Returning to Dallas on Southwest from Chicago was a different experience. First, we neglected to insist on avoiding Lakeshore Drive from downtown Chicago to Midway. This found us sitting in stop and go traffic with our margin of safety time eroding quickly. A quick tip and some encouragement to the taxi driver found us suddenly surging ahead when a hole opened and he got us there with time to spare.
Again, I paid for Early Bird check-in on my flight. This found me with a seat number of A group, position 37. This is unsatisfying and I don’t believe the old “A” group went to 37. What I’m saying is that A37 really translates into roughly B10 when you consider the number of people ahead of you and the fact that virtually every flight departing MDW originated somewhere else and already has passengers on it. I obtained a seat in the back on the aisle and that’s OK.
My security experience at MDW was unpleasant and I would say it was about average for a lot of busy airports. In this case, I put the blame squarely on the staffers. They were certainly moving in the Chicago Way. One thing that found me objecting vocally were the wheelchairs. While I stood in line with my belt and shoes in my hands, I saw 3 wheelchair bound people go to the front of the line where all three people got up, walked able bodied through the process and then sat down again.
Sorry but being in a wheelchair does not entitle you to get in front of two dozen people waiting to move through. I objected and the TSA offered that I was being unreasonable. I offered that fair is fair and able bodied people in wheelchairs don’t get to go in front of me. Based on the reaction of passengers around me, public opinion was on my side.
Again, this airport is crowded and I walked the full lengths of both A and B concourses where I did not witness an empty Southwest gate. I witnessed empty Delta gates and empty Porter Airlines gates but not one Southwest gate. They are bursting at the seems and the gate areas don’t quite have enough space for full flights in my opinion.
On this flight (via STL again), I witnessed person after person trying to stuff grossly overpacked and slightly oversized rollaboard cases into overhead bins. This causes many delays when boarding the aircraft. People move through the aisles slower, they put their things away slower and they fight for overhead bin space near their seat. Flight attendants numbering just 3 per aircraft are not enough to keep this kind of herd flowing smoothly. Even a few off duty Southwest staff pitched in to help and made little difference.
One staffer attempted to move my modest briefcase and light fleece jacket all the way to the back. Uh, no, you aren’t going to penalize me for being efficient in favor of people who are apparently clueless about checking oversized bags. My stuff took up, at best, 1/5 of the overhead bin. I’m comfortable with that and it’s notable that just 2 fat bags were able to fit into the bin next to my stuff and the bin lid was only closed after a SWA FA essentially beat the bags down with the lid until it latched.
The flight departure was significantly delayed and I would attribute all of that to people boarding slowly, sitting down slowly, arguing for bin space instead of accepting a gate check of their bag and, last but not least, a 100% full flight. These 100% full flights are exactly why SWA needs the Boeing 737-800 in its fleet.
Once every got seated, we did depart the gate fairly rapidly and experienced about a 10 minute taxi delay as well. Once we took off, things settled down and the trip into STL was quick. Taxiing into STL was efficient and deplaning went quickly. However, once again, it was 100% full and, once again, we played baggage and seat games far longer than necessary. This found the plane departing even later.
Ultimately, I arrived in DAL about 40 minutes late. That was unsatisfying because it wasn’t weather and it wasn’t the aircraft. It was the sheer mass of people attempting to occupy too much space on that aircraft. Southwest needs bigger gate areas to get people organized onto the aircraft and it might be time to consider some variation of assigned seating. Too many people are jockeying for position on full aircraft and that delays things quite a bit. Assigned seating would eliminate the jockeying and, I think, speed seating. Unassigned seating on aircraft that are seeing 70% load factors is one thing but on aircraft that are as much as 89% load factor average, it becomes almost untenable.
All of that said, I still think the experience on both flights was as good or better than what was available to me via American Airlines, DFW and ORD airports. And about $300 cheaper as well. I still recommend Southwest but I also recommend that you use flights that are “no plane change” flights into and out of MDW or you may well risk making a connection. That recommendation stands until Southwest improves its ontime rate at Midway.
One more hint: Southwest doesn’t charge for checking your bags. It has an excellent record when it comes to lost or misplaced baggage and it delivers checked bags to its carousels pretty quickly. Save yourself trouble and just check your rollaboard. You’ll find yourself able to maneuver on and off the airplane quicker. You won’t have to fight for overhead bin space near you (and if you don’t get it near you, you’re going to be massively delayed in getting off that aircraft anyway.) Don’t be vain and insist on taking it onboard when it is completely unnecessary on this airline.
Here is Associated Press video of the tsunami resulting from the 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan. The airport is Sendai Airport. You can see where Sendai is located in Japan on the Great Circle Mapper image below the video.
Last Saturday, I wrote about a trip I was taking from Dallas to Chicago on Southwest. This was my first opportunity to fly Southwest between the two cities and I’ve long believed that even though the flight was a one stop flight, it was actually as efficient or more efficient than taking a legacy carrier such as American Airlines from DFW to ORD.
