The Cranky Flier » United

This Week on BNET (August 18 - 22)

CF — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:41:15 +0000

Southwest Filing Fares in ATPCO Once Again
You may not know ATPCO, but I’m guessing that airlines all over the US are happy to see Southwest back in the system again. Why does it matter?

Jake Brace Leaves United
The oft-vilified United CFO Jake Brace has announced his retirement, but is it too late? Should this have happened sooner?

PETA’s Unique Advertising Proposal for Dallas/Ft Worth
DFW received an interesting request from PETA to put some offensive advertising on bathroom stalls. Are airports so short on money that this might become reality?

AirTran Announces New Routes
AirTran will serve Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) and Columbus (Ohio) this fall. Why am I bothering to write about this? New city announcements are rare these days.

TSA Damages Airplanes, Blames American Eagle?!
A TSA agent stepped on sensors on 9 different planes during safety checks. Instead of owning up to it, they’re turning it around on American Eagle. Yikes.

United’s Meal Charges Earn the Cranky Jackass Award

CF — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:53:19 +0000

United really is a sad, confused airline, isn’t it? For an airline that just two days ago stated that it had put together several “initiatives . . . to improve the guest experience,” yesterday’s announcement seems completely out of place. But knowing United’s history of schizophrenia, I suppose this shouldn’t surprise us at all. This airline is a mess, and this latest move is certainly worthy of a Cranky Jackass award.

So what did they do? Well remember that post I wrote about United surveying people about their willingness to pay for meals internationally? It’s coming to fruition. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Instead of explaining it all here, I’ll just quote an internal memo with the cringe-worthy title of “Catering Changes Provide Value and Options.” Ugh.

Effective Sept. 2

North America United Economy® (UE) -All Markets

Expanding a la carte snacks for purchase to flights between 760 -1149 miles (approximately 2-3 hours in duration) as a result of successful testing in select markets. Along with the expansion, we’re removing complimentary biscoff and pretzels as data from those tests confirmed that the a
la carte offering appeals to our customers and they are willing to pay for snacks of higher value.

Continuing test of a fresh Buy on Board offering along with the current snack box on flights between 1440 - 2099 miles (approximately 3.5 - 5 hours in duration). Testing limited to ORD-LAX-ORD and DEN-IAD-DEN.

That’s right. No more snacks onboard medium-range flights. But believe me, this is nothing compared the rest of the things here. In fact, this one didn’t even make me blink.

Effective Oct. 1

Increasing Buy on Board Prices

Shelf-stable items increase from $5 to $6.

Fresh items increase from $7 to $9.

That’s one way to raise cash. Just raise your prices. These aren’t exactly competitive (Delta will still give you a turkey sandwich for $7), but nobody is going to compare meal prices when they choose their airline. They really are trying to ease us into the worst stuff, aren’t they? Let’s move on.

Offering Two-Class Service on North America Three-Class Airplanes

United First® service remains the same.

A combined BOB service will be offered in United Business® (UB) and United Economy® (UE).

Customers in UB will receive complimentary beverages and BOB offering.

Staffing will be adjusted to FAA minimums.

Ok, this is insane. On some flights between hubs, United offers service on its internationally-configured aircraft. That means that instead of the usual mediocre domestic first class seat, you get a nice international product in first and business. Now, they’re giving up on business class on those aircraft by making the seat the only differentiator between coach and business. Oh and you’ll get the food and drink for free in business, but it’s the same stuff you can buy in the back of the bus. Staffing will be reduced to FAA minimums meaning that you’ll have about the same level of service as you get in coach (down 1 or 2 flight attendants on each flight).

I understand that this will save the airline a minuscule $2 million a year. That is a drop in the bucket in terms of the bottom line, but it’ll certainly anger people who end up in that “premium” cabin on domestic flights. If they really wanted to simplify things, they should sell the business seats as coach and upgrade their best fliers. It could be sort of an Economy Plus Plus. At least then they’d be underpromising and overdelivering, but no. They’re being greedy here and it’s going to backfire.

Buy on Board Offered Out of IAD to Europe (except KWI)

Replacing complimentary meals in UE with BOB fresh and snack box offerings.

