nsx

I posted some of the following on the Southwest forum, but I believe the points are of general interest:

The legacies had a winning formula to hold onto high fare customers: ample upgrades and attainable international free flights. They are more than halfway to trashing that formula, and Southwest will absolutely clean their clocks for making such a blunder.

1. Legacies have fewer and fewer empty F seats to upgrade their business customers, and the probability of upgrade is becoming too low to matter for many, many high-fare customers.

2. Legacy carriers' biggest advantage has been the ability to earn free international travel. The legacies are destroying that advantage through a combination of award inflation, draconian capacity controls, and now fuel surcharges on award redemptions. I used to be able to get summer seats to Europe with reasonable advance planning. It's now essentially impossible with inflexible city pairs and nearly infinite date flexibility.

The legacies aren't delivering the free travel that the program member expected. I find this quite stupid of them, but the legacies are slowly but surely convincing most of their high-fare business customers that saving miles for international trips is a chump's game. FTers are a resourceful lot, yet even the most able of us are beginning to throw in the towel on legacy FF programs. Ordinary customers will give up much more easily.

Once a customer gives up on the legacies' FF programs, he is easy for Southwest to win over. Southwest underpromises and overdelivers, rather than the reverse. For example:

3. Legacy coach products (except UA's E+) are inferior to Southwest's. As soon as customers try Southwest and discover this, which they will do one by one, those customers will be pleasantly surprised.

4. Southwest's new (as of November 2007) assigned boarding system eliminates the gate lines and provides an even higher probability of getting a good seat than assigned seating. Business customers will only need to experience it once or twice to realize that this is not the old Southwest any more. For example, by choosing to sit aft of the exit row, I obtain an empty middle seat next to me over 90% of the time.

However, I need to add one caveat:

5. Southwest's award redemption has deteriorated dramatically from its former outstanding level. Southwest's capacity controls that have become extremely tight this summer. Redemption is no longer head and shoulders above AA and UA, for example. I'm hoping for improvement this fall. But regardless, redemption is not going to be a major decision factor. The decision factor will be that the legacy carriers made their loyalty programs nearly worthless.

gpurcell

Hm.

Just did a quick check on Aa.com. Definitely tight, but I was able to select three SAAver seats Austin to Frankfurt for August (leave the 6th return the 27th) and even get a decent routing (one stop, reasonable layover). 60K miles per ticket and $217 bucks in total taxes and fees. Buying those tickets would cost $1,270 per person for a total bill of nearly $3,700.

Renard

We're have not reached the point where the legacy's big advantage in this area is gone. I'm flying BF standard reward to France on CO in July--booked a month in advance....so it still can be done.

If FF awards reduce down to the ability to get to vegas on a multi-stop itin on a Tuesday afternoon...they they won't be worth the bother---just book the cheapest carrier (which is typically not SWA in my experience--only sometimes) and eventually maybe you might get a free trip every now and then.

brendog

Intra-CA or intra-TX, maybe... Everywhere else, not a chance. WN is still a flying Greyhound with zero perks, a limited (domestic only) point to point network, no lounges, and is full of clueless leisure pax. Their Y product is also inferior to most legacies, save for US, in my experience. If the aforementioned reasons weren't enough, no service to any of the NYC airports.

I'm sure WN is just fine for Joe Sweatsock and family (aka the Kettles) making their decennial flight to MCO so their brood can meet Mickey, but biz pax generally demand more and are willing to pay for it.

I'll quit travelling completely before I would be crammed into a WN flight... Heck, I'd even fly US...

wharvey

I am waiting to see what happens to Southwest's model when their oil futures run out. If they are able to continue their model when they have the same fuel prices as everyone else, I might be impressed....

I agree with brendog, the perks are not there and no international presence....

nsx

That's certainly a widely held perception by people who don't fly Southwest, but it's incorrect. More precisely, it's severely out of date. Certain leisure routes (LAS and MCO) have a high percentage of travel neophytes, sure. But Southwest would be bankrupt if it relied on those people to fill the planes.

Shorter routes on Southwest are dominated by business travelers. Southwest carries a higher percentage of full-fare passengers than any other carrier. For the shorter routes, reliability and convenience trump everything else. And that is even more true now that some legacies have insanely dropped their 500-mile minimum earnings.

Incidentally, 2/3 of Southwest's fleet (the 737-700's) has significantly more legroom than other coach products (except E+ and JetBlue). That's a fact. And I'm not making up my point that people who try today's Southwest quickly realize that it's far better than they had expected.