Yes, it was. Entry into Love Field and moving to the gate was simple and quick. I don’t know why but they appear to be able to move more people through security at Love Field in shorter time than anything I’ve ever seen at DFW. I also don’t know why the TSA staffers at Love Field are coherent and focused and polite in stark contrast with the typical TSA staffers I’ve seen at DFW. The experience at Love Field is better in every way that counts.
The flight departed on time and arrived in St. Louis on time. I paid for Early Bird check-in and got an excellent window seat in the front of the aircraft. The flight was about 80% full to STL but I managed to not have someone sit next to me on that segment.
Departing STL for Chicago, we were delayed a brief while and the Captain announced that they were holding at the gate due to traffic congestion in Chicago. The weather in Chicago was overcast with extremely light snow falling and temperatures at about 36 degrees. When we did take off, there was light to moderate turbulence for the first 45 minutes or so but it wasn’t really uncomfortable with a seatbelt on. As we neared Chicago, the pilot performed a series of “S” turns and I would presume he was asked to do so to fit into the traffic pattern.
Landing at MDW was uneventful and the taxi to the gate was short and quick. But now we get to the downsides. It’s clear that Southwest is overtaxed at MDW. It’s clear by the fact that virtually every gate had an aircraft and when I deplaned, I found every gate area I passed full to overflowing with people awaiting a departure. The walk from the gate areas to the baggage claims is long(ish) but no more so than at many other older airports. Certainly not really more than one experiences at Love Field.
By the time I claimed my baggage, the person I was to meet there arrived and I waited another 15 minutes for him to claim his luggage as well. Travel into downtown Chicago was efficient and quick but probably only because we insisted on taking the interestate northwards instead of being lead to Lakeshore Drive. Make a note of this: You’ll generally always be better off if you insist on the taxi driver not taking Lakeshore Drive to downtown. They’ll insist that it is quicker, it isn’t. It’s slightly shorter but much more congested as a rule.
My Southwest service excellent in all respects on that flight but I do understand why MDW is having delay problems. I don’t think it is the airport so much as it is the fact that virtually every Southwest flight into and out of this airport is full. By full, I mean full to the brim.
What makes those full flights worse is the fact that a great many people are business travelers carrying quite a bit of carry-on luggage. By quite a bit, I mean an obscene amount. With unassigned seating, these travelers jockey for position, jockey for overhead bin space and jockey to avoid sitting in a middle seat. I’ll have more on that in my next post on this trip.
Overall, the experience was pleasant and everything Southwest is praised for. But that said, you’ll find that I see some growing pains in the Southwest model that I think Southwest is going to have to figure out if it expects to continue to profit in the future.
Last week, Delta announced that it had agreed to buy 9 Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) MD-90 aircraft from JAL. After these aircraft are refurbished, they’ll start entering Delta’s fleet next January. Delta’s President, Ed Bastian, refers to these aircraft as “capital efficient” for Delta and it does simply add to Delta’s existing fleet of 19 aircraft. In fact, Delta now plans to add a total of 39 MD-90 aircraft going forward. These will primarily replace aging and inefficient DC-9-50 aircraft.
Capital efficient means that the cost to acquire these aircraft combined with the remaining lifecycle costs including fuel makes them worth operating for Delta. In addition, these aren’t your grandfather’s DC-9s. These aircraft have current generation IAE V2500 engines that are fairly fuel efficient compared to brand new aircraft presently. They also replace fuel guzzlers and represent a net gain going forward as long as fuel prices remain somewhat stable (and by stable I mean out of the $4/gallon territory.)
Delta has so far pursued a strategy of making do with what it has and employing older aircraft longer and this is somewhat in conflict with most other airlines’ strategies. As fuel has climbed in price over the past 4 years, airlines have, if anything, accelerated their purchases of newer, more efficient aircraft.
Is this the right strategy for Delta? Well, as an interim strategy, it works. These aircraft are good for a variety of routes that can largely transit 3 timezones out of 4 in the continental United States. There are a finite number of them available (only a bit over 100 were ever built) and in the near future I suspect that many won’t be worth buying when considered against a new Boeing or Airbus aircraft. From a financial standpoint, these are good buys for Delta and should work for them well over the next 4 to 8 years.
Delta’s fleet is pretty varied since its merger with Northwest Airlines a few years ago and while they have made an excellent show of managing this fleet, there are a number of types that could be pared down over time. Reducing the number of fleet types would allow Delta to be even more flexible with its crew resources and more cost efficient when it comes to maintenance needs. Remember that every fleet type requires an inventory of parts and employees trained to service that fleet type.
