<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FWAAA:
In fact, even in these days of higher-than-average load factors, Southwest will probably end 2003 with a load factor of about 67%.</font>
That's because they don't have anything smaller than a 737. Why do you think they are considering a new purchase? One of the ramifications of adding smaller and smaller cities is a gradually decreasing load factor, accompanying gradually decreasing profits.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">jetBlue is the rare exception, filling about 85% of its seats on average. But since they don't overbook, they rarely fill every seat on the plane,</font>
That's because they're stupid. One of these days they will start overbooking when their idiotic policy hits them in the pocketbook.
Try to buy a ticket from JFK to MSY for tomorrow. Oops, sorry, we're all sold out!
Try to buy a ticket from JFK to MSY for Saturday. Oops, sorry, we're all sold out!
You'll just have to wait until Sunday.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> while most airlines do send a measurable percentage of their flights out with 99%+ load factors.</font>
All airlines do that, including Southwest. Peak flights are full, and off-peak flights aren't. No big deal.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Based on their historical load factors (and their MO of very frequent flights), they could probably remove another row or two and not feel any financial pain. With B6 removing a row from their planes, I expect WN to do just that in the next year or two.</font>
JetBlue is removing a row because they can't get off the ground with a full transcon flight. WN does not have that problem -- they'll just stop along the way rather than going non-stop. There's nothing wrong with either approach.
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