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news:7cd468f2-f3a5-44e3-b845-e8079fa5c458@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 3, 8:44 pm, SMS wrote:
> hotbis...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > I am just glad I am not a passenger on ATA or Southwest with
> > connections on ATA. I know southwest won't book you on another
> > airline, so if they don't fly to your destination you can only request
> > a refund.
>
> Hawaii is a tough market because it's almost exclusively a vacation
> market, so there aren't a lot of high-fare tickets (last-minute,
> business class, first class, etc.).
>
> This is good news for the other carriers to Hawaii, as they'll be able
> to raise prices on coach fares now that two low-fare airlines are gone.
>
> Too bad Southwest isn't interested in flying to Hawaii, but they don't
> want to have different aircraft types, and to fly over water for that
> long they'd need to aircraft with life rafts, and probably other
> modifications as well.
I had a friend that thought Alaska might be a fit, as for taking over
Aloha or least some of its mainland to island routes.
Michael
Aloha was never a "Low Fare Airline." It was a legacy-type carrier, with a
high level of service. The reason some people are saying Alaska is a
possible fit for some of their routes is that AS has a strong presence in
California, including secondary cities (i.e, San Jose, Orange County,
Burbank, etc.) and also flies similar airplanes, including
737-700's, -800's, and -900's, some of which are ETOPS capable and
classified. AS has also always maintained a high reputation for service.
But these days, with the cost of fuel so high, I'm not sure anybody can make
money in the airline business.
ATA's Hawaii business had a solid foundation with Pleasant Hawaiian
Holidays, a tour operator which took as much as 85% of their seats. So
ATA's loads were very high on very efficient airplanes, including 737-800's,
757-200's, and 757-300's. But with ATA's previous bankruptcy, they lost the
synergies of a Midway hub, and, also, I think it has pretty much been proven
that you can't shrink your way into profitability (witness Pan Am and TWA).
And their parent company, Global Airline Logistics, is a charter operator,
with World Airways and North American. They haven't had any interest in
scheduled service, and North American has discontinued their limited
scheduled service to Africa and Guyana. World Airways hasn't flown anything
scheduled since the mid 1980's. And World flies newish MD11's with North
American flying 767-300's, both of which are a heck of a lot more efficient
than ATA's old L1011's (mostly from Delta years ago) and DC10's (recent
acquisitions from Northwest). So it was probably a business judgment that
came up sometime before yesterday.
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