This doesn’t mean that I advocate that Delta buy Boeing only or any other manufacturer exclusively either. With its fleet size, it could quite rationally settle on both the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft and operate them simultaneously. The same is true for long haul aircraft. It could probably employ both Embraer and Bombardier regional jets as well. However, for each category (regional jets / single aisle / medium to long haul aircraft), there should be at most two basic fleet types.
In fact, by working with multiple manufacturers, it can speed deliveries, fit the most perfect aircraft to a variety of routes and maintain efficiencies in maintenance and repair at the same time. What I don’t see happening is Delta operating Boeing and Bombardier CSeries as mainline aircraft. I think Delta will play it smart and use the manufacturers that have proven products in each category.
I think that over time, we’ll see Delta order Airbus A320NEO aircraft to replace existing aging Airbus A320s. I think we’ll see an order for Boeing 737 replacement when and if Boeing offers a replacement officially. I think we’ll see Bombardier CRJ900/1000 aircraft come online to replace older CRJ700/900 aircraft and I think we may well see Embraer E170/190 jets for other areas of the country such as shuttle-like operations. In the long haul category, it’s not inconceivable to see 787 orders pulled forward again but for a mix of both 787-8 and -9 aircraft. I think we’ll see them pick either Airbus A350s or 777s for their larger trunk and long haul routes. I might give the 777 an advantage here to become a single type for that category as Delta could very efficiently operate both 777-200LRs and 777-300ERs in a nice mix. They’ve already got very new 777-200LRs (and ERs) that are using the same GE engines the -300ER would use. I’m not sure the Airbus A350 quite fits in as well as one would like it to when it comes to the trunk route / long haul category. I do believe firmly that the 747s will ultimately go away and not be replaced.
Look for Delta to be making more and more announcements about its fleet over the next 2 years. I believe its strategy will be incremental rather than huge orders for a particular family of aircraft and it will be done with strong emphasis on preserving its capital going forward into the next few years.
When traveling through airports, I often notice just how sub-par many airport concessions are for the traveler. Frequently, the kiosks are full of rather generic items priced at rather extraordinary prices to fit rare needs. The newsshops are often the most useful but offer rather high prices and, sometimes, impratically packaged food items. Restaurants of all kinds are often staffed by rather surly people and run by large companies such as ARAmark with not enough attention paid to the standards of the brand.
Before going further, let’s concede that operating on airport real estate is an expensive proposition. Let’s also concede that supplying an operation and staffing it for what are often odd retail hours is also a challenge. In short, let’s be understanding of the need for a higher price for many goods, food and services.
It’s my observation that what often drivese this sub-par service is the exceptionally lengthy leases and concessions granted by airport management to these businesses. Once you’ve got your space, you’ve got a very captive audience. Once you’ve leased all these concessions to one large corporation, you’ve got no real competition either. This is a real problem at many airports.
I am an admitted coffee addict and even an admitted Starbucks fan. I’ve yet to have purchased a Starbucks beverage at an airport that was anywhere close to the product I can get at a regular retail Starbucks store. The service is almost invariably slow and the training of the service staff is invariably bad. I’ve even had to tell a so called airport barista what a “dry” cappucino was. You may not know but in the Starbucks world, this is a basic thing. And that kind of experience for a beverage costing around $5 is really unacceptable. I don’t care if I’m standing in an airport or at my local Starbucks: For $5, I deserve a properly made beverage.
Not all airports are like this. I have always found Portland International to be a great airport to visit. I also really enjoy Milwaukee’s airport when I’ve passed through. Both have the distinction of being willing to reflect their locality with food, retail items and even books. (It’s notable that both these airports have excellent book stores.) I honestly don’t know what their concessions contracts and leases are like but since they do have exceptional representation from local businesses, I can only believe they are doing an excellent job of balancing their offerings as well as ensuring some competition.
It’s time to see other, larger airports engage in more competition inside their terminals. It’s time to see competing newstands, restaurants and retail shops. And it’s time to ensure that new competition has an open and transparent opportunity to enter into that marketplace on a more regular basis than every 15 years.
Today, the way many airports seem to operate in this area reminds me of cable companies in many cities. There is always mediocre to lackluster service until it gets close to the time to renew these contracts. As these businesses near their renewal, there is a suddenly a fresh burst of service and quality. When that time comes, there is often a push to retain the incumbent and to do so under cover rather than through an open bid. The incumbent makes grandiose promises of raising standards in every category and offers what are often large sums of profit sharing to the airport management to ensure their participation in the airport business. Once the incumbent wins his next 10 to 15 year contract, service plummets again and consumers are faced with more expensive and generic offerings with surly service.
I have no doubt that airports could be offering a much better service product with much more competition between businesses. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to buy an airplane practical meal? Or to be able to find a USB charger for your cellphone that you forgot to bring? Are you really going to shop for a $1200 suit while waiting for a flight?
The only way this happens is if your community lets its wishes be known. An active community voice does drive this process.