Had I seen this one from US Airways, I wouldn’t have even blinked. It’s consistent with what they’re trying to be. I know that United sent out surveys asking about people’s thoughts on this, but I guarantee you that they’ve tossed out the undoubtedly negative results of that survey and decided to go with this anyway. It’s just incredible to me. And yes, I’ve confirmed with United spokesperson Robin Urbanski that elites are not exempt. They will have to buy meals just like everyone else if they’re in coach.

Eliminate Second Service in p.s. Market

Removing the pre-arrival snack service and replacing with a beverage service in response to flight attendant and customer feedback.

Now when you fly p.s. between LA or San Francisco and New York/JFK in business and first, you’ll get your first meal but you won’t get a second service. (Meals in the small Economy Plus section were eliminated awhile ago.) I’d like to see the customer feedback that says that people don’t want a snack; they’d rather just have a beverage. Please. Don’t try and hide behind that one as your rationale.

Original image via Wikipedia

So there you have it. The death by a thousand cuts strategy continues. Like I said, if I saw this from US Airways, I wouldn’t blink. (They’ll probably match.) But this is United. This is the airline that just released those ridiculous animated commercials that tried to set the mood for a premium, luxurious experience when you fly. That is NOT the airline that is actually being presented to the flying public. This is an airline that appears to have early stage dementia and can’t quite remember what it’s supposed to be doing half the time. Somewhere an Indian is crying. (He’ll probably tell you through his thick Indian accent that his name is Bob Smith and he works in a United reservations center, but that’s not important right now.)

If you want to make it clear to United that you want a better, more consistent experience that actually lives up to (or, *gasp* exceeds) your expectations, you need to switch your spending and actually fly on an airline (like the soon-to-be Star Alliance member Continental) that can deliver. So far, United has proven that it can’t do it, over and over again. Just remember, words won’t change a thing here. Shifting your business elsewhere will.

This Week on BNET (August 11 - 15)

CF — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:17:33 +0000

How Important is Aircraft Type?
Do people really care what type of plane they’re flying on? A report from Boeing says that they do, but I’m not entirely convinced on this one.

Air Canada’s Olympic Ads Work, United’s Don’t
United and Air Canada have both put out ads as official Olympic sponsors. While Air Canada’s work for me, United’s do not.

Northwest’s Smart WorldPerks Marketing
There are plenty of reasons not to like airline marketing, but I received an email from Northwest after my latest booking that was very smart on their part.

United and American Make Opposite Fleet Moves
United is likely to cancel its narrowbody commitments while American is ramping up. Why are the two airlines taking such different tacts?

American and British Airways Apply for Antitrust Immunity
Now that open skies between the US and Europe has opened up Heathrow, American and British Airways and looking to catch up to the other alliances.

Surprised? US Airways Is Doing Things Right

CF — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:43:15 +0000

Something tells me I’m going to get a lot of flack for this post. I know there are plenty of people out there who think that US Airways is more evil than just about anything else on Earth, but I really think they’re doing a great job. You still with me? Before you faint or throw your keyboard into your monitor in anger, let me explain.

I know I’ve talked about this many times before. This isn’t your father’s US Airways (or USAir, or Allegheny, or . . . .) This is America West with a much bigger route structure and a strategy that they’re executing on quite well. As a refresher, here is the airline’s strategy as explained to us at this year’s Media Day.

First, let’s remember that I’m primarily talking about domestic flying here. So, schedule and price matter most as long as they are reliable, convenient, and have a respectable appearance. It sounds good to me, but then again, I’m not an old-school US Airways loyalist. If you go over to the US Airways board on FlyerTalk, you’d think that every reduction in benefits from previous levels is like a dagger being stuck in every frequent flier’s heart. But it’s not. It’s just different from what they’re used to. And yes, that’s going to alienate some people, but that’s the decision they’ve consciously made for the good of their business. (I mean come on; when was the old US Airways considered a model airline?!?)

What’s most important here is whether or not they can actually deliver on their simple strategy. So can they? Let’s start with reliability since that’s probably most important. On that front, they’re performing quite well, actually. Kudos are due to COO Robert Isom for bringing the airline back from the operational brink. Now that June DOT numbers are out, we know that the airline has been at the top of the charts for on-time performance for all of this year. Check out June in Philly. A chronically-delayed airport during the summer? Yeah, but US Airways still walked away with a 76.5% on time rate.

