LoneStarMike

I think Mobius01's sources are wrong - at least based on what I read in the Memphis Business Journal. (emphasis added)

Memphis economic leaders respond to Delta’s news

tex1899

20 flights/week to Amarillo and 21/week to McAllen...I'm not surprised. Unless you're from Texas, within maybe a 500 mile radius (ag, maybe oil/gas), or work for/with Pantex, how often are you going to be going to Amarillo? While I'm not completely familiar with MEM's ops and destinations, my guess is a lot of their traffic comes from the southeast and maybe Ohio River area...and I doubt they're going to Amarillo...or McAllen (city of about 100,000 along the Rio Grande in South Texas). If you're going to a secondary city in Texas you're probably flying CO or AA.

My perception is Delta often focuses on transiting their passengers through their hubs, rather than building up hubs with O&D. I would expect other non-O&D hubs to take a hit, too.

Valveking

I was under the impression that SFO had been cut a while back. Regardless, it is painful as was losing our directs to SAN.

vxmike

Really? Plane, fuel, wages...none of these are reduced with a larger operation. In fact excessive growth will increase per-unit costs if there's a reduction in business as seats go empty. Airline growth really only works in a perfect world when demand is never reduced. Unfortunately for us I think the major carriers are finally starting to understand this.

sxf24

Other mainline flights?

People seem to forget that in general, hubs don't work well when they're overly dependent on connections. ~150 daily flights is still a very respectable sized operation that can generate meaningful traffic flows. The smaller markets are better served via ATL anyways, and MEM still serves as an ATL reliever for larger markets.

Honestly, CVG and MEM would probably be more profitable if they had 80-100 mainline flights a day and little, if any, regional feed.

sxf24

There's a difference between excessive growth and growth. If an airline doesn't have some growth, its costs will increase as its fleet and staff age.

skchin

MEM has FedEX.

formeraa

DC-9's are fuel hogs. The primary costs are labor, maintenance, and fuel. Fuel has gone up 30%, which makes the costs go up. Maintenance is more intensive on older planes as well. So, costs are going up more then the newer, more fuel-efficient planes.

DeltaWings

+1. Now they're flying those terrible A319's into TLH from ATL. Never thought I'd say this, but boy do I miss those CRJ's!

hazelrah

Non-stops are nice, but one connection is fine. It is better to have more competition in Memphis.

Many former Northwest captives experience good growth and lower fares once the monpolisitic concentration that was fostered by Northwest declines.

mrredskin

thank you and NWstu for the explanation.

Oh wow. ZERO flights to/fro CHA now. Never liked flying there en route to the west coast anyway since that's a loss of a good 500 miles rather than connecting in the A and can always shuttle back to CHA if a flight is canned, but still...

of course if MEM was the destination from CHA, it was always a $400 flight :/

3Cforme

The world can be far from perfect and still have overall average per=passenger costs decline with growth. Crew wages are substantially set by flight, but ground wages are fixed by the peak needs of just three banks, so on a per-flight basis would decline with more banks of flights. Terminal rent is another fixed cost that would, on average, decline with flight growth.

personaltravelaid

The MEM airport authority is still operating under the "mind-set" of Dr. Willy (very corrupt mayor of 20+ years). Now granted, I do not want WN to move in/expand (maybe 2 more gates, but no more). If you walk through the airport and observe some of the gates (which is easy between banks), there are some "odd" ways they organize gates. You also must remember this terminal was built in 1961(?).

A concourse: A up until quite recently (10-15 years?) did not have many jetways. Some gates still don't (upper numbers, where the SAABs are). 9E handles the operations in this concourse, and the flights are for the most part 9E and EV (1 OO and 1 OH flight). There are some gates that have 2+ boarding doors that have one main gate-counter and and numerous small podiums with scanners.

B: B also didn't have jetways from B32-B44 and didn't (Airlink/smaller DC9 flights used to be based there), and those were added in the 1990s when DL abandoned their big operation in A (Airlink opportunity). It's staffed by DL personnel and the flights are all on CR7, CR9, E75, D95, 32X, 73X, and the 332, no small RJs here.

C: C has a few gates for RJs that is staffed by 9E/OH (forgot). C is where UA, AC, CO, FL, and HP have their gates. They all have jetways.

FWAAA

In the mid-1990s, when NW decided to restore its old DC-9s instead of buying new, more fuel-efficient planes, that did make sense since fuel was about one-fourth of today's price. Yesterday, AA estimated that fuel cost it about $2.72/gal in the first quarter. At those prices, AA estimates that it will save about $2.2 million per year for every MD-80 replaced by a new 738 (AA has said each 738 replacement represents about 800k gallons of fuel saved annually). $2.2 million, when added to maintenance savings, will make quite a few of the payments on those new 738s. That's why AA has bought over 100 new 738s over the past couple of years.

Of course, 738s aren't the ideal replacement for DL's 125-seat DC-9s (73Gs would be ideal), but the same principles apply.

I agree about the turboprops, but AA dumped its SAABs when fuel spiked before and capacity was slashed. Maybe upcoming expensive maintenance (and customer pushback for anything with props) was the key.

hazelrah

I also wonder about leasing costs as well.