Well, bye.

End of Norwegian long haul now:

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I mean, I don't really care about the home team. No offense. :) If someone wants to fly on British Airways or Air France, good for them! But flag of convenience is a whole 'nother animal that is downright dangerous.
What would be your stance on them being allowed to operate domestic flights in the US?
 
It would have to be reciprocal, which they would never agree to, so a non-issue. But if they did in some alternative universe, I'd see no issue.
Also even if, say Norway agrees to it, They want LA-JFK and the cherry picking'est routes from there. What are we gonna do? Compete with the stupid trains that go town to town? Come on. There's no value in city to city markets that offsets what we give up giving them ORD-MIA. F em.
 
Also even if, say Norway agrees to it, They want LA-JFK and the cherry picking'est routes from there. What are we gonna do? Compete with the stupid trains that go town to town? Come on. There's no value in city to city markets that offsets what we give up giving them ORD-MIA. F em.

By reciprocal, I mean something of equal value. Obviously we wouldn't open up our entire market and get one thin route from them.
 
By reciprocal, I mean something of equal value. Obviously we wouldn't open up our entire market and get one thin route from them.
Yeah, i wasnt doing shots fired at you, was adding some extra info to your point made. The EU could open up everything and we'd need 2 or 3 flights of theirs for every one of ours, except for a few markets. London, frankfurt, paris, amsterdam come to mind. Cargo might get more money off the deal, but I don't know if EU subsides would screw up our competitive edge.
 
Well, the major US airlines currently have a ULCC-like economy product, and most people I know seem to care less about the restrictions\fees and book it frequently. There is a "clean slate" for now on most longhaul routes, the Asian ULCCs are beefing up and will, for sure, be flooding the US over the next decade. Carriers like Bamboo Airways of Vietnam are building up fleets of large planes and marketing in the US for future service. In the Atlantic, it will look more like pre-deregulation with a few large, established carriers competing on big trunk routes with higher fares than the ULCCs, while many secondary large cities in Europe are ripe for new service to grow as things normalize.

So, the way I see it, they have 2 options.

1) Do nothing beyond resuming 2019 and planned 2020 routes as possible, trimming some, and competing using service\product\reputation. ULCCs like LEVEL, owned by British Airways\Iberia\Aer Lingus will flood any venerable US routes from Europe while ULCCs like JAL's ZIP may start squeezing into US markets, all while cheap planes in the desert are used for start-up ULCCs. SO basically, the US carriers just let it happen and don't get involved.

2) Do what many European\Asian airlines have done in the last decade and create a full on ULCC long haul subsidiaries to compete with the Asian and European ones, and launch all-coach or coach with premium economy on long haul routes that they anticipate will fall to the ULCCs in the next decade.

If they choose option 1, I think they missed out on a huge opportunity, a "second chance" to defend the US routes against foreign ULCCs. But there will be new Norwegians. At the turn of the century 20 years ago, Norwegian was flying just a few routes with 4 or 5 Fokker 50s on behalf of Braathens SAFE, not even selling tickets on their own flights. Just a small commuter. Nothing is stopping Ryanair, Wizz Air, ect from doing the same, unless someone beats them to the punch.
 
Well, the major US airlines currently have a ULCC-like economy product, and most people I know seem to care less about the restrictions\fees and book it frequently. There is a "clean slate" for now on most longhaul routes, the Asian ULCCs are beefing up and will, for sure, be flooding the US over the next decade. Carriers like Bamboo Airways of Vietnam are building up fleets of large planes and marketing in the US for future service. In the Atlantic, it will look more like pre-deregulation with a few large, established carriers competing on big trunk routes with higher fares than the ULCCs, while many secondary large cities in Europe are ripe for new service to grow as things normalize.

So, the way I see it, they have 2 options.

1) Do nothing beyond resuming 2019 and planned 2020 routes as possible, trimming some, and competing using service\product\reputation. ULCCs like LEVEL, owned by British Airways\Iberia\Aer Lingus will flood any venerable US routes from Europe while ULCCs like JAL's ZIP may start squeezing into US markets, all while cheap planes in the desert are used for start-up ULCCs. SO basically, the US carriers just let it happen and don't get involved.

2) Do what many European\Asian airlines have done in the last decade and create a full on ULCC long haul subsidiaries to compete with the Asian and European ones, and launch all-coach or coach with premium economy on long haul routes that they anticipate will fall to the ULCCs in the next decade.

If they choose option 1, I think they missed out on a huge opportunity, a "second chance" to defend the US routes against foreign ULCCs. But there will be new Norwegians. At the turn of the century 20 years ago, Norwegian was flying just a few routes with 4 or 5 Fokker 50s on behalf of Braathens SAFE, not even selling tickets on their own flights. Just a small commuter. Nothing is stopping Ryanair, Wizz Air, ect from doing the same, unless someone beats them to the punch.
I still bet money that every single one will eventually fail. And I base this on nothing other than it never really appearing to work out long term, all these companies seem to come and go. Uneducated guess, but I'm guessing cramming 400 seats into an A330 at bottom barrel prices full of leisure travelers still isn't going to compete with the insane prices of long haul business/first class travel, and whatever cargo they're hauling in the belly.
 
I still bet money that every single one will eventually fail. And I base this on nothing other than it never really appearing to work out long term, all these companies seem to come and go. Uneducated guess, but I'm guessing cramming 400 seats into an A330 at bottom barrel prices full of leisure travelers still isn't going to compete with the insane prices of long haul business/first class travel, and whatever cargo they're hauling in the belly.
The model is too new to be sure. In the past, outfits doing this stuff were small carriers with clapped out DC-8s or whatever. The model of using new modern planes with huge fleets and networks on said service and connecting people on routes like SFO-KEF-DEL and stuff is from this decade, and COVID was a curve ball. You may be right in that every time a ULCC becomes a global carrier, the next major blow to leisure travel will destroy the airline, but I am close to 100% sure there will always be a new ULCCs launching a global model when times are good. So I really do not see us ever being in a world where the US carriers don't have intense competition from long haul ULCCs ever again when the market is good.

Just as COVID was a reaper for these operations, it is also a blessing with the cheap, cheap planes in the desert, desperate crews willing to gamble with one of these new long haul operations, and less competition.

But we've only seen this in Europe. Like I said, Asia is about to get very interesting and several carriers there are planning on starting flights to the USA in the next few years, with the US carriers unable to do much about it at the moment. Time will tell.

Sort of related, while Emirates, Etihad, and most US carriers have suspended almost all the longhaul routes, Qatar has snuck into SFO and several other markets with very little notice (about 2 months from announcing SFO to the first flight for example), with more of them planned. The door is open for some sneaky snake tactics, that is for sure.
 
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Recent history tells us he ULCCs may be one route to success. Link that to the caution that in the airline biz, competent operations, realistic marketing and a competent CFO with accesss to the decisionmakers are necessary.

The field is littered with he carcasses of super-premium services, which only can survive if they are 20 feet in front of masses of cheap seats.
 
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