JetBlue ranked 1st, Delta came in at 12

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On the surface it is objective quantitative information, but it is a lot easier to fly into and out of MDW, ISP, or DAL and be on time than it is when you fly into or out of ORD, JFK or DFW during the international rush. Yes on the surface the numbers are quantitative, but with statistics you need to look at numbers that come from similar samples and not compare apples to oranges.

[/ QUOTE ]Sorry, the apples-to-oranges comparison doesn't work here. People love to talk about how the LCCs serve only secondary airports ... it just ain't so. Sure, they fly in to some secondary airports as well, but they all go to some of the biggies. Frontier's major hub is DEN. Southwest may be the king of the secondary airport, but their top ten largest stations include PHX, LAS, LAX, and BWI. AirTran's hub is at ATL, the busiest or second-busiest (depending on the day) airport in the world. They fly in and out of every major airport on the east coast, just about ... including BOS, LGA, EWR, BWI, DCA, IAD, and the beat goes on. And then there's JetBlue. Where's their single largest station? JFK. Who operates more flights than any other airline at Kennedy? Here's a clue ... go hang out in Terminal Six ... because it's JetBlue. And while they go to LGB instead of LAX, the list of major airports they serve is not short ... BOS, IAD, DEN, SLC, MCO.

We've also eliminated subjective expectations as a metric in the study ... it's all quantifiable statistics. So why are airlines like Delta at the bottom of the list? It's not because of their hubs ... Delta has hubs that can keep the traffic moving. It's because of people problems. Not problems with the front-line folks doing their jobs, but rather attitude. A lot of employees at the network airlines aren't happy with the company ... because they know that the boss-man is going to come down one of these days and ask for more pay cuts or take away their pension while he laughs his way to the bank. Contrast that with LCCs where the employees are happy, have confidence in their management, and are cashing fat profit-sharing checks every year. That's your answer ... what will fix the Big Six is management that not only has the business acumen to fix the problems with the company, but the honesty and personality to inspire confidence and trust among the rank-and-file.

On that subject ... I've got $1 that says Gordon Bethune will be house-hunting in Buckhead come January.
 
Psst, shh, hey FL270, when you "come down" on the hub-and-spoke carriers, umm, Shawtawkwah is umm, "one of 'em"
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There's always going to be a mix of hub/spoke and point-to-point. Besides, we have like one true point-to-point carrier and that's SWA.

If you're not flying from/to NYC/FLA/LAX, you're not getting there on JBLU.

I do think, however, the best bet is going to be a future mixture of both. But you're going to need hub/spoke to have international operations and perhaps point-to-point in moderate/high traffic O/D markets, but point-to-point isn't going to work BIL to SAF without stopping at an intermediate airport to pick up marginal traffic.

You're never going to see a COS to CDG flight in a billion years. But you're going to have to get the COS pax to a international "hub" of sorts.

On the other hand, having to fly SNA-SLC-SEA doesn't make a lot of sense if you can ascertain how to round up enough passengers to facilitate a nonstop SNA-SEA, but then keep the SNA-SLC for pax traveling onto YYC because the market probably isn't there on a consistent basis.

We could kick, scream, get red in the face all day, but from my perspective, the future is a 'hybrid' of sorts. If we try to revert to pre-deregulation (lots of smaller regional-style airlines propped up with heavy EAS subsidies) and only a few mostly international carriers like Pan Am with a flaccid domestic network, it really didn't work well then and it really ain't gonna work again.

Sorry folks, it's just that aviation law course rearing it's ugly head again!
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The management at the traditional airlines needs to learn something really quickly. You simply cannot cut your way to profitablity. Look at the big wage concessions they've gotten at US Airways, and their financial problems.

If they really want to succeed, they need to stop trying to out-Southwest Southwest, and focus on other things. In the case of US Airways, they need to ask themselves whether it makes sense to have four hubs within a two hour flight of each other!
 
Doug, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I know my new employer is entirely dependent on the Big Six ... that's actually one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this subject. It's because I see some airlines doing things WRONG in trying to compete with the LCCs that just won't go away, no matter how much Tilton and Grinstein want that.

Peaceful coexistence is going to be the wave of the future, so the sooner the Big Six figure that out and work to compete in that environment, the better off we will all be. Because the old tactic of market-flooding and driving out the undercapitalized startup just won't work anymore. Yet, AA is still trying it in New York ... they added more flights and cut fares to the DR after JetBlue's announcement ... but unlike in the past, when AA was a huge profit machine and the competition was tiny little long-gone Vanguard, the situation is a lot different.

I want ALL these airlines to survive and grow ... because I believe there's a niche for all of them. And more airlines and more airplanes and more people traveling means more jobs for pilots like us.
 
Just another note on the DOT stats, in addition to the mishandled bags (those stats are crammed down my throat every month, btw) and on-time performance (based on arrivals times, not departures, i.e. ground crew could do a killer turn and the flight would still be late thanks to an ATC delay or a go-around), customer complaints is also listed in there. That's where the subjective issues could factor in. These stats normally come out at the beginning of every month, so if you're bored (like me) you can track them all year long!
 
Even on-time statistics are meaningless because most of the carriers with the best on-time performance records don't do automatic time reporting.

When I was at Skyway, we did all of our times manually and we were always "on time" if you know what I mean because it helped everyone out.

We have ACARS at Delta so our on-time performance is a little more realistic than it was at Skyway.

But in the end, it's a pointless metric.
 
This study is about as scientific as me doing an ‘objective’ study of gun control legislation. Jet Blue while good at what it does is useless to me, because they don’t fly where I need to go.

When the LCC’s start flying into MBS we’ll see how high they rate.
 
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. It's because of people problems. Not problems with the front-line folks doing their jobs, but rather attitude.

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Bingo! We have a winner. Though I've seen front line employees not doing their jobs.

I can handle tight seat pitch, switching planes in SLC and CVG to get to BMI, 3 half glasses of Coke and the worlds smallest bag of pretzels on the way, but I CAN'T handle the attitude that is often dished out along with it.

It's not that employees have been personally rude to me (at least very often anyway) it's that they come off as showing this persona that their job is beneath their dignity (esp. FAs) and paying customers are treated like a burden, not the sine qua non of their employment. I see it all the time when non-reving pax are treated much better on board than paying folks--first class is dubbed "employee class" by frequent travelers on United. I've heard ticket agents and FAs say in earshot of paying passengers that there is no way they'd fly coach--if they're nonreving they're in business or first, or not going: what do you think that me average-joe-somewhat-frequent-flyer (who often pays much more than $250 a pop for tickets)? Am I going to look forward to flying that airline in coach ever again?

You won't usually encounter this on Asian carriers--not because people are paying so much more for their tickets. Rather, it's a cultural difference---they accept that working in a "service industry" necessitates providing good service.
 
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