Why would the DOJ let the largest domestic carrier merge with either JetBlue or Spirit? High unlikely.

 

Don't ever say never. New folks in DC at the helm now.

 

What number on the list was AA/US? DL/NWA? UAL/CAL?

How big you are means nothing….what matters is whether or not you’ll have a monopoly and how the merger affects consumers.

 

Okay then why would any pilot here want that? You want internal growth and I'm not convinced the whole AT buyout was really worth it. Look at ATL, no growth there at all and now we are shrinking it. I have feeling in another year that won't even be a base, and we got rid of the 717, which would really come in handy right now considering its a smaller airframe and could to be used instead of flying around with 50 people in 800 all day long.

 

Quoting you so I don't have to reply to 5tools.
What the DOJ decides is really at the whim of who is running the DOJ. A combined WN/B6 fleet is about as big as a legacy fleet minus regional feed. Their route structures and footprints are complementary. JetBlue probably isn't going to survive on their own. It looked good while they were able to grow, but in the mature, post deregulation US airline industry, you are either growing, giant, or dead. The big 3 plus SWA are giant, there are some smaller outliers that are still growing and are able to contain their cost structures (I lump Alaska in this group since they are merging with another smaller airline) and then there are a few medium sized airlines (Jetblue, Spirit, Frontier) that are angling for a niche and being killed by the scale of their competitors.

The way things look right now, unless something drastically changes, those airlines will have to merge with somebody or they will die. The DOJ under the new administration should be much more amenable to a big merger, although that wont be without big concessions too.

There is going to be a big change coming soon. I don't know if WN will be involved or not. I kind of doubt it, but I also wouldn't rule it out. Those airlines that I mentioned have to got make enormous changes in order to survive in current state of the industry.

 

All the LCC like Jet Blue, Spirit, and even Southwest cannot and will not be able to continue to operate in big airports because the cities like Boston, LAX, ATL are making it to expensive, for them to operate in. Just look now Southwest is shrinking the Atlanta base and its flying. Southwest carved out its niche by flying in and out of outlying airports were they could turn the airplanes fast and with less people on the ground. It saved money and made them lots of money. No amount of premium seating is going to fix the problem of the expense to fly in and out of these larger cities. Southwest needs to get back to their old ways, and not be like an American, United, or Delta, who all came through bankrupty to get were they are today. Once all the LCC pull out of the larger cities, the cost will rise even more for the legacy carriers and they will start feeling the pressure, while the legacy's are charging all their useless fees, the LCC can get back to concetrating on low fares and making money again. Southwest does not even have the lowest fares anymore and they are still struggling to get their foot hold after the pandemic, and they may never get it back, considering this Elliot group will start picking them clean soon.

 

Don't read it then.

 

None of this makes any sense. SWA is shrinking in ATL because the 600 pound gorilla that it is sharing lunch with lives there. The only reason that airport makes any sense is as a southern connecting hub. DL will absolutely not let anyone compete there and will take short term losses to make sure that is the case. Why continue beating their head against the wall in ATL for the scraps of what little OE traffic that city has when BNA is right up the road and is cheaper, a better customer experience, and has tons more OE traffic for SWA since it is a destination for out of town visitors? SWA slowly and quietly built up a dominant presence there and pulled the plug on a losing bet in ATL where they will never make money due to the entrenched anticompetitive behemoth that dominates that airport.

One of the other cities you mentioned is BOS where SWA has three gates and has for some time with no real change. The MHT/PVD dominate from the outlying stations experiment worked great during the Herb days, but that era is long gone. SWA can fly less flights from those stations to people willing to pay more and increase yields. MHT to MCO is relatively expensive because there aren't 3 or 4 carriers knife fighting over the customers. People in Nashua don't want to drive into BOS and park their cars (in extreme Boston accent) at the airport for the week to go to Disney. They are willing to pay more. That frees up capacity to go to other markets instead of trying to draw people out from the city, which these days is a losing proposition.

The other one you mentioned is LA. SWA dominates the domestic market in the LA basin. Not sure where you are even going with that. They have an entire terminal in LAX and an immense presence in all the surrounding 5 airports. If you want to fly to LA, Southwest simply offers more seats going to more airports than anyone.

SWA needs to pivot. I am not denying that. They resisted change for about 20 years and the market has simply passed them by. They have the size and the resources to survive and thrive, though. Those other airlines do not. If there is one thing that you can't overcome to compete and survive in the airline industry, it is scale. In the end, the big airlines survive and everyone else fights for scraps.

 

I’d prefer to grow internally….our ability to do so is tied up 100% in an airplane that has been rusting in a parking lot for 6 years with no timetable for actually becoming airborne. How much longer do you want to stagnate while everyone passes you by before you take action and do something about it.

We can wait and see if the -7 shows and then spend the next few years after right sizing the operation…or we can buy someone and have access to more planes that can be kept or sold if the -7 ever shows up. Not sure either way is great….

 

Agreed that is dependent on the DOJ and Bondi’s DOJ might be much more favorable. This route isn’t my cup of tea, but neither is displacements, downgrades and zero hiring.

I wish after the grounding, Kelly would’ve put in an order for 220’s just in case that he could’ve sold off if/when the -7 showed up. Granted that’s Monday morning QB’ing since nobody would’ve thought we wouldn’t be in that plane in 2025.