motytrah

So I've always wondered this. NW has a reputation for playing serious hard ball with the legacy carriers when it comes to protecting turf. But when it comes to the routes SY runs aginst NW, it's a non-event. Why is that?

PVGMSP

...which exactly was the title of this thread I started

Jano

How about "SY is a puppy who wants to play around. AA is a bulldog who wants to eat their lunch"?

jamiel

Yeah, slap a DL code on these flights and they might do OK.

JTMSP

These slots were most recently used for MKE-LGA, so have been free for a year or so.

With further thought, this route may actually work well for NW. If they price the flights right and market aggressively to Skyteam FF members, this route could do well. Also, if DL and CO codes are added, that would be boon. NW is adding only 3 flights, a total of 372 seats a day each way between two metros with a combined population of about 24 million. This route may just work after all.

Man, and I was hoping for a little DFW-NRT or DFW-AMS.

SchmutzigMSP

What do you mean non-event? SY's hub is also MSP, so whatever new route they add, chances are NW matches it except to some of the leisure destinations since they are relatively high-load, low-yield. Watch for the "fare sales" to places like SFO, LAX, SAN, etc. If you read the fare rules on the NW flight for the cheap fares, they specify something like "flight must occur between 9:00 PM and 11:59 PM to be valid". Very odd that they'd put that in there, hm? Well, it's because that's exactly the same timeframe as SY's flight to that destination. So, NW just lowers the price on the flight that runs about the same time as SY. They've been doing it for years.

bk42

Another thing is that SY kind of co-exists with NW by catering to mostly lower-yield, tourist traffic that NW doesn't mind losing, and lowers the chance of success of the southwests from entering because SY is already capturing that market. That, and Sun Country knows that NW is always watching it closely, so it makes sure not to be too drastic in anything it does. Frontier and AA on the other hand, have made some drastic decisions into the MSP market.

hazelrah

DOH! I was rushing and did not notice service does not start 'til 9/5/07

DFW-> LGA-> DFW, 9/10 outbound, return 9/14 - $296.80

motytrah

SY is starting to add more and more flights (two new 738s next month). I just figured that now that NW is within a penny of the LLC in terms of labor costs per PAX that they'd go to war with the LLC in their captive markets. I wonder if SY is going to creep up on NW in MSP at in a couple years. One thing I'm sure off, NW isn't reacting to SY's F product at all. Which I guess is good for Elite FTers.

Herb687

Nah, DFW-LGA is the perfect place to attack AA. It's probably one of AA's most profitable routes. There is so much high-yielding O&D traffic between DFW and NYC that NW can't help but make a profit on the service. NW won't have any flow passengers diluting their yields.

yogimax

I wouldn't pooh-pooh NW's decision here, retaliatory or not. Many are underestimating the size of the NYC market, especially for high end business travelers. LGA is the easiest NYC airport to reach by cab from Manhattan. In addition, NW's existing elite base in NYC as well as LI, NJ and CT is fairly substantial.

Consider this to be an experiment with low cost and high potential return.

Vegas Agent

Purely voicing my own opinion and take on the whole deal...if speculation or opinion isn't allowed in this forum, then there's alot of posts to delete.

"Cutting their wrists" was used rather loosely...but I will bet anyone that this route is dropped immediately if AA cuts MSP-LGA or scales it back to a couple of RJs.
NW will add routes, even with the idea of losing money on the deal, in order to protect another route...a good decision? I guess it has worked pretty well so far. But on the same token, NW added LAS-DSM, LAS-FSD, LAS-FAR, all in response to Allegiant "invading" the homeland market as well as LAS-FNT (in response to AirTran)...all were dropped within a year and all were money losers...weak loads (with about 30-40% of the passengers connecting to a hub from their first city) and very low fares (I don't think I saw one ticket over $249)...meanwhile, Allegiant continues their flights. Same can be said for the recently added LAS-MEM flight in response to F9...poorly timed for the hub (average connection is over 2.5-3 hours) and on a given night there are 35-50 people connecting to either MSP or DTW.

cptlflyer

No. AA decided to fly a route for their own sake, which pissed-off NW. So, NW announced a TOTALLY BOGUS route (there's no WAY they could have legitimately planned LGA-DFW service in their own right) just to piss off AA.

It's just like a kid looking at a bully the wrong way and then the bully deciding to punch the kid for it. The look doesn't justify the punch, if you follow. There's a mature way to do things, and then there's NW's way

SchmutzigMSP

You can speculate and opine freely here. I was just opining that I thought it was way too early to assume they'd lose money on the route.

If AA drops the route and NW follows suit, it won't necessarily be a result of them losing money. If it is purely retaliatory, then they'd have no reason to continue serving the market.

Again, it has been theorized and hypothesized by myself and others in this thread that they may in fact not be losing money on this route and could perhaps turn a great profit. You said yourself that it only takes a handful of pax on each flight to make the difference of a flight being profitable. So, again, I think it's too early to assume adding this route will cause them to lose money on it. NW is amazingly good at yield management; I'm sure there's some semblance of logic behind the move.

With all due respect to your home airport, I don't believe LAS flights are meant to drive profits. I think they're basically loss-leaders to NW. They have to serve the market because the demand is there, but the demand to pay high fares isn't. Adding routes of LAS-Podunk USA was never designed to be profitable, but to try and snag those once a year travelers that like to visit LAS. They're trying to maintain their name and reputation in the Midwest so that when Grandma and Grandpa take their next flight to somewhere else, they can say "oh, yes Northwest [Orient], they took me to Vegas and I remember them from many years ago. I'll take them when I fly to Milwaukee to visit my grandchildren instead of something "AirTran"..." etc.

So I don't think the route additions and subtractions out of LAS are necessarily a good comparison to the LGA-DFW route.

hazelrah

I have no idea why AA decided to fly LGA<-> MSP, the fact remains as you note that AA initiated this route BEFORE NW announced DFW <-> LGA. Why would either of these routes be illegitimate? I think that Herb687 nailed it in his post that no doubt DFW to LGA is extremely profitable and it is unlikely that NW will lose money on this route.

No, they did not do it to piss AA off. it was a legitimate business move for NW to defend its territory.