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CNN: Airlines saved $3.4 billion because of lower fuel costs. Pax saved 66 cents

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CNN: Airlines saved $3.4 billion because of lower fuel costs. Pax saved 66 cents

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Old Apr 24, 2015, 4:35 pm
  #1  
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CNN: Airlines saved $3.4 billion because of lower fuel costs. Pax saved 66 cents

From CNN/Money:

Low fuel costs has been a windfall for the nation's airlines. But their passengers got virtually none of the savings.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/24/news...oudont1pVODtop
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Old Apr 24, 2015, 6:52 pm
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Today's shocking news story - the economic principle of supply and demand seems to be real.
The reason that fares have remained high in the face of lower fuel cost is that demand for travel is strong. The four airlines, which account for the overwhelming majority of U.S. air travel, filled about 81% of their seats.
(Anyone have an actual, real comparison? How much the fuel savings was per ticket, as the "savings" are presented here?"
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Old Apr 26, 2015, 7:21 pm
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Question - All the years when the airlines were losing money - big bucks - I wondered how they all stayed in business. Now when they are making money, everyone seems to be saying that it is wrong to be making a big profit. Don't get me wrong, I like low prices, but isn't fair fair?

DD
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Old Apr 26, 2015, 7:24 pm
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Originally Posted by DoggyDaddy
Question - All the years when the airlines were losing money - big bucks - I wondered how they all stayed in business. Now when they are making money, everyone seems to be saying that it is wrong to be making a big profit. Don't get me wrong, I like low prices, but isn't fair fair?

DD
That's why "bailouts" should have been loans, not handouts.
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Old May 4, 2015, 9:23 am
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Originally Posted by DoggyDaddy
Question - All the years when the airlines were losing money - big bucks - I wondered how they all stayed in business. Now when they are making money, everyone seems to be saying that it is wrong to be making a big profit. Don't get me wrong, I like low prices, but isn't fair fair?
DD

Yes, fair is fair. I hope they make billions every year, to provide much needed stability to the industry.


Originally Posted by Dieuwer
That's why "bailouts" should have been loans, not handouts.
"Bailouts" that never actually happened. But who remembers history anyway?
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Old May 4, 2015, 9:28 am
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Originally Posted by planemechanic
"Bailouts" that never actually happened.
Yes the bailout happened. To the tune of $15B.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/9-11-air...-who-got-what/
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Old May 4, 2015, 6:23 pm
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Please continue any further political characterizations or arguments in any of numerous threads in OMNI/PR.

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Old May 21, 2015, 6:38 am
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Oil Price Dropped, Airfares Still Stay High

Over the last year, oil prices have dropped by more than 50 percent. Motorists filling up at their local gas stations know that prices at the pump have dropped precipitously.

But consumers who have logged on to Expedia or Priceline or Kayak recently to book tickets saw that airfares had not dropped along with oil prices, an airline's largest expense.

http://www.profitconfidential.com/ec...profits-ahead/
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Old May 23, 2015, 6:03 am
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Originally Posted by Jeweiings
Over the last year, oil prices have dropped by more than 50 percent. Motorists filling up at their local gas stations know that prices at the pump have dropped precipitously.

But consumers who have logged on to Expedia or Priceline or Kayak recently to book tickets saw that airfares had not dropped along with oil prices, an airline's largest expense.

http://www.profitconfidential.com/ec...profits-ahead/
The reason the savings haven't been passed along is that the airlines have pretty high load factors at the moment. Business has rebounded quite strongly over the last 4-5 years and nobody has had much of a reason to get into a broad price war for a similar product: The largest carriers all have pretty broad networks, while the product presented by airlines such as Spirit are substantially different than those presented by Delta/American/United/Southwest.

With that said, the point about raw savings (i.e. the $3.4bn) versus per-passenger savings being apples and oranges is a good one. There's also a methodology question to confront (i.e. are there other costs which rose in the same period to offset those savings?) which I don't think is being looked at.

Taking a wild guess, it seems like at least $125m was passed along (crudely dividing the last 12 months' passenger counts by four and multiplying by $0.66), but one factor this seriously ignores is inflation (i.e. ticket prices should probably rise slightly each year, all else being equal).
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