Hey Southwest! No one likes a snotty busy body off duty, in uniform flight attendant trying to be all things to all people at the expense of the customer who has paid your fees and checked his bags. Like the one (FA) in 16C today.
And make the people carrying on board grossly overpacked and slightly oversized luggage gate check their bags. You’ll turn those flights faster.
Frontier Airlines has announced new services to Knoxville, Provo and Sioux Falls using the A319 for the former and the E170/190 jets for the latter cities last week. Each will receive service from its Denver hub. In addition, Frontier is adding additional service to Minneapolis / St. Paul and San Antonion from Kansas City which are both cities it already serves from Denver.
I genuinely like the Embraer E170/190 jets for service to smaller cities as it offers a mainline type service to cities that traditionally would be served by cramped 50 seat regional jets used by other airlines. It’s a nice service product and Frontier’s owner, Republic, gets to remain flexibile in how it deploys its fleet of those jets.
I do wonder if Frontier isn’t kind of dancing out of the way of real competition though. Its newest routes don’t strike me as something the airline is doing to fight against its LCC competition out there. Nor do these new routes strike me as low hangling fruit for an airline like Frontier as well. For instance, while I can understand flights from Provo and Sioux Falls to Denver, I struggle with the idea that there is a great deal of demand in Knoxville for a route that goes to Denver even if traffic can flow ownwards to other destinations.
As much as Frontier is a western states airline, it does seem to somewhat ignore opportunities on the west coast where it would seem its service product ought to thrive against the competition. Mostly I’m struggling to see the strategy here. 2010 was definitely a “rebuilding” year for Frontier and perhaps its plans will become more clear as 2011 unravels.
A new airline of sorts is planning to begin flights to and from Las Vegas. The airline, LV Air, is planning to use 767 aircraft on charter flights and they’ve got some big plans. They plan to refit these 767 with a Las Vegas-like interior including luxury seating, mood lighting, etc. They also promise inflight texting and video as well as iPads for entertainment.
But here is the one that I kind of balk at happening: Holograms of celebrities for safety briefings.
Initially, these flights will be between New York City and Las Vegas and the business model calls for casinos to buy seats on these flights for their high rollers. What’s left over will be sold as charter space.
I don’t believe this will succeed, however. It’s almost a certainty that the promised 767 aircraft are going to be very old models that will likely be expensive to refit with these luxuries and even more expensive to maintain afterwards. Reducing the seat count to offer luxury seating to these high rollers will raise costs per available seat mile considerably and require higher and higher load factors for each flight.
More importantly, if you’re a high roller who enjoys private flights to Las Vegas, why would you want to fly on this aircraft? And what do you really get that you can’t enjoy in first class seating on an airline providing better frequency and schedule?
Holograms and iPads might attract the curious but they’re unlike to attract the customers long term.
So far, I cannot find information on the aircraft or what airport(s) they plan to fly into and out of. There is a nifty video on their website but that’s it: it’s a nifty video. Interestingly, the video appears to show a 767-300 painted in LV Air colors rather than a -200 model.
This strikes me as something like the trans-Atlantic all business class airlines from a few years ago. It’s likely the wrong aircraft for such services and too many people have too many different options. Even if it does experience some success initially, that will only cause major airlines to attack it on price and schedule.
This airline says it will start service in 2011 (again, I cannot find a certain date for starting) which would imply work on these aircraft has already started. They also project they can move more than 2 million passengers in the first 2 years. I’m skeptical to say the least. All of this is predicated on the idea that seat capacity to Las Vegas has been dramatically reduced over the past few years and it appears that they haven’t paid attention to the reason for that, namely that demand is down as well.
I’ll be mildly surprised if they even start flying and I will be exceptionally surprised if they enjoy any success at all.
Later today, I’m flying from Dallas to Chicago and this time I’m trying out Southwest Airlines’ service from Love Field to Midway Airport. Both airports are the quintessential second airports for their respective cities and both have a strong Southwest history.
Why this airline and these airports? I’ve long advocated that you can enjoy a better, less expensive flight on Southwest that is essentially the same time elapsed “door to door” as a flight on a carrier such as American Airlines.
So, I’ll be making a much quicker drive to Love Field airport where I’ll make a much quicker transit through security to my gate. I did pay the $10 Southwest Fee to early check in to improve my seating options (and it’s a fee that, for Southwest customers, does provide extra value). My flight, however, is not non-stop. I’ll be on a one-stop Southwest flight that pauses briefly in St. Louis. Total programmed flight time? 2 hours, 55 minutes.
I paid $408 for this trip last Saturday compared to American Airlines fare for similar departure times on the same days of $659 and that does not include the fees for one checked bag that I’ll have to take with me. All in, AA would have cost me (or, rather, my client) over $700.
If I had taken AA, I would have had a much longer drive to DFW airport and a much more expensive one as well. (One takes a tollway to DFW if one expects to get to DFW in a reasonable amount of time from where I live.) The difference in time to get to each airport for me on a day where there are no traffic jams? About 20 minutes less to access Love Field.