How about baggage? That was always the downfall of Philly in the past, but now they’re finishing in the middle of the pack throughout the system. June saw a rate of 4.65 bags lost per thousand passengers. That was good enough for 9th place (out of 19) but more importantly it was less than half last year’s abysmal 10.59. By the way, they’re also in 9th place for the full first half of the year, so this isn’t a one month anomaly.

So reliability is good. As for convenience, well, I don’t see them as being any better or worse than other airlines except that they do have a functional mobile site, something some airlines have yet to figure out. If they really want to become more convenient, they need to let me pay for these fees on the website at the time of booking. Then I’d be much happier. And appearance? Well, my understanding is that they’re sprucing up interiors on most of their planes. (They need it on some of those.)

Looking at this independently, you’d think US Airways would actually be a pretty good airline to fly, right? Then why does everyone seem to pile on the airline so much? Like I said, it’s because things are different now, and people don’t like change. This is why they never should have kept that name. That airline died during its second consecutive bankruptcy a couple years back.

Let’s look at this whole “charging for drinks” thing that has the nation in an uproar. Yes, they charge for drinks, but who says drinks should be included in your base fare? It’s just what you’re used to, and there’s nothing that says every airline should include drinks in your fare. US Airways is being up front about these things (except for that horribly shady booking fee on USAirways.com which still bothers me, if it’s still around). In general, they aren’t promising much and they’re delivering.

Let’s look at it another way. United and American like to act like they’re full service airlines, but they charge most of the same fees as US Airways does. On top of that, neither of those airlines got their planes to land on time more than 60% of the time in June. That’s a far bigger problem.

This doesn’t mean flying a fee-filled US Airways is for everyone. If you don’t like the fees, you can fly Southwest and, um, well, that’s about it these days. But if you don’t like paying for drinks, there are plenty of options. But for a lot of people, the lowest fare is what matters, and if US Airways has it, they’ll probably fly them. It’s not a strategy for every airline, and I’d certainly agree that this race to the fee-world opens up more opportunities for an all-inclusive experience at the other end, but it’s definitely a valid strategy that can work for the airline.

The bottom line is that as long as they keep running a solid operation, they’re going to remain a viable option for most domestic travelers. And if they keep beating the likes of United and American in on-time performance by 15 points, they’re going to become a preferred option, regardless of what fees they charge.

Edited 8/12 @ 1129a: For those who are new to the blog, I want to disclose that I worked at America West from 1997-2002 under the same management team that runs US Airways today. Robert Isom was my VP briefly at one point. I don’t believe this colors my view (I mean, I haven’t worked there in 6 years), but I wanted to make sure it was disclosed. If you’d like to see everywhere I’ve worked, you can always look at the about page.

United Considers Charging for Meals Internationally, Drinks as Well

CF — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:12:53 +0000

Oh me, oh my. Looks like United has been investigating following US Airways into the abyss of ancillary revenue and actually trying to surpass them. They’re floating a survey asking how people feel about paying for drinks in coach as well as food in coach on international flights. This may surprise you, but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing in theory.

Here’s a nice summary picture of what they’re proposing for food sales. I should note that according to this FlyerTalk thread, they’re throwing up different prices for each product on different surveys to test price sensitivity.

So, $24 for a freakin’ salad? No way. But that could just be one of their higher test price points. How about $39 for a “restaurant-style” meal? Ok, this is potentially interesting. I’m used to getting a crappy dish of mystery meat for free when flying internationally (they’re now proposing you could pay for that as well), but what if I could get a decent meal as long as I’m willing to pay for it? I like the idea, but there’s one problem.

If I were in a decent restaurant, $39 for a complete meal wouldn’t be outrageous at all, but I guarantee you it won’t taste that good onboard an airplane. Even more importantly, how are they going to prepare all this? You think that with all those flight attendant staffing cutbacks, United is going to be able to serve a restaurant-style meal? No way. You may order a restaurant-style meal, but you’ll end up with a reheated piece of meat that probably doesn’t end up as it should because the flight attendants don’t have the time and it’s not easy to make food taste good up there.

