Furlough Estimates

I’ve been wondering about something other than the pax being comfortable getting back in a tube with 150 asymptomatic strangers. Will they want to fly a particular airline after this refund/credit cluster? There are a lot of folks pissed at practically every airline for not refunding fares. Right or wrong, that isn’t the problem. PR is. After 1 OCT all bets are off, right? One question that remained from the discussion I was having on this topic was with regards to bankruptcy. If an airline declared bk, how are the fare credits on account handled? If they’re wiped out, that’ll really piss off the flying public and make it harder to sell seats. The business traveler, not so much, but everybody else. You betcha.

Also, this “good sign of things to come,” the report about holiday sales, is that just looking at the number sold at this same time last year? I mean if all the Thanksgiving flights were at 90% capacity you can’t sell 40% more than that. Maybe it’s just people trying to use the credits that have been issued over the last 2 months.
 
deadstick said:
I’ve been wondering about something other than the pax being comfortable getting back in a tube with 150 asymptomatic strangers. Will they want to fly a particular airline after this refund/credit cluster? There are a lot of folks pissed at practically every airline for not refunding fares. Right or wrong, that isn’t the problem. PR is. After 1 OCT all bets are off, right? One question that remained from the discussion I was having on this topic was with regards to bankruptcy. If an airline declared bk, how are the fare credits on account handled? If they’re wiped out, that’ll really piss off the flying public and make it harder to sell seats. The business traveler, not so much, but everybody else. You betcha.

Also, this “good sign of things to come,” the report about holiday sales, is that just looking at the number sold at this same time last year? I mean if all the Thanksgiving flights were at 90% capacity you can’t sell 40% more than that. Maybe it’s just people trying to use the credits that have been issued over the last 2 months.
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I think that’s all backwards. Business travelers would be pissed, Joe Exotic Sixpack will make a pissed off Instagram story and buy whatever the cheapest fare is.
 
mastermags said:
I think that’s all backwards. Business travelers would be pissed, Joe Exotic Sixpack will make a pissed off Instagram story and buy whatever the cheapest fare is.
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I think this is accurate. The business travelers who have their status, points, upgrades, waived bag fees, and club access wiped out are going to be way more angry, and ready to vote with their feet, than the people who persistently post that they're "never flying this POS airline again!", typically over ancillary fees or some routine clause that was in the contract of carriage already...like fare credits versus refunds.

Now whoever handles their travel account is going to be a different story when they see the bankrupt airline pricing fares irrationally...and THAT is why we need to do everything possible to keep any US airline from going bankrupt.
 
Flyinthrew said:
I think this is accurate. The business travelers who have their status, points, upgrades, waived bag fees, and club access wiped out are going to be way more angry, and ready to vote with their feet, than the people who persistently post that they're "never flying this POS airline again!", typically over ancillary fees or some routine clause that was in the contract of carriage already...like fare credits versus refunds.

Now whoever handles their travel account is going to be a different story when they see the bankrupt airline pricing fares irrationally...and THAT is why we need to do everything possible to keep any US airline from going bankrupt.
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Good points. We weren’t discussing the status/points getting messed up — just the fare money.
 
AAPalmTree said:
I heard DL was staffing based on summer 2022. Is that right?
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That's what we heard just a few days ago from a Flight Ops update. Not sure if it's actually true or not, but it sounds like our bid will be available next week possibly.
 
I think an important thing to keep in mind is that we wont have any clarity until the summer. Eskimo MEC says no clarity until June. Even then I could see that being pushed into "hey things are looking better/worse than before, we need more time to develop a plan."

My plan until we do have clarity is to try and not worry but stay informed. I'm going to try and have as much fun as possible on a budget and safe for some kind of furlough fund.

I sent a resume to a few flight schools and got a TBNT. So I'm thinking plan B will have to be outside of aviation.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
I think an important thing to keep in mind is that we wont have any clarity until the summer. Eskimo MEC says no clarity until June. Even then I could see that being pushed into "hey things are looking better/worse than before, we need more time to develop a plan."

My plan until we do have clarity is to try and not worry but stay informed. I'm going to try and have as much fun as possible on a budget and safe for some kind of furlough fund.

I sent a resume to a few flight schools and got a TBNT. So I'm thinking plan B will have to be outside of aviation.
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Fix bikes cash only, under the table. Lots of people ain’t gonna be able to pay they $600/mo car payment...
 
Kingairer said:
We're going to know pretty soon how they public is going to react to the doors being opened again.
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I think what people aren't getting is that even a substantially good reaction, let's say 80% of the prior load factor, would still be catastrophic for the airlines. Only Southwest could really handle that without mass furloughs. The financials of airlines are just bad to begin with. The slightest hiccup and it all goes to hell.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
I think what people aren't getting is that even a substantially good reaction, let's say 80% of the prior load factor, would still be catastrophic for the airlines. Only Southwest could really handle that without mass furloughs. The financials of airlines are just bad to begin with. The slightest hiccup and it all goes to hell.
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I don't think it's just Southwest. Spirit and Frontier probably can as well.
 
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