My Southwest flight time will be 2 hours, 55 minutes (if they’re on time) and a similar choice with American Airlines would be 2 hours, 30 minutes. With the difference in drive time alone, I’ve just made up 20 minutes of a 25 minute difference. When you account for the fact that I can arrive at Love Field with a bare minimum amount of time for passing through vs DFW airport where I would arrive about 15 minutes before my one hour deadline prior to flight time (because checking bags and passing through security at DFW can be easy or it can be real lengthy), I’ve just gained another 10 minutes.
Since I”m arriving at Chicago Midway Airport, I’ll have a drive to my hotel in downtown Chicago that is nominally 6 miles shorter in distance and about 20 minutes quicker than if I arrived at Chicago O’Hare. I’m now up by 30 minutes using Southwest.
At least in theory.
But let’s take a look at the contrasts in experiences I’m liable to enjoy between the two airlines. On Southwest, I paid the $10 Early Bird Check-In fee so I’ll have a very high likelihood of obtaining a good, front of cabin seat on a 737-700. It will be a fairly new aircraft and possibly a brand new aircraft. It won’t be old and it won’t have old, worn out seats either. I’ll enjoy 32″ to 33″ of seat pitch, most likely a friend flight attendant and no charge for a beverage. Because of the nature of my trip, I have to check a bag and that comes free and on an airline with a good reputation for baggage handling and security.
If I had taken American Airlines on similar flight time, I would have enjoyed a 20+ year old MD-82. Since I would have bought AA’s best economy price, I would have likely been at the back of the aircraft and sitting in old, worn out seating with 31″ of seat pitch. My flight attendants would have most likely been cranky, older crew who have a reputation of taking out their job dissatisfaction on their customers. (AA flight attendants can be good but in my experience the DFW and Chicago based crews are frequently hostile to customers.)
My bag would be handled by an airline who had a less than positive reputation for baggage handling (and strangely I’ve had many bags delayed over the years on the DFW-ORD route) and only for a $25 fee each way. If I had paid AA’s fee for priority boarding, I’d get earlier access to overhead bins but no options to sit in a preferred seat up front and an economy passenger on an AA MD-80 flight is going to have the options of “bad” and “worse” when it comes to seat assignments.
Savings in dollars: About $300
Savings in time: About 30 minutes door to door (if this works out as I expect).
What do I give up? I don’t get frequent flier points on American Airlines. Let me point out that my dollar savings alone just bought me a “free trip” if I wanted it. Which would you rather have? about 1600 frequent flier point or $300 in savings? Which would you rather fly on? An old MD-80 with old seats and a hostile flight crew or on a fairly new 737 with new seats and a friendly flight crew?
Once I complete this trip, I’ll write up what actually happened.
Well, in a way it is. The Pan Am name is already in the process of becoming airline again as I posted HERE back in November. However, what I’m talking about today is a television show.
A pilot episode of a new TV show based on Pan American Airlines has been ordered by ABC. The concept around the show is the romantic glory years of jet travel for Pan Am: the 1960’s. Executive producer Nancy Hult Ganis worked as a fligth attendant herself starting in 1968 after walking past a Pan Am office in Detroit.
This is the kind of show that would thrill airline enthusiasts if done right. However, I firmly believe that this kind of show doesn’t have the kind of audience that ABC can view as a success. This is a show better done by one of the cable TV channels a la Mad Men.
But we can always hope that I’m wrong and it does succeed.
WestJet of Canada and American Airlines have announced a codeshare deal where AA will put their flight numbers on up to 20 WestJet destinations in Canada not currently served by American Airlines. This is in addition to WestJet’s brand new relationship with Delta which is an interline agreement.
WestJet was originally supposed to enter into a rather unique codeshare agreement with Southwest Airlines and Volaris (of Mexico) but chose to abandon the deal about 1 year ago when it decided that Southwest was taking too long to implement this and thought its fortunes were better served with another airline.
In many ways, WestJet is pursuing the Alaska Airlines model in being fairly agnostic as far as what airlines it will do a deal with. The airline believes its future is better served with doing one-off deals with a variety of airlines rather than aligning itself with just one. It isn’t an accident that WestJet’s CEO, Gregg Saretsky, is a former Alaska Airlines executive.
Curiously, WestJet is a Canadian low cost carrier that has based its operations on the 737-700 (with some -600 abnd -800 aircraft as well) and works much in the same model as Southwest. It has two hubs, Toronto and Calgary, and pursues frequency on its trunk routes and serves a variety of small destinations throughout Canada as well. They already fly to international destinations in the United States, the Caribbean and Mexico. Also curious, this airline was founded with the help of David Neeleman while he waited out his non-compete clause with Southwest Airlines.
WestJet has existing codeshare agreements with Cathay Pacific as well and interline agreements with British Airways, Air France, China Airlines and KLM.
