I like to read the "Hot Flash" every monday as even though I don't necessarily agree with absolutely everything he has to say, he's got probably the most realistic perspective on the airline business.
From Boyd Consulting Group
From Boyd Consulting Group
Hot Flash - April 23, 2007
Sheep Races
Things "Everybody Knows"
But Nobody Seems To Want To Question
We'll call it the concept of "Dogmas Du Jour" - beliefs that suddenly out of nowhere become righteous, trendy, and not to be questioned, and then disappear as fast as they arrived. But while they're in vogue, anybody who might question them is at risk of being tossed onto the barbie as a unknowing heretic.
That's the challenge in defining aviation trends - sorting the chant and intellectual hogwash from the reality. And there's fertile ground to support such hogwash. All it takes is a couple of news stories, and something that has no basis in fact gets repeated so many times that, at least for a few months, it becomes "what everybody knows." It's validated only by the fact it's being repeated over and over again.
Here's four of today's most trendy aviation dogmas. All are - or were - accepted as Holy Aviation Scripture. None have any basis in hard fact.
Dogma: Airline Mergers - No Doubt About It. Just six months ago, it was the sacred, not-to-be-questioned dogma that all airline CEOs were talking merger, and the US-DL deal was just part of an unstoppable trend toward "necessary and inevitable" airline consolidation. "Everybody knows," was the line, "airlines must merge." And that was because everybody was saying it.
The fact that actual statements by most airline CEOs refuted this silly mantra were ignored. We heard business editors from prestigious journals such as the Washington Post declaring that airline industry leaders were all looking at mergers as a solution to the industry's problems. We saw it printed over and over again in newspapers around the nation. "Experts" appeared on TV, touting the benefits and inevitability of reducing he number of airlines.
One guy, dredged up by a network from who-knows-where, proclaimed that "there are over 100 airlines in the US today, and we must cut it back to just six or eight." (No kidding, he actually said that - there're 100 airlines in America, he announced. On a national business network, too.)
That was typical of the kind of charlatan expertise oozing out from under intellectual rocks to jump on the mergers-are-coming bandwagon. Rumors - with no foundation in fact - were spread, sounding almost like inside information, that this airline or that airline was secretly well down the pike in merger talks. Much of it untrue, but since it fit the accepted mantra, a lot of media types ran with it without checking it out.
Today, with the exception of the Midwest-AirTran combination (which is the outcome of years of off-and-on contacts, not some generic industry trend) the merger battlefield is quiet. The din from all the "experts" is gone, give or take the very occasional excuse that "airlines are doing well, but wait 'til the next downturn" - which itself is another chant that ignores some fundamental changes in the industry.
But doesn't change the fact that six months ago, mergers were being touted as immediate and inescapable. Those "experts"must be on vacation..
Dogma: Carbon Offsets, Carbon Footprints, & Airlines Hurting Earth. It's now not to be questioned. The airline industry is polluting our planet and must - must - make amends. Just how much are airlines contributing to"climate change?" Almost nobody's asking. They don't need to. It's something "everybody knows" - airlines are big polluters.
Regardless of the fact - Al Gore notwithstanding - that there is considerable question regarding the whole issue, airlines will now start doing the mea culpa boogie, trying to convince the public that they'll make amends for damage that stuff coming out of the business ends of CF-6s and JT-9s are allegedly doing to the rain forests.
The industry is playing with an almost intentionally losing hand. First they admit to creating stuff that causes "climate change" (global warming is passe) yet they - as well as their accusers - cannot measure what or how much. Then carriers will likely hire some outside fruitcakes to help them craft a high-profile "carbon offset" program, the beneficial effects of which can't be measured, simply because the damage airlines are supposedly causing can't be measured. It's a perfect no-win situation.
So stand-by for the ghost-written "letters from the chairman" in the front of in-flight magazines."Here at Trans-Apology International, we're dedicated to fighting climate change and to saving the planet. So we're paying some idiot front group a lot of money for carbon offsets (whatever that is) to clear our guilt, cleanse the skies, and try to keep Greenpeace from picketing our headquarters..."
The real statement should be: "There is no credible evidence that airlines such as ours are contributing in any meaningful way to "climate change." Therefore, we'll continue to do things like separate the trash and recycle pop cans, but we won't be blackmailed by some latter-day 1960 hippies in tie-dyed tee-shirts, factless and feckless, whose real agenda is to have us all revert back to the fun lifestyles of the 16th century..."
Today, anybody who's ever used a disposable diaper or tossed a Yellow Pages in the trash, must be held accountable for what caused Hurricane Katrina, or for snake darters having a low birth rate. But let's go back a couple years. Gee, whatever happened to acid rain? A decade ago it was supposed to be turning the forests of Quebec into the Gobi Desert. Today, that's passe. Even "global warming" is passe. Now, it's "climate change" - that's because it's hard to explain things like the snow in Tucson last winter.
To be more accurate, now it's just a righteous lynch mob who'd prefer we all lived like the Flintstones. And not have airlines at all.
Dogma: Congress Must Protect Consumers From The Airline Industry. Hearings on Capitol Hill have been conclusive, at least in the alleged minds of pandering hacks like Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Laws must be passed to protect consumers from delays, lost bags, and being trapped on airplanes due to ice storms.
Gee, DeFazio on one hand want to "protect" passengers from airlines, but sits on his political tush in regard to the fact that consumers sitting on those flights he demands leave on-time are wide open to terrorism because the TSA is inept.
He was the ranking member of the committee that had TSA oversight, yet never - not once - suggested legislation to protect passengers by overhauling that corrupted TSA jobs program he passes off as "security."
Dogma: Major Airlines Shifting To International, Abandoning Domestic. It's fairly common today to read the nonsense that comprehensive network carriers are running away from low-cost carriers. Oft-heard: "Legacy carriers, under pressure, are conceding domestic routes to LCCs, and shifting to international markets..." or, "the discount carriers are scrambling to fill the market voids left as legacies expand internationally..."
Sounds good, and it's been repeated so many times, a lot of the media doesn't bother to even check it out. The fact is that it's tough to find any major domestic market that's been "abandoned to LCCs" by legacy carriers. Nor are LCCs rushing to fill these voids-that-aren't. Capacity gets adjusted from time to time, but the stuff about legacies retreating overseas to avoid Southwest and AirTran is sheer nonsense.
The fact is that as CNCs add international markets, it strengthens the domestic network. Those Delta flights coming into Atlanta from Munich feed a lot of connect passengers on to New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Wichita. Plus a portion of them become internal US passengers for Delta, making other domestic trips before returning across the pond.
Fact: LCCs are scrambling to place aircraft, only because they've got a lot on order, and the markets where the LCC model works are not unlimited. But they're not charging to fill any voids left by majors. Essentially, there aren't any.
Regardless of what you might read in the media.
