News and notes from around the interweb:
- SkyMiles deals reveal that the introduction of Delta’s new Austin flights will be disastrous.
[T]heir revenue management system has become even more desperate. If you click through it’s actually as low as equivalent $163 roundtrip with tax. Let’s do some math, that means Delta gets miles worth $152 for a roundtrip from MAF to LGA. That’s $76 one-way. Using industry standard route of the miles proration that means the revenue management system is allowing a revenue assignment to the AUS-MAF leg of just $23 equivalent each way. Essentially that means the software has determined that there’s no way this plane will be full.
MAF-Nashville (BNA) is available for equivalent of $138 roundtrip. This disaster is going to be fun to watch.
My strong assumption has been that Delta has known this would be the case and planned for it – Midland and McAllen, Texas regional jet service is meant to be short, cheap opportunities to squat on gates that American Airlines is abandoning at an airport that’s maxed to capacity and won’t see net new gates until the 2030s.
Delta Sky Club Austin - Lufthansa business class isn’t even very good! Here are Milei’s earlier travels.
You can think whatever you want about Milei, but taking Lufthansa flight to Davos while so many „ESG focused“ officials and executives come with private jets is exactly the right signal to send. pic.twitter.com/VtOWcIGF33
— Michael A. Arouet (@MichaelAArouet) January 16, 2024
- JetBlue’s message to employees after losing the anti-trust trial over their acquisition of Spirit Airlines reveals they basically… have no plan B other than more of the same, which hasn’t worked.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger detained at Munich airport over luxury watch he planned to auction off for charity.
- Frontier Airlines is opening a San Juan crew base “they expect to focus more on ethnic traffic going forward and probably long flights with the XLR to the West coast that require crew change.”
- Haha.
In the plane bathroom is wild pic.twitter.com/FSBlbqOiRk
— Wild content (@NoCapFights) January 16, 2024
Re Delta, sounds about right- no different than when AA was slot squatting at JFK, flying routes like JFK-PHL
Delta is a premium airline that can charge premium fares
Gate squatting. That just needs to go away. It doesn’t benefit anyone except the airline squating on them. No more long-term leases or any of that. All gates should be brand neutral so any airline can use it at any time. The airport assigns gates with preferences. But if it is open, anyone can use it subject to the airport assigning it. Charge for the gate for the time occupied with one-hour minimum. If I want to start union shop airlines tomorrow, if I have all of the other certs, I should be able to change my schedule on a whim and fly into an airport to pick up or drop off passengers at any time. It would free up gates thereby reducing the need to add gates. But then my ideas aren’t profitable to those that want to keep the status quo.
@Tim Dunce
Truth.
If Austin is really just about gate squatting for Delta, you have to ask why American didn’t think of it. Or did they just try to do it on such a massive scale that they couldn’t find enough short flights, and so had to lose money flying three and four hour flights on regional jets.
Funny. In one thread, Gary touts cheap award tickets on Delta to Europe but on another, he sees the devil behind every door knob with a few low fares to/from Austin. Too bad he doesn’t tell us how many seats on every flight are available at this price.
Delta charges premium prices for the privilege of squatting.