Originally Posted by
MrMan
WN is not buying Airtran for you. They are buying the ATL and LGA market, slots and planes.
WN is not 'buying' any planes, they are taking over leases and payments on a whole bunch of planes, if they just wanted planes, they could buy or lease them for a lot cheaper than buying another airline that does not get financing terms like WN gets.
Originally Posted by
shorelife
Everything else you have to say is also a parsing and/or a spin on the facts. For one thing, you should qualify your blanket overgeneralized statement that FN is "the only successful US airline model that brings in consistent profits..." It brings in consistent profits currently and within a very narrow number of years.
37 years of profitability is hardly what I would consider a 'narrow number of years', especially since none of its peers can come anywhere near approaching that record.
Originally Posted by
sfo-atl
The concern is that the bottom line success that has allowed WN to have the cash to buyout another successfull airline came from a winning gamble hedging fuel prices and had nothing to do with their ability to run an airline
I think buying fuel is an integral part of running an airline.
Originally Posted by
sfo-atl
or their unconventional operations which many would consider passenger unfriendly.
Certianly enough people do not consider them 'passenger unfriendly'.
Originally Posted by
sfo-atl
We can make this takeover/sellout a loser for WN.
Although I disagree with MrMan that WN bought FL for aircraft, I said previously that they bought FL for five things:
1) Access to ATL
2) Slots at LGA
3) Slots at DCA
4) Consolidate competition in BWI
5) Consolidate competition in MKE
Those five things alone are worth what they are paying for the airline. Southwest has plenty of loyal flyers and a strong brandname, they didn't buy FL for its customers.