senecacaptain

my understanding / belief was the LCC model was "more immune" to this than the Legacy model.

I wonder what is going on at Frontier, Sun Country, Jet Blue, Allegiant, etc (in regards to possible furloughs)

good luck guys

nuball5

No one is immune, but the LCC’s are still in better shape overall. Mostly due to how slow business travel will take to recover, plus International business.

Tranquility

Our international capacity was roughly 15%, which Id bet is higher than Allegiant, and Frontier. I have no idea about JetBlue...
If we have a greater exposure to that market than other LCCs/ULCCs, we will need to downsize more.

69fastback

and they are, to an economic downturn, but that’s not what this is. The destruction of our economy is a side effect of a global pandemic. This isn’t 2008, and the situation isn’t the same.

Balker

I agree. This outcome is very likely.

1. Whichever airline starts growing again before others (worldwide context) will find pretty sweet deals on brand new or barely used airframes
2. Oil prices will climb pretty fast as restarting production has a lag and several oil companies will go under. This will make NEOs even more attractive.

Bottom line is, as we downsize don’t completely freak out if you see the company returning airplanes to lessors. We’ll be able to pick up new airplanes quickly when demand picks up again.

nuball5

I mean more in the transatlantic and pacific markets when I say international, sorry for not being clear. A lot of the Caribbean stuff is starting to open up. PUJ for instance opened up two days ago. A lot of those market rely heavily on tourism, whereas the EU travel ban has no end in sight yet.

Rocinante

Exactly, in a conventional recession the business travelers and spendy pax might have to tighten their belts and fly an LCC. Although the economy has undoubtedly taken a hit, it's largely waiters and waitresses who took the brunt of it. Wealthier travelers still have the money to fly the legacies, or they'll just skip it altogether and do a Zoom meeting. Problematically, it's largely that confidence in air travel has dropped among every socioeconomic demographic.

It was mentioned that the tourist-centric destinations we often serve will tend to open up faster than the more businessy international destinations served by the legacies. Further, supposing San Pedro Sula or wherever takes a while to open up, who's to say we can't repurpose that aircraft to bolster current domestic destinations or add low hanging domestic fruit we've been eyeing for a while? I feel like Spirit would do well in SAT, ELP, and ABQ.

doublebed

With regards to B6 they approved a LOA that prevents furloughs until at least May 2021. And Sunny has been doing a fair amount of Cargo flying.

MainlineorSuici

so can we do something like this, too?

Mtnbikemike

No idea what JB did, but if it involves concessions, it’s a no go. Anytime a pilot group does that, it lowers the bar, takes years to get back if at all, doesn’t prevent what mgt is going to eventually do anyway. Besides that, mgt was never interested in profit sharing, low balled us on pay rates and 401k contributions, why should we as one of the lowest paid A320 operators be willing to bend? To save a few first year guys from a short furlough? Sorry, I know that sounds insensitive, but this is the way the industry works and if you have been around long enough, it comes with the territory. I’ve been there and many others have also. I certainly didn’t want anyone taking concessions to save my job.