Flightlevels Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 FA@AC wj would not be where it is today if this didn't happen.It all can be jigged in various ways. lots of new routes and city pairs have been added in the last yr..some work and some don't. Load can be brought up easily. Yeild is everyones concern. I think frequency is gonna increase in the states soon to better use the A/C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FA@AC Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 FA@AC wj would not be where it is today if this didn't happen.It all can be jigged in various ways. lots of new routes and city pairs have been added in the last yr..some work and some don't. Load can be brought up easily. Yeild is everyones concern. I think frequency is gonna increase in the states soon to better use the A/C. By WJ being "where it is today" do you mean in the legal quagmire it brought on when it decided that it needed to hack into an AC employee website in order to bolster its loads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flightlevels Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 WJ has admitted to it and in what timeframe it has been stated as well. even AC knows when it stopped and started. The previous 6yrs has merit don't u think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wjafa Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 I get the feeling FA@AC is the type of flight attendant who doesn't return my "hello's", smiles and attempts to make genuine conversation while waiting for a crew van or whatnot outside at the airport. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newgirl Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 Contrary to what you would like to believe , I have had people at my counter complaining that they would never fly WJ again ! They just don't like the "feel good" atmosphere. Some business travellers say that they do not like the constant songs , games and silly boarding announcements like "those of you dressed in red may now board" Others really enjoy it. This is not to your discredit but only to point out that many choose the airline they fly on where they feel comfortable. Business passengers just want to board without the extra games, take their seats and spend the flight working without distractions. Beaverboy - I have said this more than once- 9 years working for a company is nothing. Starting an airline is easy but the politics soon begin to take place. When you reach 20 years in the business , please let us know how you feel. Do you not think that the AC employees of 9 years in 1946 felt the same exuberence in their futures? Time and experiences take a toll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FA@AC Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 The previous 6yrs has merit don't u think. Yup, and plenty of it. My point, however, is that WJ isn't going to be able to scrape (as you put it) pax from AC to anywhere near the extent it once did now that AC is operating differently and now that it seems to be able to charge a yield premium over WJ that more than makes up for the difference in our operating costs. It would seem that somebody--perhaps a number of people, actually--among the higher ups at WJ came to the same conclusion a while back and thus bought into Mr Hill's caper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaverboy Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 , . Beaverboy - I have said this more than once- 9 years working for a company is nothing. Starting an airline is easy but the politics soon begin to take place. When you reach 20 years in the business , please let us know how you feel. Do you not think that the AC employees of 9 years in 1946 felt the same exuberence in their futures? Time and experiences take a toll. How do you know I have not been in the business 20 years? I also do not think that it is easy to start an airline. Many, many have tried and only a very few have made a go of it. I am saying that working for a company like WJ is different than any airline I have worked for in the past. It makes going to work fun, and that is what it is all about, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanadaEH Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 wizard: What goes around comes around. when Jetsgo and Jazz start hiting the west there will be no profits for Westjet because the F100's and RJ's will hit westjet in the west just like 8 years ago when the 737-200's from westjet started hiting CP and AC. I don't disagree with you that Westjet may not be profitable, but what about the others you mentioned? Jetsgo is offering walk-up fares of $49 for YVRYEG. They've been at that route for three months and they're still offering $49 walk-up fares. What happens when they start YVRYYC service to compete with Westjet's 11x daily and Air Canada's 12x daily? Yields go to sh!t and everyone suffers. The difference between Westjet 8 years ago vs. AC and CP was that Westjet had a huge advantage in CASM. Fast forward to today and you have three carrier with CASM ranging from (the speculated) range of $.10 cents to $.15 (estimated). The battle isn't so one-sided as you're making it out to be... FA@AC: Yup, and plenty of it. My point, however, is that WJ isn't going to be able to scrape (as you put it) pax from AC to anywhere near the extent it once did now that AC is operating differently and now that it seems to be able to charge a yield premium over WJ that more than makes up for the difference in our operating costs. It would seem that somebody--perhaps a number of people, actually--among the higher ups at WJ came to the same conclusion a while back and thus bought into Mr Hill's caper. The market isn't in a process of stimulation anymore, it's in a process of fragmentation. One carriers growth is at the expense of another, and vise versa. It isn't about cheap fares, because everyone has 'em. Frequency and frills are the next "in" thing, wouldn't you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagger Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 wizard: I don't disagree with you that