Schedule change / flights removed?

My plan in August was to jumpseat on the 1230pm DTW-LAX and buy the family tickets on the evening (around 630pm) flight. Now that evening flight seems to have been removed for August. Just 1x day at 1230om for DTW-LAX.

Yup, demand hasn’t come back like they hoped and in some markets has fallen off due to the new upticks in cases. I know they have been cancelling flights in July and have drawn down some of the August flying as well.

Hopefully boosting July only to have the demand fall back hasn’t increased our cash burn per day

Just did a 5 day stretch, and loads are a tad concerning. But i cant see how 4 million per day loss is accurate...Gotta be way better than that at this point. In March and April we were giving free refunds, flying mostly empty, 1 or 2 pax per flight up until the cancels. Now labor is largely paid for, and at least making some revenue, but in no way is this environment profitable.

That said, fair to assume airlines will make it look as bad as possible to bolster any chance at more government freebies.

Finished a 4 day yesterday. Had a low of 109 max of 175 averaged about 150

750 flights/day
 

Well to start with we still have a lot of planes parked and it cost money to have them parked somewhere. Also depends on how much they are charging for tickets. If they are only charging $20 even if it’s full that’s not enough to cover gas. Don’t forget we don’t own most our planes so there are payments for those as well. Honestly I’m surprised we aren’t losing more money.


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$20x 150 is $3000. $27 ( half our average ancillary revenue per pax) is $4050. My less than super fuel efficient A321 burned something like 2300 gallons on a pretty average leg today. At $2/ gallon, and it isn’t anything like that, that would be $4600 against $7050. Even spotting really low ticket prices and half our average ancillary revenue we handily covered the cost of grossly exaggerated fuel costs.

But the reality is that we had closer to 180 pax onboard that leg today, and even with some reduced ancillary revenue we probably grossed $10-11000 on the flight. $12000+ if we managed average ancillary revenues.

All that to say that some basic math will put to rest some fears about us covering costs to operate many of our flights.

The sad part it’s that demand actually came back and way faster than anticipated. The recent spike in new cases freaked out travelers and cancellations started to mount. If you want to look at the silver lining, what we experienced in
late June/early July it’s a sign that demand can (and will) come back fast too, but unfortunately not for the next few months. That’s why I think furlough numbers will be curbed since the company probably wants to be ready to react quickly. It’s a tread off gamble, but I think in a few months people will be ready to fly again, covid or no covid. Death rate is slowing down. I believe we’re not too far out from seeing the true colors of this pandemic. In the meantime brace for turbulence ahead.

Good point I should have done the math so in this case for a flight like the above ($20 x150=3000) the company made $1600 dollars after paying for fuel (4600). But then you have to pay for landing fee/pilots/fa's/and whatever we pay for outsourced gate agents. So *maybe* the company would break even on that flight which is great, but then we still have planes parked that we are paying for. Compared with what a lot of airlines are losing a day 4 million isn't bad, but it's also not great.

Im not saying we aren’t losing money, but the $4 million I believe is DEFINITELY outdated. They can’t disclose any financial info to us until they disclose it to the investors, so until the next investor conference call (what have you) we won’t know for sure, but there is almost no way we are still losing $4 million a day.

My understanding was the $4 million a day number was back when we had our whole fleet Parked and flying 56 flts a day. Obviously things have improved drastically from those early dark days.

Last trip I was averaging 35 bags a leg. I don’t know what our checked bag fee is (maybe the price changes on those depending on when you buy them as well), but let’s assume $35. That is $1225. Maybe that is part of the $27 per pax that was factored in above scenario. Either way some flights bag money is nearly covering fuel.

I was in LAX a couple days ago. There were 5 NK birds there and one guy waiting for a gate behind us. T5 packed. Great to see.

Finally, I know there is talk of supposedly mass cancellations of bookings. Not really sure what to believe. ORD sold something like 1,000 seats 24 hours (yesterday - Saturday) for today’s flights.

I start a 3 day tomorrow. I’ll keep track of LF, bags and our fuel costs and see how we did.

That $1600 assumes halved ancillary revenues and exaggerated fuel prices. Payroll is made for the crews, and we don’t pay our contracted gate agents or crews much. But let’s assume that we only made $500 for the flight after all costs. X3 flights per plane x 120 operating planes. That’s $180,000 a day to pay for 20-30 parked planes.

Does it cost $6000 a day to park a plane? I don’t know, but if it were really a problem we’d have already parked the paid for 319’s and started running the planes with payments.

