Swoop??

[anonymous]

Awesome...

[internet]

http://business.financialpost.com/wcm/eb3d0930-3606-486b-ba7a-d1cf6e742f88

 

WestJet Airlines said it will offer fares that are 40 per cent cheaper than those currently available in Canada as it unveiled new details about Swoop, the ultra-low-cost carrier it plans on launching next summer.

[Seeker]

[rudder]

Swoop? Zip? Ted? Where do the marketing geniuses come up with these names?

[Seeker]

4 minutes ago, rudder said:

Swoop? Zip? Ted? Where do the marketing geniuses come up with these names?

Thesaurus is your friend if you're in marketing.

Here's what I found for swoop (some don't seem a good fit for an airline);

dive

plummet

pounce

fall

plunge

rush

slide

stoop

[rudder]

Looks like WJ will put SWOOP on a separate O/C (similar to wholly owned subsidiary Encore).

ALPA's first battle may be work ownership rights at SWOOP. if successful, would not be surprised to see a ROUGE/LCC style (B scale) LOU for WJ pilots at SWOOP.

Personally, I think that they should be paid more for flying a plane with such an atrocious paint job.......

[blues deville]

Low cost carrier operating an ultra low cost carrier. Interesting to see how this plays out. Has anyone at WS HQ reviewed this country's population. The available passenger pie can only be sliced up so many times. 

 

[rudder]

2 minutes ago, blues deville said:

Low cost carrier operating an ultra low cost carrier. Interesting to see how this plays out. Has anyone at WS HQ reviewed this country's population. The available passenger pie can only be sliced up so many times. 

 

WJ will put SWOOP on every single city pair operated by a ULCC. It isn't about making money. It is about stamping out the competition and returning the Canadian marketplace to a stable duopoly. And SWOOP will have the benefit of cross subsidization using infrastructure from WJ.

[Seeker]

2 minutes ago, rudder said:

WJ will put SWOOP on every single city pair operated by a ULCC. It isn't about making money. It is about stamping out the competition and returning the Canadian marketplace to a stable duopoly. And SWOOP will have the benefit of cross subsidization using infrastructure from WJ.

Yes, Westjet will attempt to do to Jetlines and Newleaf what Canadian was supposed to do to them.

[Vsplat]

As we learned from the painful Jetsgo experience, these projects do nothing but reset the public expectation of airfares cheaper than train fares. 

I bet, if I walked up to a future Swoop customer and asked them to sell me their nearly new car for 40% under market they would tell me to get stuffed.  They couldn't afford it.  Yet here we see this gravity defying logic in ticketing.

To my eye, Swoop is nothing more than a fighting brand.  I hope the competition bureau takes a hard look at where the money is coming from.  And no, I would not object to them looking at rouge at the same time.  If swoop is truly coming in 40% under rouge when WJ prime can't, while flying the same aircraft with the same fuel burn, then where is the money being transfused from?

Vs

 

[rudder]

2 minutes ago, seeker said:

Yes, Westjet will attempt to do to Jetlines and Newleaf what Canadian was supposed to do to them.

WJ will be doing AC a favour. Even with LOU 74 and RRA, AC does not have the flexibility to respond to ULCC competition that WJ will have with SWOOP.

[Seeker]

1 minute ago, rudder said:

WJ will be doing AC a favour. Even with LOU 74 and RRA, AC does not have the flexibility to respond to ULCC competition that WJ will have with SWOOP.

No doubt.  

[dagger]

Until you see what the terms and conditions of Swoop are - for example, fees for checked, carryon baggage, booking fees, etc, it's hard to imagine final pricing. (If there is no carry on fee, but there is a checked baggage fee, winter travel will be hell on these airlines. Expect fist fights.)

In the US and European experience, ULCC has been stimulative. Up to two hours flying, you can encourage people to take more long weekends, visit families. In the European experience, it's been a boon for worker mobility, i.e. people in poor eastern European countries going to work in richer Western European countries and then spending more weekends with family back home. In the US, where two major markets are connected, airlines like Spirit get commuters. For example, if you live in Philadelphia and work a trade show in Chicago, you might use Spirit because it allows you to bring along a colleague who then shares your hotel room, very little additional cost to have another hand to share your workload. But will that work anywhere in the Canadian context? Maybe between Calgary and Abbotsford, but I don't see much stimulation benefit between say, Calgary and Regina or Winnipeg. 

I don't know how Hamilton will work out for anyone living East of Mississauga. Traffic in Toronto now is nightmarish along all major feeder highways. I'd have to leave at least 3-4 hours before a flight to get to YHM from where I live.

[rudder]

SWOOP is not intended to be proactive. It is simply a response.

