Activist Investor pushing changes at SWA
06-14-2024, 09:30 AM
#81
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2013
Posts: 3,650
Honest question.
Why doesn’t Southwest start charging for bags? Or put some upgraded economy rows they can charge for? Can they charge for a seat assignment? Other airlines have made billions on these fees over the last 15 years.
Might be a catch-22 though. The more they start looking like other airlines, the more people will start shopping other airlines.
Why doesn’t Southwest start charging for bags? Or put some upgraded economy rows they can charge for? Can they charge for a seat assignment? Other airlines have made billions on these fees over the last 15 years.
Might be a catch-22 though. The more they start looking like other airlines, the more people will start shopping other airlines.
SWA management is stuck in a rut and is super slow to adapt. The pre board and extra seat scams are perfect examples. They hit social media and now are widely used. Instead of crushing it in the crib, SWA doesn't take a position and ends up ****ing off their loyal customers. They should have rolled out a new product 2 years ago but instead have been doing who knows what while taking fat bonuses and hiring more layers of non revenue producing management.
While I think these vultures are not going to be good for the company or its employees, our management needed a shakeup. By sitting on their hands and letting the company suffer, they made us weak and basically invited these guys into their house. Now we all get to reap what they sowed.
06-14-2024, 10:09 AM
#82
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2019
Posts: 341
I think you answered your own question. They were trying to differentiate themselves by democratizing travel and basically charging a little more but giving everybody the same benefits without the bogus nickel and dime charges. I think that worked well until pretty recently. SWA had a nice middle between legacy airlines and ULCCs. Basic economy fares had the double effect of killing ULCC business (also redeploying domestic capacity to leisure markets) and lowering fares so much that SWA couldn't compete on a price basis.
SWA management is stuck in a rut and is super slow to adapt. The pre board and extra seat scams are perfect examples. They hit social media and now are widely used. Instead of crushing it in the crib, SWA doesn't take a position and ends up ****ing off their loyal customers. They should have rolled out a new product 2 years ago but instead have been doing who knows what while taking fat bonuses and hiring more layers of non revenue producing management.
While I think these vultures are not going to be good for the company or its employees, our management needed a shakeup. By sitting on their hands and letting the company suffer, they made us weak and basically invited these guys into their house. Now we all get to reap what they sowed.
SWA management is stuck in a rut and is super slow to adapt. The pre board and extra seat scams are perfect examples. They hit social media and now are widely used. Instead of crushing it in the crib, SWA doesn't take a position and ends up ****ing off their loyal customers. They should have rolled out a new product 2 years ago but instead have been doing who knows what while taking fat bonuses and hiring more layers of non revenue producing management.
While I think these vultures are not going to be good for the company or its employees, our management needed a shakeup. By sitting on their hands and letting the company suffer, they made us weak and basically invited these guys into their house. Now we all get to reap what they sowed.
06-14-2024, 10:11 AM
#83
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2020
Posts: 1,891
Honest question.
Why doesn’t Southwest start charging for bags? Or put some upgraded economy rows they can charge for? Can they charge for a seat assignment? Other airlines have made billions on these fees over the last 15 years.
Might be a catch-22 though. The more they start looking like other airlines, the more people will start shopping other airlines.
Why doesn’t Southwest start charging for bags? Or put some upgraded economy rows they can charge for? Can they charge for a seat assignment? Other airlines have made billions on these fees over the last 15 years.
Might be a catch-22 though. The more they start looking like other airlines, the more people will start shopping other airlines.
Funny secret is that many, many pax on Delta don't pay for bags either. All you need is the Ccard and/or status and your bags fly free. The fee is to catch the lowballer fare seeking, infrequent traveller and then make up the revenue in add ons.
06-14-2024, 11:21 AM
#84
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2016
Posts: 109
Elaborate on what? His network strategies have lost this company billions of dollars. Im going to bet the meltdown was closer to 2 billion than the 1.2 stated, cant put a price on the customers we permantly lost. How much money have we lost in Hawaii? I doubt its a money maker. Anyone have any Hawaii flying numbers? Under what senario does any of our leadership get fired?
