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Right now as airline hotel contracts come up the nicer hotels are kicking crews out and not renewing. That is a sure sign of things improving. I'm optimistic.
Airline traffic may be "up" and planes are flying full[er]. But the part that they don't tell you is that 1) there are fewer planes in the sky (take a drive to Mojave, CA, Victorville, CA, or Marana, AZ and see dozens upon dozens upon dozens of jetliners parked in row after row either mothballed or being cut up for scrap) and 2) they are flying SMALLER planes.
So yeah. It's very easy to give the impression of a robust/rebounding industry as long as you replace a route that once flew a dozen times a day with Boeing 767 widebodies that seat 300 with six flights a day using 125 seater 737's.
Airline traffic may be "up" and planes are flying full[er]. But the part that they don't tell you is that 1) there are fewer planes in the sky (take a drive to Mojave, CA, Victorville, CA, or Marana, AZ and see dozens upon dozens upon dozens of jetliners parked in row after row either mothballed or being cut up for scrap) and 2) they are flying SMALLER planes.
So yeah. It's very easy to give the impression of a robust/rebounding industry as long as you replace a route that once flew a dozen times a day with Boeing 767 widebodies that seat 300 with six flights a day using 125 seater 737's.
Kind of works for me.
I was getting tired of hearing, smelling and seeing them.
Sympathies for folks in that industry . .. but try to find something that does not dump on everyone else for the next career, hey?
Airline traffic may be "up" and planes are flying full[er]. But the part that they don't tell you is that 1) there are fewer planes in the sky (take a drive to Mojave, CA, Victorville, CA, or Marana, AZ and see dozens upon dozens upon dozens of jetliners parked in row after row either mothballed or being cut up for scrap) and 2) they are flying SMALLER planes.
So yeah. It's very easy to give the impression of a robust/rebounding industry as long as you replace a route that once flew a dozen times a day with Boeing 767 widebodies that seat 300 with six flights a day using 125 seater 737's.
You have touched on a different subject. My post was directed at the hospitality industry, and how it is showing some really good signs of life as well. In the airlines, it's easy to get some smoking deals on hotel rooms (think $30-$50/night) for Sheratons, Marriots, Embassy Suites, etc with a bad economy. What I'm seeing is those hotels aren't renewing contracts. One or two OK maybe we pissed them off, but I'm talking about an across the board cancellation of contract renewals. This happens every time the economy starts to rebound.
As for your post, the cuts took effect in 2008. From there we bottomed out, and capacity has remained consistent, yet load factors are up (so things are improving). What's more important than load factor is yield (you can easily fill all the seats if you charge $10), which is up something like 20% this quarter over last year on average for the American carriers.
And yes, capacity is actually starting to come back in the system vs the 2008-2009 lows. Not much, but some. I know the company I work for, block hours are pulled down in the fall and we have been notified that while it has been pulled down this year, it was only by a small amount, not as much as normal.
Last edited by wheelsup; 07-18-2010 at 02:13 PM..
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