Another low-Fair airline

[I_Money]

>>If Virgin takes care of its customers and its employees it will thrive<<

Virgin Atlantic pilots earn nickles and dimes compared to a UA 747 pilot, and Virgin Blue pilots earn a tiny salary too - but that is alright as they all probably still live at home (they look young enough!!!!).

>>I just hope this stupid Virgin USA thing doesn't try to replace one of the good quality majors here in the U.S like Virgin Blue replaced our beloved Ansett Australia down under. Ansett Australia was far better than Qantas.......<<

Oh come on - you know as well as I do Ansett was down the dunny way before ANZ acquired them, which was before Virgin Blue even began to operate. Yes from what hear Ansett was great, but Virgin did not cause their demise.

 

[Kingairer]

[ QUOTE ]
What a glamorous experience it was. Now, flying the airlines is like flying a bus, with the same boredom, frustration, and lack of glamour. I still like looking out the window, but that is about it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Some of its still there. I do alot of flying in the Northeast in Airports like LGA and DCA. The majority of these passengers are in business suits, carry breifcases, and know the "drill". Contrast with some of the flights i do to orlando, its night and day. For the most part though, you are exactly right.

 

[Prospective_Pilot]

ANZ took 51% control of Ansett also taking their profits putting them into their own company, cash strapping Ansett....alot of other sneaky things went on also, and supposedly their was nothing the Ansettt management could do. In Australia when ANZ took control of one of their competitors it wasn't difficult to predict that ANZ would screw them till they die..... I blame ANZ for causing them to go down, I blame Virgin Blue for helping ANZ (they had a $5/seat sale which made a even larger gash in the Ansett wound. No they didn't causet the demise, but they helped), Thirdly, I blame bad management decisions on Ansett's behalf..........

That is just my understanding of what happened, if someone is willing to straighten it out for me, please go ahead!!!

 

[I_Money]

My mate was a LAME with Ansett, and predicted their demise way before the ANZ deal or Virgin Blue came on the scene. He saw some management decisions being made that were just causing trouble. He said the ANZ deal was the straw that broke the camels back, but lets not forget ANZ had to get a government bail out after ANZ went bust, otherwise they would be no more. So ANZ lost a lot too from the Ansett collapse.

I know a lot of Australians blame ANZ for Ansetts collapse, but I think that is just finger pointing and part of the battle of Tazman - atleast you guys beat them in the Rugby World Cup, pity we beat you!

 

[derg]

I remember being a 737 FO taxiing into MCO one day, drooling at one of Branson's 747's in our terminal. Then my captain explained to me how "much" his 747 captains make and the drool dried fairly quickly.

 

[Wm226]

How much do they make anyways?

 

[Prospective_Pilot]

I know, in Australia, a senior captain at Virgin Blue is only pulling in about $120k AUD/yr. (about $87,901 USD). Now just remember that the cost of living in Australia is much higher than here in the U.S.. Doesn't work out to be very much, and like I said that's for a senior captain while f/o's are making much much less, I think half of that...... I haven't seen if they've had any raises, but I do recall reading those figures in 2003....

 

[I_Money]

[ QUOTE ]
How much do they make anyways?

[/ QUOTE ]

Virgin Blue -

Captain basic Au$120000

Captain top No information at present.

F/O basic Au$70000

F/O top No information at present.

Flight Pay No information at present.

Leave 6 weeks

Staff Travel Yes

Discounted Holidays No

Compared to Qantas:

Captain basic Au$180,000

Captain top Au$320,000

F/O basic Au$120,000

F/O top Au$190,000

Flight Pay Au$140 per day av. meal allow

Leave 42 days, no restrictions.

Staff Travel On Qantas and major airlines

Discounted Holidays Yes

-----------------------------------------------------------

Virgin Atlantic

Captain basic £67,527 (Jul 03)

Captain top £90,924 (Jul 03)

F/O basic £40,561 (Jul 03)

F/O top £59,100 (Jul 03)

Flight Pay Captain: £4.85 (Jul 03)F/O: £3.15 (Jul 03)

Leave 35 days plus 1 day for each year of service.