From Hawaii last year:
Hawaiian’s load factor, a measure of airplane occupancy, was 22 percentage points higher than Southwest’s; passenger revenue per available seat mile, another financial performance measure, was 29.3 cents for Hawaiian versus 10.6 cents for Southwest; and Hawaiian’s average fares of $51 were nearly twice those of Southwest, he said. “Clearly the market dynamics have led to a short-term deterioration of our financial performance in the neighbor islands,” Overbeek said in an interview. But he reiterated an overarching point: even with Southwest dropping fares to compete, “People are choosing us.”
From another article last year:
“Well, they call it the coconut wireless,” said Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s chief operating officer. “Basically, word of mouth is very strong in Hawaii. If you disrespect somebody, if you ill-serve somebody, they'll tell their friends, they'll tell their relatives or tell their cousins, and everybody will know. So, you must establish a brand and a reputation for delivering well.”
The article goes on from Hololulu that Hawaiian at times has cheaper fares than WN. We gutted our main land network and reliability we used to have for this. So to quote Andrew, are we delivering well?
From Hawaii last year:
Hawaiian’s load factor, a measure of airplane occupancy, was 22 percentage points higher than Southwest’s; passenger revenue per available seat mile, another financial performance measure, was 29.3 cents for Hawaiian versus 10.6 cents for Southwest; and Hawaiian’s average fares of $51 were nearly twice those of Southwest, he said. “Clearly the market dynamics have led to a short-term deterioration of our financial performance in the neighbor islands,” Overbeek said in an interview. But he reiterated an overarching point: even with Southwest dropping fares to compete, “People are choosing us.”
From another article last year:
“Well, they call it the coconut wireless,” said Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s chief operating officer. “Basically, word of mouth is very strong in Hawaii. If you disrespect somebody, if you ill-serve somebody, they'll tell their friends, they'll tell their relatives or tell their cousins, and everybody will know. So, you must establish a brand and a reputation for delivering well.”
The article goes on from Hololulu that Hawaiian at times has cheaper fares than WN. We gutted our main land network and reliability we used to have for this. So to quote Andrew, are we delivering well?
06-14-2024, 12:33 PM
#85
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2022
Posts: 1,160
Elaborate on what? His network strategies have lost this company billions of dollars. Im going to bet the meltdown was closer to 2 billion than the 1.2 stated, cant put a price on the customers we permantly lost. How much money have we lost in Hawaii? I doubt its a money maker. Anyone have any Hawaii flying numbers? Under what senario does any of our leadership get fired?
From Hawaii last year:
Hawaiian’s load factor, a measure of airplane occupancy, was 22 percentage points higher than Southwest’s; passenger revenue per available seat mile, another financial performance measure, was 29.3 cents for Hawaiian versus 10.6 cents for Southwest; and Hawaiian’s average fares of $51 were nearly twice those of Southwest, he said. “Clearly the market dynamics have led to a short-term deterioration of our financial performance in the neighbor islands,” Overbeek said in an interview. But he reiterated an overarching point: even with Southwest dropping fares to compete, “People are choosing us.”
From another article last year:
“Well, they call it the coconut wireless,” said Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s chief operating officer. “Basically, word of mouth is very strong in Hawaii. If you disrespect somebody, if you ill-serve somebody, they'll tell their friends, they'll tell their relatives or tell their cousins, and everybody will know. So, you must establish a brand and a reputation for delivering well.”
The article goes on from Hololulu that Hawaiian at times has cheaper fares than WN. We gutted our main land network and reliability we used to have for this. So to quote Andrew, are we delivering well?
From Hawaii last year:
Hawaiian’s load factor, a measure of airplane occupancy, was 22 percentage points higher than Southwest’s; passenger revenue per available seat mile, another financial performance measure, was 29.3 cents for Hawaiian versus 10.6 cents for Southwest; and Hawaiian’s average fares of $51 were nearly twice those of Southwest, he said. “Clearly the market dynamics have led to a short-term deterioration of our financial performance in the neighbor islands,” Overbeek said in an interview. But he reiterated an overarching point: even with Southwest dropping fares to compete, “People are choosing us.”