Give today's Southwest a try on a 300-mile flight, any flight, and then post your findings here. Buy Business Select if you are concerned about seating, or just read the FAQ. I think you will be very surprised at how very civilized Southwest is these days. Every week the Southwest forum sees a post from a new convert.

brendog

I had the misfortune of flying WN on a Biz Select fare last year BWI-MHT (Evil client booked the flight for me...), and I couldn't get off that tube of horrors quickly enough. Granted, my perception might have been jaded by BWI being a festering hellhole (Where's my lounge with free booze and wifi???), but I was greeted by a packed, filthy plane full of screaming children without the capability of guaranteeing myself an exit row or mollifying myself with the faint hope of an EUA.

As I live in NYC, how am I going to try WN, anyhow? Islip might as well be in another state, and I wouldn't deal with PHL if you paid me (in CO miles, of course...). How can an airline try to claim biz pax without serving the busiest market in North America???

I think that WN is very shrewdly (Perhaps even brilliantly...) run, and I think that for folks flying on a budget with their brood in tow, that WN is probably a fine choice, but for a biz traveller, such as myself, who flies mainly transcons and int'l and expects some sort of thanks from my carrier of choice, WN will never work. The only LCC that I would even remotely consider would be VX, and that would require cajoling due to the lack of points accrued for the flight.

nsx

That's my primary point: The legacies are ripping the value out of FF programs so badly that high-fare customers will no longer choose a carrier based on FF program. I predict you will end up on VX sooner than you think.

P.S. The November 2007 changes at Southwest make a huge difference at the departure gate, but if you are unlucky enough to draw a plane full of children, that can be quite unpleasant. Hasn't happened to me except to MCO, knock on wood.

nsx

If the oil market reverses, that could be as soon as a year from now.

Southwest will presumably be careful to choose the most potentially profitable routes as opposed to simply grabbing a route because another carrier abandoned it.

All carriers have discovered that short-haul flights are less susceptible to fuel cost shock, because the ratio of revenue to fuel cost is higher for shorter flights. It's lucky for Southwest that their business model has always focused on short-haul travel with a relatively high percentage of full-fare business travelers, those full fares being lower than other carriers' full fare*. JetBlue, OTOH, focused on long-haul travel and is having a much harder time this year.

If fuel prices stay high, the ratio of short-haul flights to long-haul flights will increase, and that will increase Southwest's market share. In fact, almost anything except a rapid drop in fuel prices will increase Southwest's market share. Can Southwest hold its market share after fuel costs stabilize? I think so: In the next cycle investors will not be so eager to back new entrants.

*Other carriers' discount fares typically match or even undercut Southwest's discount fare, although change fees and junk fees complicate the comparison.

brendog

Not likely. As far as I'm concerned, no points, no fly. What's the point of flying a carrier that doesn't reward my loyalty??? Anyhow, VX doesn't have lounges as of yet, and I'll be dam*ed if I'll sit in the terminal if there's a better option, which there is 99% of the time.

All WN can offer is RR and CP, which mean very little to me. I don't want award tix that I can never use, I want upgrades, which is something that WN cannot offer with one cabin service.

Insofar as FF programs being gutted, I am fortunate to have status matched to CO, which has thus far avoided much devaluation of their affinity scheme (OP, if you prefer). I still get my EUAs and mileage bonuses, and thanks to my Amex, I still get lounge access.

I don't blame the screaming children on WN. My main point is that WN has a disproportionate number of families compared to the legacies. When I'm in the air, I want peace and quiet so I can work or sleep.

Even if I did make the switch (I would sooner quite travelling, as previously mentioned...), I still can't get to NYC...

nsx

I'm pretty sure this is correct, although it's still flight-specific. I fly every week, and only a small percentage of my peak hour west coast flights have even one infant on board.

Dieuwer

I fly once in a while for business too, but my boss does not pay for C of F. I always have to pick the cheapest, non-stop flight.
I am not sure how long other businesses can afford to send their employees in C or F and shell out $1000+ every time.

linsj

Since Southwest doesn't fly out of O'Hare, it'll never be an option for me (not that I'm even interested). Getting to Midway from the NW suburbs is an expensive, time-consuming nightmare.

KNRG

This is why I have problems taking some of the posters on flyertalk seriously.

Not guaranteed an exit row with a BS fare? How did that happen? It's such a rare occurrence. Further, the exit row really isn't important on WN's flights because they have larger seats then everyone else anyways.

You'd be unhappy in econ on any airline. WN's was not worse then anyone else's metal tube - you just see all econ as hell.

Let's be honest and stop posturing. The only thing any legacy has on WN is first class, and F is becoming a joke on the majority of airlines. Look over the list of airlines we are all expecting to go out of business, and those at the low-end of the risk scale. The ones who have a real F are going to stick around and so is WN. The rest?

See how many upgrades you get when they stop flying overnight..

tjl

The subway from ORD to MDW takes about 1.5 hours and $2.

This is less than the typical 2 hour delay that flights in or out of ORD encounter.