Yeah, and an upgrade that will be 5 plus years with sub par wages... Why come here??? Company needs to feel the pain of the shortage for us to get a respectable TA!

 

upper management has another problem. They always said nobody paid any attention to Spirit blah blah blah. We are so small, blah blah blah.

Here's a telling snippet from a recent Air Transport World Article

Pricing wars: Ultra-low cost carrier Spirit Airlines is no longer being ignored. US mainline airlines are aggressively matching Spirit’s low fares on routes on which they are going head-to-head with the fast-growing ULCC. American is “all-in now in matching ultra-low cost carriers everywhere,” president Scott Kirby said. Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza conceded that the airline’s 14.8% second-quarter year-over-year RASM drop is 40% attributable to “very aggressive” moves by mainline US airlines to match its low fares. American chairman and CEO Doug Parker said, “Customers care a lot about the price of a ticket and we have to compete on price. That’s what we’ll continue to do.”

 

I think they can only keep up with us because oil so is low. It's only a matter of time before it spikes again. Then we'll see if they are willing to lose money just to go head to head.

 

Agreed. Hope it starts to slowly creep back up

 

AMR operates 6,700 flights per day. We have about 300. Them losing money to match our prices on ~100 flights per day won't cause much more than a small dip in their profits. But it will significantly affect us.

 

Geez, I wish Wallstreet would get off this RASM measurement to judge an airlines stock valuation.. Why don't they go back to sheer profitability numbers instead.. We just made $76 million with a huge melt down.. Everyone has known our RASM would drop.. Customers are getting more travel savvy with us and we knew airlines would begin to try and compete with us.. With our CASM below 6 cents and dropping with every new ac delivery it takes us $50 to break even on a seat per 900 mile stage length. Our planes are full on almost every flight....

 

Because they need a way to make comparisons, and Ben addressed that in the latest call.

I don't think he's particularly worried about American or any other legacy matching our prices. We go after different customers. We are not going to steal their business customers who need frequency, we're not taking their international customers, the leisure travelers who travel on their miles or perks either. We're not going to get the government customers or those who fly to destinations we don't serve. There won't be any price matching on those flights.

So, you look at the type of customer we serve, the discretionary traveler. Of those 300 flights a day we do, how much overlap is there with American? And of those, how many of the seats on those flights will be priced to match or beat Spirit's? Even if it's a whopping 10% of the seats on a flight (I'd guess it's be more like 5%), that's roughly 10-15 seats per flight that are competing with us on price. I don't think it's a worry.

The worry is more on the legacies continuing their collusion to limit capacity. Yes, I think the Justice Dept. has something there. That's where we could run into trouble is once all three legacies decide to turn their eye towards us because of our growth.

 

I hope it does give us a wake up call. Our customer service will need to improve once we take a hit in load factors. When others match our prices, there will be no difference between us and them except service, and they will beat us with frequency.

 

KANSAS,

CHeck your PMs

 

absolutely. they profited what 2 billion dollars last quarter alone? they could throw a few million dollars at us to eliminate us then make it all back up by jacking up prices after the fact and it would be but a small blip on their financial radar.

was much easier when we were really small. will be interesting to see how this plays out.

it is all the more reason to get a damn contract soon though