they have been burned by Boeing promises too many times, but we shall see. Gary Kelly and his ilk seem to have an addiction to the 737 that they just can't break. At some point, the cost of having a second fleet has to meet the rising cost of not having one. There is a lot to be gained by having a single fleet both for the company and honestly for the pilots too, but I think the breaking point may have been surpassed for the Max.

In the end, nobody posting here including me gets a say. I find that when I expect the worst when it comes to Boeing and SWA, I am usually not disappointed. I think a merger is pretty much a non starter in this environment, but that seems like a popular option among the pilot CEO crowd.

VacancyBid

They need to optimise RASM why? to make wall street happy

Put another way, how much more does it cost to fly a Max8 versus a Max7 over the same route with same payload. Does the fuel burn delta really tank the operation? Is there some other increased marginal cost for operating an 8?

Nick Bradshaw

Don't stroke it too hard. 25%+ of Delta's 220 fleet are grounded for engine and other problems and any given time. Deliveries are delayed upon delayed due to supply chain issues. Parts are impossible to get. I've heard JetBlue and Breeze have similar or worse problems without the engineering department and 400lb gorilla Delta has on Airbus's back. The plane looks cool but has an abysmal dispatchability rate. Very glitchy and maintenance intensive. It's not your white knight, it's an albatross. This jet was designed to fly 4+ hours per cycle. The way SWA operates, these things would be a disaster pounding the ground 10 times a day.