The biggest problem here is that if people are going to pay that much money for food, it creates an expectation, one that’s going to be hard for United to meet. Currently it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad because it’s included for free. I tend to think United will have a very tough time keeping people happy with these unless they can consistently deliver quality. I just don’t have faith that they can execute this well, and that’s going to sink this plan.

Oh, and by the way, while they are looking to charge for sodas, etc, they did make sure to carve out that filtered water would still be free. I wonder if by “filtered” they mean it’s had a chance to make its way through Emirates’ onboard showers?

Remember, this is just a survey right now, but it’s safe to assume that this is being seriously considered right now.

Boarding Pass Ads and Privacy Worries

CF — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:35:07 +0000

Am I the only one who thinks this whole boarding pass advertising thing is a little creepy? It’s not the concept that bothers me. You want to throw some ads on my boarding pass? Go ahead. It’s the fact that they’re using my demographics to target ads that makes me nervous.

The basic idea is that right now, when you print your boarding pass at home, it’s just a boarding pass. So, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways have now all partnered with a new company called Sojern that will sell ad spots on your boarding pass and mask it by offering weather information. Of course, the spin is that this makes life easier for the traveler. Whatever. I’ve never had trouble clicking on Weather Underground to get my own weather, but if you want to put it on there . . . fine.

None of that bothers me. What bothers me is something that I haven’t really seen talked about. Yes, the company admits that it’s targeting based upon where you’re going, and others have mentioned that. Well duh, that makes sense, and I don’t mind them sharing that information. But, if you click on the sample boarding pass (PDF), it states “Sojern’s new media delivers tailored advertising messages based on travelers’ unique itineraries and demographics.”

Hold on here. How are you getting my demographic information? Is the airline sharing it with you if I’m logged in to an account when I check in? I don’t like that at all.

Yapta’s Glitch-Filled Launch On the Web

CF — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:35:27 +0000

Has anyone had the chance to check out Yapta yet? The site originally launched as a way to see if the price of a ticket you had purchased had gone down. Since some airlines will give you a credit if the fare goes down, this could be a handy little tool to help you save some money. When it first launched, it required you to download a browser plug-in to work, but now you can get Yapta on the web. Unfortunately, there were some kinks that made the site unusable initially, but while some of those have been fixed, there’s still a ways to go before this is a helpful tool.

I decided to go to Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) and put in four itineraries I had already purchased to see what I could find.

Northwest to Indianapolis
This one ended before it started. You can’t check Northwest flight information on Yapta (maybe they won’t give you credit for a lower fare?), so I moved on.

United to Indianapolis
By entering my confirmation number and last name, Yapta originally told me that fare had gone down, but that’s because it saw our total price (for two people) as the per person price. Bzzzzt, no good. Now that’s been fixed, and it’s saying that the fare has gone up from $242 to $349. That’s still not quite right. I go on to United.com and it tells me that the price is $370 for that flight right now. So I’m not sure where this is coming from. True, the outcome is the same, but it won’t necessarily always be that way.

JetBlue to San Jose
I figured the third time would be the charm, right? Not quite. Yapta came back saying that the price has gone up from the $109 we paid to $149 per person so there’s nothing to gain here. But just out of curiosity, I checked JetBlue.com and the price is actually $139. Still nothing to gain, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when the fares are not accurate on every itinerary I try so far.

Alaska to Seattle/Portland
This one I thought would be interesting. I’m flying out of Long Beach, going to Seattle, and then flying back from Portland to Orange County. This time, it was just me traveling so there was no issue of viewing two fares as one accidentally. The result? It says that the fare has gone from $310.57 all the way up to $744. Whoa, not so much. I did pay $310.57 (with a % discount certificate), but the current fare is $324. For those keeping score, Yapta was 0 for 3 in getting the correct current price of the ticket. Not good.

Bottom Line
The site has a great idea, but man are there problems. I’m glad to see they’ve worked out the kinks on the fare initially paid. That’s working perfectly now, but every single time it returned the wrong “new” fare that was currently available. Both components need to be right for this site to be successful. Without that component, I still find myself going to the airline website to double-check to actual fare, and that makes Yapta not very useful. Once they solve these problems, it’ll be worth a return visit.