Every carrier that has tried to turn YHM in to a substantial alternative YYZ passenger departure airport has walked away with their tail between their legs. Perhaps they should try driving the YYZ area highways before they commit their marketing dollars to that facility.

The fear for AC here should be that SWOOP stamps out the ULCC competition but then expands on to traditional routes.

 

[DEFCON]

"WJ will put SWOOP on every single city pair operated by a ULCC. It isn't about making money. It is about stamping out the competition and returning the Canadian marketplace to a stable duopoly."

Sounds much like the losing turf wars that used to go on between AC and every other Canadian carrier.

 

 

[Seeker]

5 minutes ago, DEFCON said:

Sounds much like the losing turf wars that used to go on between AC and every other Canadian carrier.

 

 

I don't even work for Westjet but I can tell you what the answer will be; "It's different because we'll do it for lower cost and still make money at it (just not as much as we'd like)"

[rudder]

There is no room for a RyanAir type model in Canada. ULCC coupled with the high third party charges that are part of doing business in Canada will not permit the "less than bus fare" stimulus to travel. Absent ULCC entrants, SWOOP would just be a way for WJ to cannabilize its own fares.

ULCC won't last. But it may erode yields while the turf war goes on.

[acsidestick]

Says it all

Check out this video on YouTube:

 

 

[moeman]

http://business.financialpost.com/transportation/air-canada-seeks-new-credit-card-partner-unveils-new-growth-targets

AC's response will be an Ultra Low Cost Fare (ULCF), instead of launching a new ULCC, it would seem.

Quote

Air Canada’s president of passenger airlines Benjamin Smith said Tuesday that the company has the strategic option of introducing an ultra-low cost fare in specific markets that will provide a competitive option for travellers primarily focused on cost. 

“How we’re going to deploy that, and where we’re going to deploy that, is going to be definitely geared strategically,” Smith told Air Canada’s annual investor conference gathered in Toronto. 

“I don’t think we’re at all looking at putting that across the board. The plan is where we need to do it for market reasons or for competitive reasons, that’s where we’ll deploy it.” 

The ultra-low fare is the latest strategy Air Canada is eyeing as airlines in Canada look to launch an ultra-low cost carrier (ULCC) next summer.

 

[vanishing point]

Good to see the stockpiles of at least one "Zip" paint colour has found a new home...

[MD2]

4 hours ago, dagger said:

...I don't know how Hamilton will work out for anyone living East of Mississauga. Traffic in Toronto now is nightmarish along all major feeder highways. I'd have to leave at least 3-4 hours before a flight to get to YHM from where I live.

Yet as it is, people drive all the way to Buffalo to catch a cheaper flight. Flights out of Hamilton will likely be full of people that are tired of paying $650 for a one way flight from Vancouver to Toronto and not even get a sandwich for it! Not to mention that the area already has 4 million people in its own catchment. Air Canada has simply reduced the service while keeping the price up, even with fuel prices dropping; just because it could. That will soon change as it attempts to chase the new entrants.

[MD2]

1 hour ago, moeman said:

http://business.financialpost.com/transportation/air-canada-seeks-new-credit-card-partner-unveils-new-growth-targets

AC's response will be an Ultra Low Cost Fare (ULCF), instead of launching a new ULCC, it would seem.

True, Air Canada used that trick with Tango, one might say effectively to target and eliminate Canada 3000 back in 2001. So it is possible, perhaps even planned it seems, that it would use another Tango like fare structure to match ULCC price on certain flights and few seats to "compete" but it would be unlikely that it can do it as effectively again for 2 reasons: 1. One would hope the precedent is set and Competition Bureau is a bit more responsive this time than to give an order of cease & desist the day after bankruptcy (of Canada 3000) to save face, 2. It is unlikely that Air Canada can drop its fares that low on the same flight while some people are paying more than double.

[Guest]

The major question that will not be answered until Swoop has been around for at least a year is "will they be swooping in new customers or mearly converting present WestJet customers to "cheaper"

[Super 80]

Looks like they basically plagiarized the Spirit website right down to the hokey video.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but Swoop isn't exactly bilingual in a colloquial way is it?

[Super 80]

4 hours ago, moeman said:

http://business.financialpost.com/transportation/air-canada-seeks-new-credit-card-partner-unveils-new-growth-targets

AC's response will be an Ultra Low Cost Fare (ULCF), instead of launching a new ULCC, it would seem.

 

United is already making a hasty retreat from their Basic Economy strategy because it is just creating chaos at the gate. There is also the slight issue that Basic Economy pax were very often finding themselves seated in Economy Plus because they were the last people to be assigned seats.