While we are being fair to everyone involved, we should note that by 2012, roughly 4 years post-merger, DL had already made pretty significant progress and was among the best in the industry on those metrics. Southwest in 2014, roughly 4 years post-merger, is among the worst in the industry on those metrics. At some point, even you would have to acknowledge that DL's merger-related problems were resolved more quickly than those at WN. Yes, mergers cause disruption, but the indications available to us are that DL managed those much better than WN is managing theirs.

Certainly, but mergers are complex and each one is unique and presents a set of unique challenges. Southwest had a terrible year last year with on-time metrics, there is no denying that.

I already have. I have already stated previously that so far the Delta merger has been the best managed of the lot.

It is possible. But I don't know how they plan on that working in practice. When I search through Kayak or the like and get re-directed to Delta.com I don't have the choice to select fare type, it simply takes me to the beginning of the booking screens.

Now if Delta started putting a buy-up option at the bottom then maybe. Something like "For just $xx more choose your own seat at time of booking, enjoy your Medallion benefits, etc."

IMO it would be a nice option to allow seat assignment for a fee, like Spirit. Maybe Delta is worrying about cannibalizing sales from the lower fare buckets.

Unfortunately, WN's problems have spilled into 2014. Frankly, I'm not sure their problems are as much about the merger as they are about having deviated from the things that helped them look good in the past (I use the term "look good" because I'm not convinced that they were better because they were better or because they ran a network that had fewer risks of problems) - flying in good weather states, emphasis on point-to-point, more limited exposure to "problem" airports, single aircraft type, etc. As they discovered, however, there was probably a limit to how far they could expand their previous model, which is why they changed, and I'm not sure that WN has figured out how to run this different model. The worst case scenario would be that they never do figure it out.

Fair enough. For some reason, I tended to recall your statements not necessarily including WN in the comparator group.

The merger is right in there at the top of things, but yes its not the only thing. The failure to adjust to the new operational environment, specifically higher loads and more seating due to evolve, labor problems, and Love expansion would seem to be other pressing issues.


It didn't, but I did say I think Delta managed its merger well as compared to all others. We have already established I'm not going to say whatever you want me to say.

They do. When you go to check out, they say that exact thing.

Not when you come in from Kayak or Google Flights. Which seems counterintuitive if they are trying to bait people with a lower E fare on an online aggregator and then upsell once at Delta.com.

I don't think it is a red herring because I don't think a lot of these issues are because of the merger. Air Tran is doing much better than Southwest for on time arrivals so acquiring them actually improved Southwest's overall on time arrivals. The on time issues stem more from decreased turn around times, decreased layover duration, higher passenger loads etc. These are all issues that likely would have existed if the merger had not happened

I booked 5 E fares from MSP-MCO for January but only because I was able to use miles to upgrade to first (G). Saves us the agony of 5 middle seats and got us into first as a family for relatively cheap miles and a very low fare. Aside from that scenario, I don't see ever booking one of these.

It's a red herring because it distracts from the subject of this thread. I'm not defending WN's on-time performance over the last year, it's been terrible and pretty much everyone acknowledges this, but I cut them some slack as they complete they complete the staff and equipment absorption of Air Tran.

Who's responsible for all those operational issues? Who's responsible for all those decisions? Who's responsible for the integration? It's the same people, i.e. management. Take a look at the link I posted, it's been the same at every carrier, some have handled merger well, others not so well.

That's an interesting option. Did you have to pay 1 mile per cent of the fare difference? If so, then it's just another way to do a partial PWM.

I suspect the idea was to use PWM to FC to earn RDMs and 150% MQMs while paying as little money as possible. Compared to award tickets or upgrades, there's no inventory bucket issue.

"Upgrade to economy class" LOOOOOOOL

I don't think it is a distraction to debate issues which affect customers willingness to buy tickets whose price is comparable and may drive E class ticket sales in a thread speculating on whether Delta will provide more E class tickets. In fact I would bet Delta is looking quite closely at things like this when evaluating E class.

Honestly I think mentioning Southwest should be 'cut some slack' because airlines have problems merging is more of a red herring as I think fewer people will use that as a ticket purchasing metric than on time performance.