I can’t help but think that WestJet is the Canadian version of the airline that Southwest seeks to become and it would appear that WestJet is doing this with more agility and quicker execution than Southwest seems to be able to muster.
In a previous post, I made mention of Virgin being courted by a few airlines as a result of their decision to investigate sale and merger possibilities. I wondered what would happen to the other Virgin branded airlines: Virgin Blue and Virgin America most especially.
It’s been announced that V Australia / Virgin Blue , the hybrid named airline has done a deal with Etihad Airways which will see both airlines offering seemless codeshare between their airlines. Etihad customers will have the opportunity to fly Virgin Blue to their final destination in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands. V Australia / Virgin Blue customers will be able to access Etihad flights from Australia to global destinations offered by Etihad.
Just writing that awkward V Australia / Virgin Blue moniker makes me wonder what happends to the Virgin brand in Australia in the future. Is it really worth having two different brands of which one is restricted by agreements with airlines such as Singapore? In the long run, I think not.
If Virgin Atlantic is merged or purchased by someone, I suspect we’ll be seeing the other brands seeking their own identities. Virgin Blue has great identity in Australia but virtually no where else and it isn’t exactly easy to connect it to V Australia (which is a name that I find weird at the least).
As for Virgin America? Who knows. It’s a brand that is starting to gain some cachet in the US and perhaps it will stick around. The potential for growing Virgin America as a brand in the US domestic market is huge. Virgin America can fly to Canada and Mexico under that brand and I see no reason why they’ll want to be starting trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific routes in the next 2 decades. They may well keep it but I think they’ll also start looking for international partnerships after they’ve got a robust enough network.
I do think we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the Virgin brand as a global name if Virgin agrees to be purchased or finds a merger partner. I doubt that we’ll see Virgin Atlantic purchase a partner and, frankly, I’m not sure there are any left in Europe that would be any kind of fit. BMI was their last, best opportunity to stand alone.
Continental’s flight attendants have voted on a new 20 month agreement on pay and no furloughs as they prepare to merge into United Airlines. The agreement gives the flight attendants the highest pay among legacy airline flight attendants.
When this merger began, United flight attendants attempted to co-op Continental flight attendants into their dissatisfaction with United and the Continental crews resisted expressing a desire to have a voice in their destiny. This new agreement displays, once more, Continental management’s ability to work with their staff.
But can they work with United staff? This is a bigger challenge than meets the eye. United unions have no reason to trust Continental management as they have no real experience with them. They do, however, have a long history with being shoved around by former and current United management. These conflicts don’t evaporate because a few good guys take over. It takes time to win that trust.
I think the crew integration going on with United has several more painful chapters ahead before things settle down and all parties do better. Continental pilots are liable to continue to resist relaxing their current scope agreement (no more than 50 seat jets) and add in the fact that United pilots are generally a more “senior” bunch, I suspect they’ll be playing the spoiler for some time to come.
This merger isn’t as easy or as logical as the Delta/Northwest merger and doesn’t have the benefit of forward thinking union leaders like Lee Moak to help set a tone that lets things get worked out.
Southwest has gotten a transition plan for its absorbtion of Airtran approved the FAA it would appear they are on track to close their merger later this spring. The transition plan calls for both Southwest and Airtran to be operating on one certificate early in 2012.
In addition, Southwest has gotten a transition agreement into place with its pilots’ union which establishes the procedural framework for integrating Airtran pilots into Southwest’s structure. This does not mean that we yet know how Airtran pilots will be actually integrated into the Southwest seniority list. The silence on that issue is probably an indicator that progress is being made. Unions don’t usually start firing public shots at each other unless they feel like progress is being blocked.
I expect we’ll see more announcements on the merger in the next few weeks and certainly after Airtran holds its vote on March 23.
On another front, Southwest’s Gary Kelly has said that Southwest plans to grow further in Milwaukee. Like Airtran and Frontier, Southwest sees Milwaukee as a real opportunity and by taking over Airtran, it should have plenty of space and opportunity to continue its growth. I expect that we’ll see Southwest continue its battle against Frontier in this city as well Denver where both have grown but more at the expense of United than each other. Southwest is now carrying more passengers out of Denver than Frontier.
Finally, Southwest should start flying from the NYC area’s Newark Liberty International Airport. Southwest gained important slots from ContiUnited as a function of their merger and they’ve now got approval from the airport to begin flying from 3 gates to 2 destinations (Midway and St. Louis).
With toeholds in both La Guardia and Newark Airport as well as Long Island’s Islip airport, I expect that we’ll see Southwest look for other opportunities to grow each new airport’s flights. La Guardia, I expect, will be the slower growth airport as slots are extremely valuable there and several airlines are vying to be New York City’s airline of choice.
