For those that interviewed 3/8 or 3/9...
03-14-2006, 04:02 AM
#11
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2005
Position: Retired 121 pilot
Posts: 1,033
fireman0174 is right on track. JetBlue training dept will be cutting back.
Sorry if my post was confusing.
03-16-2006, 09:59 AM
#15
Guest
Posts: n/a
Emails have been sent!
I received my email to go on to Phase 2 Wednesday. Needless to say I am extremely excited. I have about 5000 turbine. I don't know if this is an average. A freind of mine had only 850 turbine PIC and another was flying left seat in a 747 box hauler and had 10,000 with 5,000 heavy.
Mr. Dave Barger told me in person that they may slow down hiring in the future only because the 190's haven't been delivered as fast as expected. This is being corrected as the esembly line kicks into full swing. And yes the gliches with the 190's are all but fixed with a dispatch reliability of over 99%. They still plan to hire over 500 this year and 500 next year. If B6 stays on track it will have over 4500 pilots and over 400 aircraft by 2012. That is more than one every 10 days.
Airlines
Friendly Skies
Tom Van Riper, 03.15.06, 6:00 AM ET
By This Author
Tom Van Riper
• Better Pipelines Could Boost Big Pharma
• Fortune Brands Feels Housing Market Slowdown
• A-B Poised To Improve By 2007
More Headlines
Related Quotes
AMR 26.97 - 0.02
JBLU 10.30 + 0.13
LUV 17.66 + 0.16
New York - The headlines: Southwest Airlines is raising fares, and JetBlue Airways is losing money. But don't expect it to last. Both low-fare carriers still have plenty of advantages over their tired rivals.
Not that you've heard much about that lately. Oil at $60 per barrel is throwing a wrench into profits at big and small airlines alike, and Southwest (nyse: LUV - news - people ) just announced it's raising round-trip fares by as much as $20 to offset an expected $600 million increase in fuel costs. Several airlines rushed to match the fare increases, including Northwest Airlines, which said it will experiment with charging more for aisle seats.
JetBlue (nasdaq: JBLU - news - people ), after four years of growth and profits at the expense of the majors, is suffering its first real growing pains. The low-cost carrier lost $42 million during the fourth quarter of 2005 and has seen it shares tumble 35% so far this year. The company just announced a management shakeup to overhaul its legal, corporate-finance and government-affairs units.
As the smaller carriers grow, there's evidence of some price convergence in the industry. Prices at low-cost carriers are edging higher; those at high-cost carriers are getting lower. Will prices converge enough to cost Southwest and JetBlue their unique niches that made them such big passenger favorites in the first place?
Don't count on it, say the experts.
Southwest's strong balance sheet leaves it with plenty of leeway to nudge up fares while leaving its low-cost model intact. And JetBlue, while it's taken some recent knocks after its Embraer (nyse: ERJ - news - people ) aircrafts suffered some early reliability problems after a delayed debut, seems poised to get back on track after scaling back its New York-to-Florida routes that many analysts saw as an over-invested market.
Despite a long-standing joke that describes Florida as New York City's sixth borough, "there's still a natural limit to where the subway goes," says industry consultant Robert Mann.
JetBlue said it will discontinue its two daily flights between Newark and Tampa in May. And while the company did not follow others in matching Southwest's fare increase, Benchmark Capital transportation analyst Helane Becker expects it will announce its own plan later this week.
"By raising [one-way] fares $5 to $10 per seat, JetBlue can be profitable at $60 oil," Becker says. They have room to do it, thanks to the popular service, leather seats and television screens that make JetBlue a must-fly for so many passengers.
Meanwhile, United Airlines (nasdaq: UAUA - news - people ) is still emerging from bankruptcy, while American Airlines (nyse: AMR - news - people ) has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for a while. And they're not yet making money. Delta Air Lines, whose executives just told an arbitration panel presiding over a dispute with its pilots that its tank is virtually empty, may soon be history. The company is looking to push its underfunded pension into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., and have effectively told pilots threatening to strike that there won't be a business to come back to if they walk.
Mann says the big carriers' plans are to concentrate on international and major domestic routes and turn over the shorter hops to their subsidiaries like American Eagle (American), ComAir (Delta) and ExpressJet (Continental). Those carriers are emerging as JetBlue's competition into smaller cities like Buffalo, N.Y. and Burlington, Vt.
But enough people like JetBlue for the airline to continue undercutting the majors on longer routes by maintaining its model of flying into smaller airports just outside of major cities in some key markets. When you're the only player out there with a truly distinct brand, customers will put up with bypassing San Francisco and Los Angeles for Oakland and Long Beach, Calif.