American Slashes Domestic, United Cuts International, and Southwest Shuffles

CF — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:19:41 +0000

Yesterday, American announced the details of its fall flight cuts and the big surprise to me is how deep New York/LaGuardia flying is going to be cut. Meanwhile, United announced it was pulling out of two fairly large cities, Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as from several international routes. On the flip side, Southwest said it will drop a couple routes but add several as well, mostly in Denver and Florida. Let’s get to it.

American
Let’s start with American since that was much bigger in scope. It appears that Miami comes off unscathed while Dallas/Ft Worth will see 5% of flights go and Chicago/O’Hare will lose more than 12%. That looks good in comparison to St Louis (down 27%) and astoundingly, New York/LaGuardia which will be down 33% from 126 departures a day to only 84.

None of those shock me except for the LaGuardia pulldown. For the longest time, airlines have clamped down on congested airport fortresses like LaGuardia and Washington/National, and have not been willing to let slots and gates go. LaGuardia has always been one of those places that you just assumed wouldn’t see massive cuts from the incumbent carriers, because no matter how bad things got, the value of those slots would always be worth it when things got better . . . or at least that WAS conventional wisdom.

This cut tells me that American has decided that nothing is sacred, and that’s a good thing. They can’t continue to lose money on bad flights in the short term just because they might be better in the long run. This is time to make some serious survival decisions and they’re doing it.

Of course, they’re not going to do it quietly. They’ve now petitioned the government to reduce slots at LaGuardia by 20% in the name of improving operations. Yeah, right. In other words, we want to pull down flights but we don’t want to allow anyone to take our place. Hmm, 42 daily flight openings would make a nice little operation for Southwest, huh?

A quick note about the rest of the cuts. Overall, American will mostly be cutting frequencies, but a few cities will see American disappear completely. We already knew about Oakland, Samana (Dominican Republic) and London/Stansted, but now Barranquilla (Colombia), Albany, Providence, Harrisburg, and San Luis Obispo go as well. San Luis Obispo also loses its maintenance base. I’m guessing that may have been where they maintained the now disappearing Saab 340 fleet, which would make sense.

United
Now let’s look at our other route cutter. First, United will pull out of Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. These aren’t small cities, and it’s really amazing that United’s presence has eroded to the point where the airline ends up dropping places like this. United gave up on Florida a few years ago when it became virtually all-Ted. All the decent money around these areas would have fled to other carriers, if it was even at United in the first place. Besides, United could get you to Dulles, but Florida is a New York kind of market. Oh well, I guess they’ll just have to codeshare with US Airways and Continental now.

The bigger cuts for the airline are coming internationally. The recently launched Denver - London/Heathrow and LAX - Frankfurt flights are gone, so is San Francisco to Taipei and Nagoya. There will be some other schedule shifts as well as United prepares to ditch 6 747-400s and to start Dulles - Moscow and Dubai flights. I think the international pain is just beginning.

Southwest
Lastly, (man this post is long), let’s look at Southwest’s announcement today about its fall schedule. Nothing too crazy or surprising here. I mean, they’re beefing up Florida, as any airline would do once summer is over (uh, except United I guess). Oh, and the Denver onslaught continues. Southwest moves into yet another Frontier market - Denver to Orange County - as well as one that isn’t competitive - Denver to Tulsa. Oh, and eleven of the existing Denver markets get increased frequency, including 3 new flights to Chicago/Midway alone. Wow. I guess they had to do something to replace a lot of the long haul frequencies from Midway that are being cut back. And two routes will go away entirely - Oakland to Tucson and Kansas City to Sacramento.

If you’d like to see more detail, here’s the PDF with all of Southwest’s fall schedule changes.

(Original LaGuardia Tower Image from 10cuidados on Flickr)

Continental’s Star Alliance Move

CF — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:39:39 +0000

You likely won’t be surprised to hear that I had a great time at the bachelor party this weekend, but that means I had very little time to write. So, since every travel blogger on earth has written about the announcement that Continental will be leaving SkyTeam, joining Star Alliance, and instituting a very tight partnership with United, I thought I’d just point to a couple of the more interesting posts I’ve seen.

Make no mistake, this is more than just a codeshare and frequent flier mile deal. Continental will join United, Lufthansa, and Air Canada in a joint venture for all transatlantic flying. Latin and Asia joint ventures will be developed as well. There will be broad systems integration as well.