Staff Travel Yes

Discounted Holidays Yes

This was a new contract as of last year - it was significantly improved at that negotiation.

Compared to BA:

Captain basic £54,000

Captain top £120,700 (Pay also varies with fleet, eg medium haul top is £104,600 and short haul top is £102,300)

F/O basic £40,500

F/O top £90,525

Flight Pay Captains: £10pfh, £2.50ph checkin-clear (taxed at 40%)

F/Os: £8pfh, £2.50ph checkin-clear (taxed at 40%)

Allowances: £6.23/day (UK), £10/day (Overseas).

Leave 6 weeks

Staff Travel Yes

Discounted Holidays

---------------------------

Delta
Captain basic $187,392 (MD 80/90)

Captain top $263,400 (777)

F/O basic $46,800 (737 at entry)

F/O top $116,844 (FO)

Flight Pay No information at present.

Leave Guaranteed 69hrs per month. Not sure of restrictions.

Staff Travel Yes, on over 100 top airlines.

Discounted Holidays No

Southwest

Captain basic $141,200

Captain top $144,000

F/O basic $36,000

F/O top $82,500

Flight Pay 1st year - $34.91 per trip hour 12th year - $87.15 per trip hour

Leave Based on seniority

Staff Travel Free unlimited passes

United

Captain basic $149,000

Captain top $192,000

F/O basic $28,000

F/O top $92,600

American

Captain basic $120,000 (these are all post pay-cut rates)

Captain top $176,000

F/O basic $72,000

F/O top $126,000

Flight Pay Capt & FO: $2/hr INTL $1.8/hr DOM

Leave 2-6 weeks. Seniority bid system.

Staff Travel Yes

Discounted Holidays Yes

 

[danielsexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Just what we need, another LCC

[/ QUOTE ]

I was thinking maybe TED could spin off a LCC of there own and call it ED!

--

With all seriousness, maybe I am wrong but I was looking at it like this:

1) More seats = Lower fares. To compete w/ Virgin, Jet Blue, and others everyone lower fares.
2) Lower fairs = Cuts in number of daily flights, more aircraft sent to the desert.
3) Cuts in number of daily flights, more aircraft sent to the desert = More furloughs and pilots without work.

Again, I could be wrong but I see it as an escalation of the price wars that are already costing legacy carrier’s big time. Legacy carriers are already selling seats for less than cost in some markets to compete with the existing LCC's, adding more LCC's could only hurt, right? I don't think AA, Delta, UAL, US Air, and NWA can afford to go to Business use only, I think they still need the leisure traveler, they just need him to pay a high enough fare they could actually turn profit.

As for "blocking off" seats for your last minute business traveler, that’s a double edge sword. I recently flew ATL-ORD on AA. I went to AA.com 3 days in advance and paid $275 for my seat. According to the seat chart I got the next to the last seat available a "middle" seat. Three days later when I arrived at ATL and checked in with the friendly kiosk (I guess the airlines can’t afford real people to check you in anymore), it still said there was only 1 seat left and it was a middle seat as well. So I decided I wasn’t getting out of it, I would have to sit in the middle. We board the plane (F-100) get ready to go, and guess what? Not only am I the only person sitting in my row, the plane is 1/4 empty. I think they may have blocked off to many seats for those last minute travelers who didn't arrive, and now they made $0 for those seats. Of course blocking seats is a balancing game and maybe AA just did a bad job at it for that flight, but for the sake of the bottom line I hope they do better in the future.

Just my .02

 

[derg]

$275 with three days purchase is a good fare! I think I paid more than that to fly from VIS to SFO (approx 200 mi) when I was a kid in the 1980's.

 

[danielsexton]

[ QUOTE ]
$275 with three days purchase is a good fare! I think I paid more than that to fly from VIS to SFO (approx 200 mi) when I was a kid in the 1980's.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I thought so too, can't imagine AA made very much money off me. Of course the $275 they made off my seat was better than the $0 they made off 20 seats that were empty.