Leather seats, Free TV, Free Movies, Free Music, and Blue chips for all!
Hey Fly By Wire, Stop kicking the cat.
Mr. Dave Barger told me in person that they may slow down hiring in the future only because the 190's haven't been delivered as fast as expected. This is being corrected as the esembly line kicks into full swing. And yes the gliches with the 190's are all but fixed with a dispatch reliability of over 99%. They still plan to hire over 500 this year and 500 next year. If B6 stays on track it will have over 4500 pilots and over 400 aircraft by 2012. That is more than one every 10 days.
Airlines
Friendly Skies
Tom Van Riper, 03.15.06, 6:00 AM ET
By This Author
Tom Van Riper
• Better Pipelines Could Boost Big Pharma
• Fortune Brands Feels Housing Market Slowdown
• A-B Poised To Improve By 2007
More Headlines
Related Quotes
AMR 26.97 - 0.02
JBLU 10.30 + 0.13
LUV 17.66 + 0.16
New York - The headlines: Southwest Airlines is raising fares, and JetBlue Airways is losing money. But don't expect it to last. Both low-fare carriers still have plenty of advantages over their tired rivals.
Not that you've heard much about that lately. Oil at $60 per barrel is throwing a wrench into profits at big and small airlines alike, and Southwest (nyse: LUV - news - people ) just announced it's raising round-trip fares by as much as $20 to offset an expected $600 million increase in fuel costs. Several airlines rushed to match the fare increases, including Northwest Airlines, which said it will experiment with charging more for aisle seats.
JetBlue (nasdaq: JBLU - news - people ), after four years of growth and profits at the expense of the majors, is suffering its first real growing pains. The low-cost carrier lost $42 million during the fourth quarter of 2005 and has seen it shares tumble 35% so far this year. The company just announced a management shakeup to overhaul its legal, corporate-finance and government-affairs units.
As the smaller carriers grow, there's evidence of some price convergence in the industry. Prices at low-cost carriers are edging higher; those at high-cost carriers are getting lower. Will prices converge enough to cost Southwest and JetBlue their unique niches that made them such big passenger favorites in the first place?
Don't count on it, say the experts.
Southwest's strong balance sheet leaves it with plenty of leeway to nudge up fares while leaving its low-cost model intact. And JetBlue, while it's taken some recent knocks after its Embraer (nyse: ERJ - news - people ) aircrafts suffered some early reliability problems after a delayed debut, seems poised to get back on track after scaling back its New York-to-Florida routes that many analysts saw as an over-invested market.
Despite a long-standing joke that describes Florida as New York City's sixth borough, "there's still a natural limit to where the subway goes," says industry consultant Robert Mann.
JetBlue said it will discontinue its two daily flights between Newark and Tampa in May. And while the company did not follow others in matching Southwest's fare increase, Benchmark Capital transportation analyst Helane Becker expects it will announce its own plan later this week.
"By raising [one-way] fares $5 to $10 per seat, JetBlue can be profitable at $60 oil," Becker says. They have room to do it, thanks to the popular service, leather seats and television screens that make JetBlue a must-fly for so many passengers.
Meanwhile, United Airlines (nasdaq: UAUA - news - people ) is still emerging from bankruptcy, while American Airlines (nyse: AMR - news - people ) has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for a while. And they're not yet making money. Delta Air Lines, whose executives just told an arbitration panel presiding over a dispute with its pilots that its tank is virtually empty, may soon be history. The company is looking to push its underfunded pension into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., and have effectively told pilots threatening to strike that there won't be a business to come back to if they walk.
Mann says the big carriers' plans are to concentrate on international and major domestic routes and turn over the shorter hops to their subsidiaries like American Eagle (American), ComAir (Delta) and ExpressJet (Continental). Those carriers are emerging as JetBlue's competition into smaller cities like Buffalo, N.Y. and Burlington, Vt.
But enough people like JetBlue for the airline to continue undercutting the majors on longer routes by maintaining its model of flying into smaller airports just outside of major cities in some key markets. When you're the only player out there with a truly distinct brand, customers will put up with bypassing San Francisco and Los Angeles for Oakland and Long Beach, Calif.
Leather seats, Free TV, Free Movies, Free Music, and Blue chips for all!
Hey Fly By Wire, Stop kicking the cat.
Last edited by Captain Dad; 03-30-2006 at 08:19 AM.