In terms of routes, the rest of the Star Alliance will be happy to finally have a big international presence in New York. Dan Webb takes a look at route compatibility here.

If you’re a member of United’s Mileage Plus or Continental’s OnePass programs, this will certainly mean changes. Take a look at View From the Wing’s effort to breakdown what this may mean, despite the fact that we have very few details so far. His take? Well, it’ll be a good thing for Continental fliers, but it’s a little less clear for United loyalists.

We don’t know what this will mean for US Airways right now. Is three a crowd when it comes to the Star Alliance in the US? They say they aren’t going anywhere, but they also haven’t had talks with Continental about cooperation either. Could they partner with American now that CO/UA and DL/NW are getting together? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll try a different tactic, as Holly suggests here in PlaneBuzz.

For American fliers, this could be decent news as well. Strange, I know, but it could theoretically mean that getting antitrust immunity with British Airways would become easier, as Terri Maxon discusses on the Airline Biz blog.

There are a lot of different angles to this partnership with a ton of potential ramifications throughout the industry when it develops. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.

United Agrees to Double Palmdale Flights

CF — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:38:49 +0000

Looks like United has given in and agreed to modify its Palmdale flying schedule. Beginning in September, instead of two daily CRJs to SFO, there will be four daily Brasilias, the 30 seat turboprop that United has slowly been phasing out. Anyone want to bet that this will work? Anyone? Bueller?

If you read my post earlier this month on the subject, you’ll know that I’ve been critical of LAWA’s efforts to pour time and money into Palmdale. And if you haven’t read the comments section, I’d highly recommend it. I apparently hit quite a nerve with someone doing work for LAWA, and it’s an entertaining read to say the least.

But my position hasn’t changed. I still don’t see this working right now. Let’s look at the fundamentals. Palmdale is in the heart of the Antelope Valley, an area that has seen rapid growth over the years because of its relatively affordable housing. But guess what? It’s an exurb, and those distant communities are taking the biggest hit in the current economic downturn. If you’d like to do a little reading, you can see this article from the LA Times in April 2007. Things have only gotten worse since then.

So it’s a probable that Palmdale alone isn’t going to be supporting major flights. There has been an effort to get people from the Santa Clarita area, the next major popular center, to use the airport by establishing bus service. Now if you don’t know where that is, it doesn’t really matter, but you can see it on the map at left. What matters is that it’s about 20 miles further to go from Santa Clarita to Palmdale than it is to go to Burbank. Even with the traffic, why would you go to Palmdale from there?

You wouldn’t. If you want to go to the Bay Area, you can fly Southwest or United from Burbank for less money and on more frequent flights than out of Palmdale. And it’s not like we’re talking LAX here. Burbank is a nice, small, and easy airport to navigate.

So can service work in Palmdale? Eventually. However, I don’t think San Francisco is going to be sustainable for a long, long time, even with more frequency. My guess is that any sustainable service at all is a few years off still at best. That’s why LAWA, the federal government, and others have had to pour $4.6m into this new service just to see if it can work. So far, the results haven’t been good.

Admittedly, the schedule will greatly improve with these new flights. Instead of northbound departures at only 6a and 11a, there will now be flights at 6a, 1015a, 1220p, and 645p. And instead of southbound flights at only 918a and 925p, there will be flights at 830a, 1035a, 5p, and 1020p. That being said, the flights will now take 18 to 33% longer on the northbound flight in the slow Brasilias. Block time increases from 1h9m to 1h32m northbound and from 1h13m to 1h26m southbound. That gives the Santa Clarita residents yet another reason to drive to Burbank.

I just have to wonder why United has decided to honor this request. They must still have a bunch of Brasilias under contract that are sitting around in the desert somewhere so they figured they’d give it a shot. All I know is that in May, the airline filled 42% of its seats. That means 42 out of the 100 seats flown each way per day were filled on average. Now there will be 120 seats in the market, and even if you can stimulate traffic by 50% because of this new glorious schedule, you’ll still only have a 52.5% seat factor. That seems quite optimistic to me, and it’s not going to cut it unless you’re getting some fairly incredible fares.

You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as time goes by. I’m heading out of town this afternoon and won’t have email access again until Sunday, so please write comments and I will approve them (if necessary) when I return.