JayRalstonSmith

Exactly. Plus, the operation this month ran great. Hearing we closed out April beating all our monthly metric targets.

But you know how it is, some people just have to complain.

PSU Flyer

To be fair, I think it’s a little bit of a “fool me once” type of scenario for people who have been here awhile. I’m cautiously optimistic and hope for the best, but I’m not getting excited until I actually see changes that matter. Definitely hoping they can turn this place around.

PeakEGT

And it’s another thing to call it like you see it. Smiles and on time performance isn’t going to give us a competitive advantage to increase revenue.

JayRalstonSmith

Yeah, because no airline has made money with good customer service and being on time/reliable except every other airline

PeakEGT

They do all that and a bit more. Don’t get me wrong I’m rooting for us, but legacies have assurances in place when things go awry. Be it endless rebooking options. We rely on the leisure market and these individuals expect to get to their vacation at a certain time and day and when someone from BDL to SJU missed their flight and their cruise, guess who they’re not booking next time? even if they got a smile on their way out the door.

Bluedriver

You are contradicting your previous comment. You said smiles and on-time performance won't increase revenue, but now you are saying if we aren't on-time our customers won't book us again.

That's completely contradictory.

If more customers book with us again, that increases demand for our available seats. More demand means JB can charge higher fares. More demand and loyalty mean more TrueBlue membership and credit card spend, which very clearly translate to more revenue, said every airline CEO ever.

On a separate note, Delta made a conscious and public (stated to their shareholders) decision several years ago to invest millions of dollars into on-time and completion factor, with the express purpose of creating a "revenue premium" to the competition because business travelers, vacationers and other people who buy a ticket to GET SOMEWHERE would be willing to pay a revenue premium for a higher likelihood of getting where they want to go, when they want to get there. It was wildly successful and Delta is often the most profitable airline in the world since employing the strategy. I'm not saying it's the only factor, but it's a big part of it and it was an intentional strategy.

Smiles generating revenue is a harder one to prove, but most Spirit and Frontier pilots will tell you that treating their customers like crap certainly hasn't helped the bottom line...

PNWFlyer

for the record Delta is a profitable Air Line because the have 2 very large non-union work forces. All the other stuff is just icing on the cake.

BusBoi

I'm at Spirit and I usually commute on us. The gate agents can sometimes be rough but the FAs are usually pretty nice. The product obviously blows but the employees are generally pretty good.

nene

IDK, according to the company those employees are already paid slightly better than their union counterparts. It's the main reason the unions have such a hard time unionizing the other work groups. Mgmt is keen to stay one step ahead of the industry unions in pay/benefits.

BusBoi

This is correct. I know Delta FAs make as much or more than AA/UA and have similar (or better) work rules.