But that gets me back to my point, there are so many people flying from ATL-ORD that they had to see me a seat for $275 three days in advance, and they still had 20 empty seats on a plane that only holds 87.

 

[I_Money]

Daniel I am not sure I understand your logic. The industry is changing and LLCs are taking some market share however I think you will see most of the share it is taking are - flights of an hour or less, and remember the saying that 20% customers make up 80% of your sales, the LLCs are gaining the 80% of the customers who make up 20% of the sales.

A major or 2 might go out of major in this change, however I do not think the number of pilots because of this will significantly increase/decrease.

 

[tonyw]

Re: Another low-Fare airline

I've seen that Hooters Air plane. I don't remember where or when, but then, right now, I'm not remembering a whole hell of a lot and I'll remember one hell of a headache tomorrow morning if I can't stay awake for an hour or two!

 

[shep]

"We board the plane (F-100) get ready to go, and guess what? Not only am I the only person sitting in my row, the plane is 1/4 empty. I think they may have blocked off to many seats for those last minute travelers who didn't arrive, and now they made $0 for those seats. Of course blocking seats is a balancing game and maybe AA just did a bad job at it for that flight, but for the sake of the bottom line I hope they do better in the future."

Empty seats may have been due to a problem with a connecting flight? Been on both sides of this situation several times. I have checked capacity right before leaving for the airport, tons of seats available, get on the plane and its packed. Flexibility is an area where the majors should have a great advantage over LCCs and IMHO could do a much better job.

 

[derg]

Speaking of LCC's, here's something funny that happened to me on the commute home.

I arrived in ATL at 1200. The next flight I could catch home to PHX was at 1620 so I was looking at flying to DFW and connecting on AWA or AA so I wouldn't have to sit around the dungeon (ATL pilot lounge) for four hours.

Low and behold the 1139 flight is delayed until 1320 because of a maintenance problem so I dash downstairs, put my stuff away, throw on some commute clothes (so I don't get pestered with 3 hours of answering questions about the evils of the airline industry in the past 30 years) and run back upstairs.

The agent gives me a seat and I board when my row number is called.

I have seat 26A and to my suprise there's already some bozo sitting there.

"I believe I have 26A".

"Yeah, but there's no one sitting in this row so me and my buddy are sitting here."

"Is this your assigned seat?" I asked.

"Nah, it was empty on the last flight that came back to the gate so my buddy took it."

"Ok, I've been assigned seat 26A".

"Where were you on the last flight?" he asks.

"First class" (I lied)

And then basically it resulted in me being 'diplomatically berated' for being assigned a seat where he "wanted" to sit.

Fare are getting low again, people!

 

[danielsexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Daniel I am not sure I understand your logic. The industry is changing and LLCs are taking some market share however I think you will see most of the share it is taking are - flights of an hour or less

[/ QUOTE ]

USA Today 11 March 2004

Statistics for JFK/LGA/EWR

1999
LCCs=7% of all pax trafic

2003
LCCs=22% & expanding

The article also went on to talk about how before the LCC's NYC used to be the most expensive city to fly into and now the ticket prices continue to fall...thanks to the LCC's. I am not against low fares, I like 'em as a consumer, but I also agree with a signature someone uses here on JC "Something's wrong when its cheaper to fly then drive"

As far as LCC's only doing short flights, take a look at Jet Blue's route map...

 

[Guest]

Re: Another low-Fare airline

It seems that now every major airline is trying to make it's own low cost carriers. Maybe this is the thing of the future.

 

[Wm226]

Re: Another low-Fare airline

Many people just want cheap flights. And if they can get it in a safe and convenient manner, then they are satisfied.

 

[I_Money]

I really do not look at JB as an LCC - they utilize the LCC strategy but provide a far superior product.

 

[Prospective_Pilot]

Got to agree with you there, Iain!!