#2 - also make sure you are comparing final purchase prices. SWA doesn't currently charge a fuel surcharge while most others do. So, the "fare" may be less on the other carrier, but once all taxes and fees are added it may turn out that the purchase price is actually the same, or even lower on SWA.
It is always a good idea to click all the way through to the point where all taxes, fees, surcharges, baggage fees, etc. are included. Southwest's first price quote includes some taxes but not others. Example: the $81 fare shown on the first page is actually $91.50 when they add in all taxes. The good thing is that the added fees ends there with Southwest.
Who is currently doing the fuel surcharge? I haven't seen that.
United will get you for $25 at the airport if you have a second bag. You won't see that fee until you are at the airport with your second bag. Using curb-side check-in is a $2 per bag fee plus tip. United will offer you an upgrade to Economy Plus for a varying fee depending on length of flight. A recent offer I had was $39 for about 800 miles. *IF* you think Economy Plus is worth it, I'd suggest just paying the upgrade fee when you fly with them instead of "chasing status" to get it for free. In the long run, I think you will pay less.
Allegiant adds $7.50 for Internet booking fee and $15 for telephone booking. Its free at the airport, but what a royal pain to go down to an airport to book your tickets! They will charge you another $12 per seat to get an assigned seat. (Maybe worth it for the exit row???) One checked bag is $20, two checked bags are $40, three checked bags are $140, four checked bags are $240. Any soda on board is $2, although at least they give you the whole can for that price!
The best at what? Everything? Better than Singapore?
I'd say best at Domestic Coach service.
It is not fair to compare WN to Singapore since they don't fly internationally. Once upon a time, I was a loyal UA flyer. When it came time to go internationally however, I went with AA and its partners. I couldn't justify the extra cost of going UA and one other time, UA and its partners had no seats available on very short notice, full fare, business class.
For WN vs. TED vs. Frontier on domestic routes, Southwest wins without question, in my mind.
If you can get a free upgrade to first class on a legacy carrier, now you've got an interesting proposition and room for debate (Probability of upgrade, cost of seat, change fees, number of times you "pay your dues" on a TED flight for the hope of an upgrade on some other flight, ability to use miles to far away lands, etc.) Also, consider the ability to buy your way up to first class for $50 per 500 miles at USAir vs. chasing status. If you are not flying that route often, that isn't a bad deal.
In Denver, its 1P status with United, but I believe its SILVER status with US Air. And, its only Ascent status (15,000 BIS miles flown) with Frontier. Gold from American also works.
DEN now has Clear, so another options is just pay $100/year and the sign-up fee and get that (if you're elite in Hyatt you can get it for free), which may be faster than even the elite lines.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beckles
Where are you getting your figures from? SkyWest carried 8 million passengers in the first quarter alone. As of March 31, 2008 of SkyWest's fleet of 440 aircraft only 165 are UX planes. How on earth do you figure that 65% of their business is flying for United?
Second, as I said in my previous posts, the passengers missing from those numbers are those that fly solely on UX, if they connect to a mainline flight they'd be in the mainline numbers. Is that a big number? Sure ... is it over 1/4 of UA's total passengers? I doubt it.
It's a perfectly accurate figure when the point being made is more customers pick one carrier over another. In the first quarter of 2008 21.5 million customers chose to fly WN. What is not accurate about that statement?
LMAO ... a niche carrier? Are you kidding?
My mistake - I misread the 5 million / quarter as 5 million / year. Thanks for the correction as it only helps my point. We'll use 8 million / quarter since you provided it.
As for my 65% figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyWest_Airlines
"Approximately 65% of flights are operated as United Express, 31% as Delta Connection, and 4% as Midwest Connect"
So, let's say 8 million pax per quarter. Let's say half of those people are exclusively UX passengers, no mainline....I think that's a fair guesstimate to use. That's 4 million pax per quarter UA isn't getting "credit" for from the DOT. All of a sudden they're at 19 million / quarter (15 mil / qtr mainline) vs. 21 million / quarter for WN.
Then you throw in the other 6 carriers that run UX flights, and it's easy to see that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that there are more people flying on UA tickets stock than on Southwest.
And yes, they are a niche carrier- they are great at what they're good at- short routes and last minutes purchases...but they are not good at from a price or service standpoint (long hauls, no first class/upgrades/etc, intl) a lot of the things that the legacy carrier excel at. OK, maybe excel is a strong word LOL.