Westjet may not be profitable, but what about the others you mentioned? Jetsgo is offering walk-up fares of $49 for YVRYEG. They've been at that route for three months and they're still offering $49 walk-up fares. What happens when they start YVRYYC service to compete with Westjet's 11x daily and Air Canada's 12x daily? Yields go to sh!t and everyone suffers. The difference between Westjet 8 years ago vs. AC and CP was that Westjet had a huge advantage in CASM. Fast forward to today and you have three carrier with CASM ranging from (the speculated) range of $.10 cents to $.15 (estimated). The battle isn't so one-sided as you're making it out to be... FA@AC: The market isn't in a process of stimulation anymore, it's in a process of fragmentation. One carriers growth is at the expense of another, and vise versa. It isn't about cheap fares, because everyone has 'em. Frequency and frills are the next "in" thing, wouldn't you think? I see my fragmentation strategy is making sense to others. True enough. That's the future (until somebody folds, then a big jet or two would be nice...) However, fragmentation is a concept that works best with smaller jets, and WJ's smallest jet is going to be the -600. The CRJ-200 has a comfort penalty for longer flights, but not the 705 or EMB 175/190 the way they are configured. It's going to be interesting. Milton goes to Calgary and talks about transborder fragmentation - hub overfly by any other name - but what about domestic? Why not add frequency on a routing like YUL-YWG, and then have Halifax, Moncton and Quebec City passengers connect in Montreal instead of Toronto, then downgauge some Toronto activities. Toronto's exhorbitant and constantly rising fees are weight-based, so a domestic downgauging strategy would help AC add widebody international capacity without paying quite as much in additional fees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FA@AC Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 Frequency and frills are the next "in" thing, wouldn't you think? I'm not sure. AC has always had plenty of frills that its domestic competitors didn't have, but the travelling public was often not willing to pay the premium for them that AC once had to charge due to its high cost structure. Now that we have resturctured and gotten a lot of the cost out of our business, we're operating a policy of offering cheapo seats (but with fewer frills) sometimes, and of offering frills at the higher fares, but at fares that are usually much less high than they used to be. The new 70-100 seats that we have on order will, I guess, be used to offer higher frequency on some routes--and should also bolster the profitability of the long haul routes they'll feed at hubs--but are also intended to launch nonstop service on routes that wouldn't be viable with the aircraft currently in the fleet. As I understand our business plan, that's where frequency and frills come in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flightlevels Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 until someone can do long haul out of canada cheaper... then pain again for AC...it's not too far off.not to mention what was on the CBC national the other night with corporations and pensions. don't put too much faith in AC's pension according to that story. how many millions does it have to payback? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FA@AC Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 until someone can do long haul out of canada cheaper... then pain again for AC...it's not too far off. If the restructured AC is able to hold its own against the LCCs within N America, why wouldn't it be able to do the same on international routes? Which LCC is about to get slots at Heathrow or Narita in any case? Which LCC even wants them? We and Air Transat both do fine on the trans-atlantic routes, and as far as I know so does Zoom. We already have a carrier on the N American scene that does domestic and transborder "cheaper" than WJ does. By your reasoning that automatically means pain for Westjet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wizard Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 so you are saying they will make a profit...then in the east AC/canjet/jetsgo and WJ will all be fighting...who has the lowest cost again? sustainability will win. something will give and the rest will be bruised. don't think that WJ will only feel the pain. Do you always talk and then think later Wizard?...lol Hey Flightlevels what I am saying is it's all about yields if AC or JG go into a Westjet base served by only Westjet with an RJ 200 or even an 705 or JG with F100 which I don't think they would do because I think they will go into Calgary Winterpeg Vancouver and Victory. What Happens to yields if your 140 seats most days departs with 90 seats full and now somebody comes in with 50 seats and takes 35 seats who's making bigger yields. Your 90 seats just went to 55 seats with 85 seats open the guy with 50 seats departs with 15 seats open. Now you must lower your seat price to get back your empty seats but you are losing lots of yields. It's called cherry picking and that's what westjet did eight years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boestar Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 Sometimes it is good business to sacrifice yeilds to get bums in the seats. The strategy being, if you get people on the aircraft and treat the well and make them happy they WILL come back. In most cases, but not all, even if the price goes up they will come back. Most people are Loyal to a brand. People who complained about AC still flew them even if there was a cheaper alternative. Service is a BIG seller in this industry, even today, Not all pax are looking for the cheapest fare just the best VALUE. All of the airlines sell seats at a loss in the beginnings of a new market for this reason. Bums in seats. It is kinda like fishing....first you hook 'em then you reel 'em in. Sorry for rambling I need to go to bed. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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