From another article last year:
“Well, they call it the coconut wireless,” said Andrew Watterson, Southwest’s chief operating officer. “Basically, word of mouth is very strong in Hawaii. If you disrespect somebody, if you ill-serve somebody, they'll tell their friends, they'll tell their relatives or tell their cousins, and everybody will know. So, you must establish a brand and a reputation for delivering well.”
The article goes on from Hololulu that Hawaiian at times has cheaper fares than WN. We gutted our main land network and reliability we used to have for this. So to quote Andrew, are we delivering well?
06-14-2024, 01:22 PM
#86
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2013
Posts: 3,650
Hawaii is a multi layered deal. Even if the flights themselves break even, that whole node of the network is a magnet for the biggest money maker of them all, which is a branded credit card and the associated points.
At this point, they would have cut and run if it was a loser or at least pulled back significantly. The load factors are going to be awful when you fly 175 seat airplanes inter-island. Inter-island loses money so that the rest of it can make money. It was the key that caused the red carpet to get rolled out. Once redeyes come online, (allegedly early 25) I suspect that there will be a lot less aircraft overnighting there.
As for HA and AS, yeah, that's going to clearly change the game. I am interested to see how it all shakes out.
06-14-2024, 01:29 PM
#87
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2022
Posts: 1,160
Couple of experts here, clearly.
Hawaii is a multi layered deal. Even if the flights themselves break even, that whole node of the network is a magnet for the biggest money maker of them all, which is a branded credit card and the associated points.
At this point, they would have cut and run if it was a loser or at least pulled back significantly. The load factors are going to be awful when you fly 175 seat airplanes inter-island. Inter-island loses money so that the rest of it can make money. It was the key that caused the red carpet to get rolled out. Once redeyes come online, (allegedly early 25) I suspect that there will be a lot less aircraft overnighting there.
As for HA and AS, yeah, that's going to clearly change the game. I am interested to see how it all shakes out.
Hawaii is a multi layered deal. Even if the flights themselves break even, that whole node of the network is a magnet for the biggest money maker of them all, which is a branded credit card and the associated points.
At this point, they would have cut and run if it was a loser or at least pulled back significantly. The load factors are going to be awful when you fly 175 seat airplanes inter-island. Inter-island loses money so that the rest of it can make money. It was the key that caused the red carpet to get rolled out. Once redeyes come online, (allegedly early 25) I suspect that there will be a lot less aircraft overnighting there.
As for HA and AS, yeah, that's going to clearly change the game. I am interested to see how it all shakes out.
06-14-2024, 01:43 PM
#88
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2013
Posts: 3,650
Why didn’t the big 3 come in and do inter island? Why didn’t AAG position Horizon out here? There is a money losing reason. SWA doesn’t need inter island to have a Hawaii credit card foot print. SWA came out to put HAL out and create a monopoly. So yes I’m sure they will reconsider dumping capacity in a saturated money losing market. HAL is the states largest employer and SWA wants street cred even though they are acting like the colonizer.
Do you mean like the monopoly HAL enjoyed for years after putting Aloha out of business? Watterson, the guy responsible for putting this whole deal together, has said many times in public that inter-island was key to getting local and state government buy-in that got SWA the current footprint it enjoys. Competition is the key to a rational market. Once the interisland market got another player so that HAL was forced to quit fleecing the locals and the Asian tourism market imploded and never really came back, HAL was doomed to failure. It wouldn't have mattered who stepped in. It just happened to be Southwest. I am glad that Hawaiian found a good partner in Alaska and I hope that goes very well for both pilot groups.
I just fly the plane so I don't GAF. I suggest you do the same.
06-14-2024, 01:53 PM
#89
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2022
Posts: 1,160
Sure, Jan. Sounds like you have done your homework.
Do you mean like the monopoly HAL enjoyed for years after putting Aloha out of business? Watterson, the guy responsible for putting this whole deal together, has said many times in public that inter-island was key to getting local and state government buy-in that got SWA the current footprint it enjoys.
I just fly the plane so I don't GAF.
Do you mean like the monopoly HAL enjoyed for years after putting Aloha out of business? Watterson, the guy responsible for putting this whole deal together, has said many times in public that inter-island was key to getting local and state government buy-in that got SWA the current footprint it enjoys.
I just fly the plane so I don't GAF.
We are both on these boards d:cking around, so I GAF the about the same as you.
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