Is at all possible to keep the 2x2 configuration and add 3 rows of 2x2, the leg room would be a lot less but i would rather have 2x2 seating then more leg room
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MKEbound
Except Allegiant isn't highly profitable.
What are you reading? Check out their balance sheet and income statements: profitable in '05,'06, and 07 was a banner year. Little debt and positve assets.
They have been having an amazing expansion year to year, ramping up aircraft (MD-80s!) and passengers- and ALGT even turned in a profit in 1Q 08! ALGT expanded # of passengers 50% May '08 versus May '07
Here's the thing, as a consumer, I know what ALGT is, I know what Southwest and Air Tran are. I know what NW is (it's Delta or soon will be).
I have no idea what Midwest is these days. I've come to the conclusion that one of the problems with Midwest is that management believed its own rhetoric. Same old Midwest management, poor at execution, a day late and a dollar short.
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Now let me get this straight. NWA and its pals at Texas Pacific put a half billion into Midwest just a few months ago, and all of a sudden the place is out of money. That's a lot of chocolate chip cookies. With YX assets being shifted to Indy to fy NW codeshares, reducing longer haul services out of MKE just happens to coincidentally take pricing pressure off the NW connecting traffic flowing via the MSP hub, and headed to many of those same cities that YX appears to be de-emphasizing.
NWA and its pals at Texas Pacific put a half billion into Midwest just a few months ago.
The money invested in purchasing Midwest went into the hands of the shareholders, not to the operating coffers of the company.
Quote:
Originally Posted by deelmakur
and all of a sudden the place is out of money.
Have you any source to show they are "out of money?" It is a rather good bet they are losing money...as nearly every carrier is...due to oil just junder $140/bbl. Any airline even close to actually being out of cash finds themselves shut down quickly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by deelmakur
With YX assets being shifted to Indy to fy NW codeshares, reducing longer haul services out of MKE just happens to coincidentally take pricing pressure off the NW connecting traffic flowing via the MSP hub, and headed to many of those same cities that YX appears to be de-emphasizing.
Midwest does absolutely no flying for Northwest at Indianpolis, and if you're aware of anything contrary to this, please offer your soruce.
The Midwest capacity reductions are the result of parking high-fuel-burn aircraft. Nothing is be reallocated to Indianpolis or to Northwest service.
In markets where Midwest reduces services, all competitors including Northwest will likely see increased traffic. Because NW is the perrennial #2 at Milwaukee, and because of the linked frequent flyer programs (an agreement penned well before TPG or NWA constructed their first bid for Midwest, by the way) NW is likely to see a significant portion of displaced Midwest traffic.
Is at all possible to keep the 2x2 configuration and add 3 rows of 2x2, the leg room would be a lot less but i would rather have 2x2 seating then more leg room
I have to disagree completely! I feel the exact opposite! The 717 is already down to 32in, which is the minimum I can tollerate. The middle isn't nearly as bad if you have some room to move. Then again, I'm pretty tall...Obviously, I'd rather have both, but people aren't willing to pay for that.
Thanks Knope for providing the historical picture! Never realized that's how the md's evolved. And for keeping people honest on here...you beat me to correcting the IND post. IND hasn't been ramped up at all, they've simply announced a code share using existing flights, and there are no codeshares via MSP. If you watch fares on MKE-MSP, things haven't really changed much. YX and NW fly that route for 2 different reasons, and from my observation, the pricing reflects that.
Strangely, I'm one of those who has to fly to LAS for business just about quarterly. Rarely am I able to fly YX becuase by that time the flights are full and the fares outrageous...usually get stuck on F9.
Even if the 717 can do MKE-LAS or DEN in the summer, could 2x2 with hot/high weight restrictions really be profitable?
Last year, it was announced that the 717s would be reconfigured with 40 "Signature" seats and 59 "Saver" seats. The new seating was scheduled to be rolled-out in mid-August.
We're now about seven weeks or so away from the time the new configurations should be in place and we haven't heard anything from Midwest on this. No specifics on fare buckets, how seats can be booked, the cost to up-grade, etc.
With the MD80s now going away, I'm beginning to wonder if the seating lay-out as originally planned will actually take place. Midwest's management did say today that they will be going back to their roots by focusing on business routes. That could mean that there is a demand for premium seating and the 40/59 seating mix will stay. Assuming that Midwest still plans on flying to Florida, Phoenix, and Las Vegas perhaps there will be more, would the 40/59 arrangement be economical?
It seems very strange that no details have been released on this yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YX802
I was at MCI last weekend, and a Midwest CSR told me she had heard a rumor the 40/59 config was being put on hold. I didn't give it much credibility as company employee's do tend to gossip and spread unfounded rumors. Keep that in mind when reading this.
I wouldn't be shocked if the conversion was put on hold until Seabury can fully review it. The cash outlays to do the conversion and build the supporting systems may not be worth it in this environment for 11 extra seats. 11 seats per plane with 25 717s is basically adding nearly 3 more 717s. Kind of negates the capacity reductions a little bit. Maybe they think they can get a revenue premium with 2x2 seating on the whole plane with everyone raising their fares.