One wonders if service to Islip will continue in the face of this NYC area growth and I expect the answer is that the flights will stay as long as they remain profitable and there are no other better profit opportunities elsewhere. In the near term, I expect they’ll stay. Islip is nowhere close to NYC and Southwest has been serving primarily East Coast destinations from Islip with Chicago Midway being the one exception to that. Chicago may perhaps be dropped but I expect that if Southwest has found it valuable to serve the airport today, it will find it to be profitable to do so in the future. Currently, Southwest’s competition is US Airways at Islip.
Southwest Airlines and iTunes are partnering up to promote Southwest’s new WiFi service (currently on 65 aircraft) by offering free music downloads. InAirtainment will allow people to download this music while in the air. A playlist of 20 free songs will be offered but there is a catch: We’re not talking about top 40 songs here. These songs will be from bands “about to fly” themselves.
Regardless of the value of the songs, this is a nice partnership and something a bit more unique than previous promotions for WiFi service. The cachet of iTunes certainly helps promote the announcement.
However, this also means that it has value only to those using iTunes and that potentially leaves a lot of people out of the promotion. Nice approach but I think a partnership with someone like Amazon would have actually provided more value. On the other hand, that kind of partnership would have also excluded iTunes users.
It’s nice to see Southwest trying to be unique as usual but I have to give this promotion a B for its idea quality and a C- for its real value to the customer.
With the uprisings now occuring in North Africa and the Middle East, oil prices are rising quickly and we’re seeing prices as I write this topping $100 / barrel. Airlines are already sounding warning cries of higher fuel prices and their (potential) impact to revenues as well as fares and stock markets are reacting to this as well with airline stocks losing a fair bit of value. Analysts are speculating whether or not airlines correctly anticipated this rise and, in my opinion, already unfairly criticizing anyone they can point to.
No one can plan for these events. In fact, I don’t believe anyone can accurately plan for oil prices anymore. The idea that oil prices can stay stable is fantasy at this point. We cannot accurately predict what will happen to both demand and supply in the world at this time. An economic recovery and rise in production in one region might drive up demand. A political crisis in an oil producing region may well constrict supply. And to further complicate the issues, speculators in oil are not known for being very stable people either.
Furthermore, no one is going to stabilize current oil prices as the factors that influence the prices are far too great for anyone one country or groups of countries to try to influence effectively.
The best that airlines can do is manage in the “now” and let tomorrow worry about tomorrow. Not for nothing, that is exactly the approach US Airways has been taking and with great success. They have no fuel hedging in place and they’re realizing more from that than other airlines are from hedging strategies.
Should airlines continue to hedge? Absolutely but only with the goal of stabilizing and making their budgets for fuel costs predictable. To pursue a strategy to completely offset the volatility of oil prices only spells disaster for them. What that means is, yes, they should hedge some of their fuel costs to help stabilize their planning but to a certain degree they are at the whim of the market places.
Despite the doom for oil prices spelled out as a result of the uprisings previously mentioned, I think we’ll find that while there may be overthrows of government, the chances of reduced oil supplies are pretty slim. If anything, the chances for rising supplies in the medium term are great which would actually mean lower fuel prices. In the short term, they’ll be highly volatile and that’s life.
Expect rising airfares over the next 6 to 9 months and a slow reduction going forward after that. Rising airfares will be a function of 2 major factors: higher fuel prices and renewed capacity restraint on the part of most airlines in light of fuel price volatility.
In the long term, the only major airlines I see being negatively impacted by these uprisings and it is potential only for now are the UAE based airlines such as Emirates, Etihad and Qatar. Each of these airlines is heavily dependent upon their home countries being peaceful with strong economic growth and the certainty that those regimes have provided thus far. Given the volatility in Bahrain and Yemen, I would say that if those uprisings spread further into other UAE members, those airlines fortunes may well be very negatively impacted.
The Boeing replacement for the 737 may end up as the most hotly speculated about aircraft in history. This aircraft was first delivered in 1967 as a 737-100 seating about 100 people. In fact, it was an exceptionally slow seller for most of the 1970s. It’s now nearly 45 years old and the largest of the currently family, the 737-900ER, can seat potentially as many people as 200. The first 737s had a range of about 1600 miles and the current longest range 737 can fly about 3000 miles.
This aircraft has doubled its size and range over its life in what has been really 3 model ranges over that lifespan: The original -100/200 aircraft, the -300/400/500 and then the -600/700/800/900. There are over 6000 of this type delivered with more than 2000 still on order and it possesses possibly one of the best records out there for reliability.
Replacing this aircraft is no small task and Boeing gets one chance to do it right.
It’s all about efficiency and the low cost per available seat mile that can be obtained. Airlines want to see a replacement that gives them not just a good gain upon delivery but which also affords them the best advantage over the life of ownership.
