Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

Will Southwest Airlines Buy JetBlue?

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Oct 22 2019

The underlying issue isn’t “will Southwest Airlines try to buy another airline” it’s “how does Southwest Airlines grow without the Boeing 737 MAX in service and continued production?” And if Southwest isn’t in a position to grow its business, it can’t command the historically high price-earnings multiple it’s enjoyed relative to peers in the U.S. airline industry.

Mergers are costly. They rarely generate the promised benefits. They involve combining IT systems, fleets, unionized work forces, and company cultures. They’re fraught with risk. Southwest Airlines needs the MAX to be flying again soon, and likely to act on a plan to diversify its fleet (with the attenuated costs and complexity that brings) — potentially with Embraer E2 jets.

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British Airways Flight Crew Behaving Badly in Singapore

by Gary Leff

plane tails
Oct 21 2019

British Airways flight crew have a reputation for being some of the rowdiest in the world, and ‘things to tend to happen’ during Singapore layovers (Johannesburg, Las Vegas, Bangkok, and Nairobi are also well known trouble spots).

Over the summer it was a game of naked spin the bottle that got out of hand in Singapore. Two years ago it was crew running naked through hotel corridors, stealing fish.

Now during a Singapore layover “[s]ome of the crew got plastered, allegedly using drinks smuggled off the BA in-flight trolley” and this led to an altercation in the lobby and a suspension.

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The One Area Where American Airlines is Killing It

by Gary Leff

register
Oct 20 2019

I criticize many of the decisions that American Airlines leadership have made. They’ve managed to anger shareholders, employees, and customers alike. While racking up more debt and worse operating statistics than competitors they’ve also re-started their project to degrade the domestic product.

There’s one area though that they’ve performed at an outstanding level.

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The World’s Impression of Singapore Comes From Singapore Airlines

by Gary Leff

Oct 19 2019

When Singapore Airlines gets media for its catering operations, or for its business class product (or first class!) it’s reaching potential customers, sure, but it’s reaching a broader audience that may never fly Singapore Airlines and may never visit Singapore. However it’s projecting the image of Singapore itself as high quality.

A significant amount of public perception of Singapore the country seems to come from Singapore the airline, even among people who have never flown the airline (or who fly it and merely connect through Changi airport).

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