YX is going ahead with the 99 seat program. Tim stated that at one of the meetings. Midwest Class will be rolled out in the Fall.
And those who are say Allegiant is wildly profitable, have you seen what is
going on in leisure markets like LAS? They are a business built on catering to leisure and group travel, which is one of the first things to go in a recessionary economy.
By the way, when are the analysts on Wall Street going to notice that there is a very good chance that 1000 aircraft will be parked by the end of the year? I believe that is right about 20-25 percent of the U.S. airline fleet.
How do they continue to justify Jet-A at $4 a gallon?
Supply and demand....yea right. I can't wait for the day that executives at Goldman and Morgan Stanley are facing the same fate as those at Bears Stearns.
Mike Boyd has a scathing piece today pointing out the sheer idiocy of Midwest rejecting AirTran's bid, and how the chickens have now come home to roost.
I hate to say it, but we told you so! Provincialism is always deadly in the airline industry. Now everyone in MKE suffers.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iahphx
Mike Boyd has a scathing piece today pointing out the sheer idiocy of Midwest rejecting AirTran's bid, and how the chickens have now come home to roost.
I hate to say it, but we told you so! Provincialism is always deadly in the airline industry. Now everyone in MKE suffers.
Too bad some of the assumptions made by Boyd are flat-out wrong. For example:
"The decision - which is not without valid operational reasons - leaves the Midwest with very little long-haul capability to access the Western US from MKE. It also materially weakens YX at MKE competitively. Boeing 717s are great airplanes. But they're not capable of MKE-LAX or MKE-SFO service. Not having nonstop access to these key markets now makes Milwaukee wide open to competitive response. It also makes Midwest much less of a player at Milwaukee. And it means that Midwest will have no real choice - pending a new fleet mix - but to focus on Kansas City as an expansion point."
The elimination of the one daily non-stop flight to LAX and seasonal service to SEA and SFO will not materially weaken Midwest in the least. As knope has pointed out very well, those are leisure markets with junk yields. Losing those flights will not be a major blow to Midwest. As of right now, Midwest will still serve all of those markets via MCI. The higher yield business traffic and loyal Midwest passengers will continue to use those flights to get to the West Coast (especially if they're one-stop, same plane service).
It's interesting that Boyd talks about the huge loss Midwest and Milwaukee will suffer as a result of these cuts, but then immediately contradicts himself by saying the following:
"There's the belief that LCCs will benefit from all of the "gaps" as major carriers reduce capacity. It's veneer nonsense, because what's being cut is capacity, not major markets. Besides, the traffic demand being spilled off isn't economic to carry any longer, and much of that may vaporize in any case as $4 gasoline starts to take its toll on the household budget."
If the routes being cut are not profitable for any airline to operate, why does Boyd care if Midwest axes some of the low yield leisure flying?
Then there's this:
"Furthermore, the remaining fleet mix - 50-seat CRJs feeding traffic back and forth with 99-seat 717s, is not a recipe for low system ASM costs."
Much of the CRJ flying is point-to-point flying, carries a higher portion of O&D traffic than most legacy carriers receive, and generates significantly higher yields. I guess Boyd didn't take the time to analyze those routes.
Actually, iahphx, you haven't told us anything. Conditions have deteriorated significantly since last August. Every airline, including AirTran, is suffering at the moment. The AirTran cheerleaders conveniently forget how flawed AirTran's proposal was for Milwaukee. Nearly 40% of the flights were going to be operated with regional jets. Those didn't work for AirTran when times were good. Imagine how bad the economics would be for AirTran today. I'm sorry, but to suggest that AirTran wouldn't have been slashing service in MKE is absurd in the extreme. Every airline is cutting back these days. AirTran has announced capacity reductions as well. There's no reason to believe that MKE would have been spared. There's a real possibility MKE would have been much worse come this fall had AirTran succeeded.
__________________ If you don't know where you are going, you might end up someplace else.
Mike Boyd has a scathing piece today pointing out the sheer idiocy of Midwest rejecting AirTran's bid, and how the chickens have now come home to roost.
I hate to say it, but we told you so! Provincialism is always deadly in the airline industry. Now everyone in MKE suffers.
"I think it's more likely that any large airline bankruptcies would occur next year," said Philip Baggaley of Standard & Poor's, who has assigned his lowest ratings to U.S. Airways, AirTran Airways (AAI) and JetBlue Airways (JBLU). "At least at current fuel prices, most of them have enough liquidity to get through several more quarters. But it could get rather more uncomfortable by 2009. Oil prices are the largest variable."
Mike Boyd has a scathing piece today pointing out the sheer idiocy of Midwest rejecting AirTran's bid, and how the chickens have now come home to roost.
I hate to say it, but we told you so! Provincialism is always deadly in the airline industry. Now everyone in MKE suffers.
Mike Boyd is about promoting Mike Boyd. In terms of accuracy and being an authority, there's something lacking.
Go ahead and 'dis him.
He's a smart guy -- one of the sharpest in the business.
And he's right here. In Hoeksema's unwillingness to sell "his baby," he blundered at the worst possible time for his airline. The piper will now be paid.