Capacity: Most likely we’ll see an airliner family that seats from 150 to 210 people. Airlines are already seeing the value of switching from the -700 model to the -800 model because they can fill the seats without really any additional cost. (This was the main reason why the -600 never really took off: airlines could fly the -700 for about the same costs and enjoy more flexibility.) In addition to a robust passenger range, I expect that we’ll see the lower cargo area designed to accomodate a bit more payload than the present airliner. While this aircraft will never be an uber freight hauler, the present 737 has always been a bit constrained both in volume and payload weight. An improvement in that area will be desired.
Fuselage: Boeing has already expressed doubt that their approach with CFRP for the 787 won’t necessarily scale down to a 737 type replacement. That’s probably true but that approach is already several years old and don’t rule out some sort of plastic airliner for this development. New materials are developed every year and the big advantage to this approach for such an airliner is that it helps with maintenance. There would be reduced corrosion over the life of the aircraft and reduced fatigue as well. Whether it is a composite barrel or plastic panels on a metal skeleton, it’s liable to be plastic of some sort. In addition to reduced maintenance, it will also lighten the airframe even a small amount and reduced weight translates into carrying more payload a farther distance.
Range: The base range for the next replacement will be, at the least, somewhere between 3000 and 3500 nautical miles. In other words, expect North American transcontinental range at minimum. Will it be designed to fly a 757 style mission across the Atlantic to Europe? That’s anybody’s guess but I think probably not. I don’t see a 5000nm range being designed into this aircraft as it really pushes the weight of the airframe in directions that designers are unlikely to want go in. The 757 was an anomaly in aircraft design because engines available for that aircraft during its design were uncharacteristically robust. Generally speaking, engines have to be pushed to meet such requirements.
Engines: I don’t see a twin tail, open rotor design. Instead, I see a relatively conventional layout with engines on the wings. I do, however, expect two engine choices on the next design. Why? Because so many will be ordered that two engine manufacturers can enjoy good economies of scale and buyers like choice when it comes to engines.
I think we’ll see engine thrusts starting somewhere between 20,000lbs to 22,000 lbs and ranging upwards to somewhere around 30,000lbs to 32,000lbs with bypass ratios in excess of 6 .0. These engines will have big fans and they will drive the aircraft to be higher off the ground. That’s OK because the typical airline using this aircraft today is nothing like the typical airline who used it originally. Airports and airlines are better equipped and while loading will require equipment by default, it will still be easy to turn around this aircraft. I expect we’ll see some cargo hold innovation to speed loading and unloading in this aircraft.
I believe the engine suppliers will be CFM(or, perhaps, just GE) and Pratt & Whitney. Rolls Royce has never played well in the single aisle market and their basic Trent 3-spool design just appears to be too cumbersome to scale down for this aircrafts needs. A Rolls engine in that approach would be heavier and less optimal for the typical flights. In addition, Rolls Royce has done very little innovative work for these kinds of engine requirements.
Wings: Boeing has always done a good job of giving its aircraft enough wing for growth. That won’t be any different here and this is where I think we’ll see some real gains in fuel efficiency. Wing design has come along way at Boeing and they’ll push their technology quite a bit in this area. I think we’ll see raked wing tips rather than winglets in the next aircraft. They’ll likely resemble the 787 more than anything else although without quite the gull-like appearance in flight due to being shorter. I think they’ll be largely plastic and I think they’ll retain good short airfield performance to keep the LCC airlines happy since they have a habit of flying into smalller, more obscure airports as a rule.
Twin Aisles: I doubt it. It’s a concept that has received attention but, at the end of the day, a wider fuselage to accomodate two aisles translates into a wider fuselage. A wider fuselage translates into more drag and that means more fuel to power it through the air. What I do expect is an ever so slightly wider fuselage that is likely more “round” a la Airbus.
What I do think we might see is some sort of innovative approach to making it possible for the airline to load and unload from front and rear doors on a regular basis. LCC’s like their fast turn-arounds and offering the ability to do this in a more self-contained, efficient manner will only make them happier.
Passenger cabins: I expect Boeing will certainly work hard to design an open and pleasant passenger environment that resembles their approaches with the 777/787/747 as well as their new signature Sky Interior. We might even finally see some suggested seating innovation but no one owns this domain very well. Boeing works with outside suppliers on behalf of its customers rather than supplying the seating themselves.
When: I expect a target for initial entry into service of 2019 to 2020. Anything past that offers Airbus too much opportunity to steal customers. It can be done and it is going to require quite a few resources. That’s OK because this kind of effort should be flawless in meeting both requirements as well as in its execution. This is potentially an airliner that sells in excess of 10,000 aircraft. You can’t let Airbus continue to fill needs for customers (especially customers who have blended Boeing fleets a la United and Delta) while you dither around waiting for the perfect opportunity. Once another guy’s airliner is purchased, it can take from 15 to 25 years to have another opportunity to fill that need.
It will be a more revolutionary aircraft than evolutionary certainly but expect it to not look entirely different from what it does today.