JetBlue without question. Satellite TV and XM radio in every seat. Only drawback is they don't have the cities served that WN does. Yet.
And that they only have non-stop service to a limited number of cities. If you are going where they are going, the way they are going, its great. I believe they have low change fees -- like $25?
And that they only have non-stop service to a limited number of cities. If you are going where they are going, the way they are going, its great. I believe they have low change fees -- like $25?
$100, actually. But, hey, you can watch TV on their planes.
Comparing WN to JetBlue..... How confident are you that JetBlue will be around with the same look, livery and service in 30 years or so, serving a reasonable list of destinations (certainly more than currently served)?
The pudding part....
In almost every available customer attitude survey available, WN's customers reveal a hgh level of satisfaction. They "Come back to see us." with high frequency and a modest level of bitterness, well below the level of bile aroused by service on the legacies.
Now, as for the business of no front cabin and no vacation flights to to Venice (In the Veneto, not Los Angeles County).....
As for my 65% figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyWest_Airlines
"Approximately 65% of flights are operated as United Express, 31% as Delta Connection, and 4% as Midwest Connect"
I'm sure Wikipedia is much more accurate than their SEC 10-Q.
Quote:
So, let's say 8 million pax per quarter. Let's say half of those people are exclusively UX passengers, no mainline....I think that's a fair guesstimate to use. That's 4 million pax per quarter UA isn't getting "credit" for from the DOT. All of a sudden they're at 19 million / quarter (15 mil / qtr mainline) vs. 21 million / quarter for WN.
This is the third time I've said this. Those passengers that United Express carries transport that connect on to or from a mainline flight are alreaady counted in the 15.25 million. The ones not counted are those flying only on UX. While I'm not saying that is an insignificant amount, I don't believe it accounts for over 25% of the total tickets United sells. As a point of reference, 9.5% of the the total revenue passenger miles United sells tickets for are UX. That figure includes both those connecting to mainline flights and those flying solely on UX.
$100, actually. But, hey, you can watch TV on their planes.
Thanks Curbcrusher. I think it was $25 at one time, but the article indicates that there must have been a raise to $40/$50 at some time, and now another raise to $100.
If I ever go DEN-BOS or DEN-JFK, I might just give JetBlue might be kind of fun. But then again, I guess I might as well go Frontier to watch DirecTV and focus my FF miles.
Until then, if it is WN or B6 heads-up, for me, I have to apply the same logic as WN vs. F9 heads-up -- and so far, WN has been winning all my business because of that no change fee thing.
For the single month of January 2007. It is also important to note that data is also total passengers and not revenue passengers.
For the full year of 2007 Southwest carried more passengers than American based on that data, and in the February 2008 data Southwest had once again passed American for the period of January and February, and I honestly don't see that changing any time soon since Southwest is still growing and American is cutting capacity.
Comparing WN to JetBlue..... How confident are you that JetBlue will be around with the same look, livery and service in 30 years or so, serving a reasonable list of destinations (certainly more than currently served)?
The pudding part....
In almost every available customer attitude survey available, WN's customers reveal a hgh level of satisfaction. They "Come back to see us." with high frequency and a modest level of bitterness, well below the level of bile aroused by service on the legacies.
Now, as for the business of no front cabin and no vacation flights to to Venice (In the Veneto, not Los Angeles County).....
Also, let us not forget (which I forgot for a moment) the "Jet Blue System Meltdown" due to a big northeast snowstorm. Sorry, when you've got people trapped on a airplane for hours and hours with no real hope of taking off, its time to get them back to the gate and get them off the plane. You can improve their temper just by removing them from the long metal tube, especially when that long metal tube has no food, drink or working bathrooms.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FCfree
Also, let us not forget (which I forgot for a moment) the "Jet Blue System Meltdown" due to a big northeast snowstorm.
That will not happen again. You can depend on it.
However, major delays are JetBlue's most significant weakness. They route a high percentage of flights through JFK, routes are thinly served, load factors are high, and they fly red-eyes. All these factors can cause delays to carry over into the next day, something that Southwest avoids.
Provided that your JetBlue flight is on time, it's a better travel experience than Southwest's, IMHO. Even if the middle seat is full.
