<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by beaubo:
The FFPs all pivot on a key assumption...there are a empty seats going unsold.
Pre-9/11, that seemed a reasonable assumption. But with most carriers having cut back schedules up to 30%, all of a sudden,there is much more parity between supply and demand of revenue seats...hence fewer empty seats left unsold.
If you really think about it, what business PURPOSELY would want to operate at undercapacity? The airlines are belatedly figuring this out!! I can't see any incentive in the forseeable future to significantly increase seat capacity. So, the FFPs will be the first to be short changed in this new environment.
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The undercapacity was due to wanting to provide a desired frequency level. For example, on Delta the PHL-ATL route has about 12 R/T's each day. I guessing that average occupancy is no more than 50%, so let's cut out 6 flights.
Now, instead of a flight about every 90 minutes (from 5:30am thru 8:30pm), it's every 3 hrs. However, most people flying to ATL are doing so to catch a connecting flight. Depending on the connecting flight schedule (remember now it's also be cut in flight frequency), you may have a very long wait until you can catch the next flight.
So, instead of the long layovers on DL flying PHL-ATL-LAX, maybe I should just fly United PHL-LAX nonstop instead?
What Delta (and other airlines) really want to do is to get regional jets involved so they can keep up the frequency of flights, but reduce their costs by not having to operate such large planes. This would seem to make sense, except that many mainline pilots are objecting to it.
Jeff