Again. That’s with grossly exaggerated costs versus revenue and assumes minimal ticket prices for every seat. Realistically that 321 leg I flew probably made $5-6000. For one leg. At rock bottom ticket prices with nearly 50 empty seats. Clearly things aren’t great, and I won’t try to pump that sunshine. I’ve flown sever 20-40 pax flights too as well as some sold out birds. But some basic math will tell you that many of our flights are handily breaking even. Particularly with payroll being taken care of by Uncle Sam.

True I had forgotten to factor in the cares act covering payroll. I'll be the first to be happy if we weren't losing as much as before because I'd like to keep my job as long as possible.

Latest from GM for July is 550 flights a day with an average load factor at 62% Hub to hub having the highest loads.

sounds about right from what I’ve seen.

To me it seems like the bounce back was quite rapid at Spirit. So in a few week when this bout of virus spreading losses favor in the media, we should reasonably assume that the bounce back will be there once again. It’s like we have workable data now.

IATA apparently disagrees with this assessment. Hopefully the leisure market will fare better.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2020/07/28/air-travel-will-not-recover-until-2024-iata/

So wait, the virus isn't spreading? It's fake news?

The effects of COVID on the overall economy should not be discounted but business travel was really never NK’s forte anyway.

So it’s not really a question of whether or not airline flying as a whole takes a hit, because it unquestionably does, but how that hit affects each of the players. With business flying taking a more severe and long lasting hit, those airlines depending on it get put at a disadvantage at least temporarily. With overall numbers down, airlines depending on a gate monopoly to fend off competitors are at a disadvantage, even those who use regional affiliates to control those gates. So in the end it sort of comes down to CASM. While WN, F9, and NK will be affected like everyone else, I think they will not only lead the recovery but improve their market share and long term prospects vis a vis the legacies In the long run. That doesn’t mean they won’t be taking a hit in the short term though.

stop looking for something to fight about.

Why would I fight over facts. The virus is spreading and that is the factor that determines the fate of the airlines and pilot jobs.

Fact: The death rate is decreasing and that is all that matters.

Not if people don’t care about the virus anymore. The headlines of huge case increases scared off people for a little. As more and more of them know people that have had it and how they were affected the less scared they will be.

I know more than several now and one that was hospitalized and I can tell you I’m ready to live my life as close to normal as possible. I wash, I sanitize (especially my work space), and I wear my mask when I can’t social distance. Getting on a plane or going on vacation is no problem for me. As more and more people see first hand how most are affected they will get back out there.

covid fatigue is already setting in which is why the case numbers are rising. Death rate is flat and declining but that doesn’t make a scary headline.

Anyone else notice that hurricane headed towards Florida? I know the company has their hands full, but I am a little surprised that they haven't had anything to say about it at all. Last I heard we had quite a few OCC members working remotely from home.

This is about to get real interesting if we take a hit and have widespread power outages...

aint nobody got time for a CAT 1. Reference wind shear decision aid, land if you can, or divert to tpa or rsw and head to the hotel (after a 3hr wait on hold of course)

They say ignorance is bliss.

Death rate flat? Better recheck your facts.

They mentioned it on the town hall.

I think 1500 people a day dying is the scary headline.

Have to die of something sometime. We are all in God’s waiting room. Some sooner than others. Fate is the hunter.

Whether it's covid or a coronary, you're still dead and the pain from loss is the same.

Almost 40 million are living and feeling the pain of being out of work. 150 thousand dead in the US is a drop in the bucket and most were already on track to die anyway.

I do feel for those that died strictly from covid, that is a tragedy. It's time for the country to take precautions and open up, time to go back to living.

#reality

I'm just curious as to where you want to "open up?" With the exception of some states in the northeast and California it seems like most states are "open."

oh wow if you believe that.

Happens all the time:

More like 8000 a day, actually.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

The CDC stopped being a credible source of data quite a while ago. Just another political agency trying to increase their own funding.

Because cancer, heart disease and auto accidents are communicable diseases. Brilliant! Were you in pre-med or pre-law? Same Dif. And it was over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. Double Secret Idiocy comes to mind.

I’ll forgive your ignorance, but it makes your attempt at sarcasm look pretty silly.

https://i.ibb.co/nMsT99B/F9-E084-A5-...F7681-EE83.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/xzPYrK5/BB76-ACB3-1...A6-DCC6461.jpg

Nice try as it relates to this issue and your upcoming furlough. How many furloughs have there been as a result of coronary disease, cancer or car accidents? Can’t fix stupid comes to mind.

dont we as a society take measures to prevent car accidents , cancer and heart disease?

I’m pretty sure shutting down the economy because one side lost an election isn’t a normal method of fighting a virus (Didn’t do it with swine flu, Obama just stopped testing and reporting results) - but here we are

The wonderful thing about heart disease is that it doesn't spread throughout a room full of innocent victims. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Oh, now we're a "victim" when we catch a virus?