If you were an airline with the fuel cost going through the roof. What you would do to save for for the airline if you were the President and CEO. If you had to would you charge extra for anything.???
Just curious what people have to say?
One bag per passenger, limited to 50lbs. One carryon, and start taking cargo. Do standby seating again, if there’s an open seat you can purchase it at ~75-100 dollars or w/e the market will bear. Clear cut pay bands on ticket prices, and raise the cost of employee travel.
What would a real CEO do? Release positive earnings for Q1, sell his stock, give himself a bonus and move on.
Let’s look at the major cost elements: They already have the salary levels down about as far as they can go, don’t control fuel costs (other than through hedging contracts, which can hurt you as much as help you), and have gotten the load factors up by taking capacity out of the system, so I would focus on the ratio of airplane time in the air vs. on the ground (opening for clever response here). Planes only generate revenue when they are flying, not when they are at gates. Southwest, with their hybrid point to point and hub approach has their planes on the ground far less than other US airlines. The other big cost savings is to reduce the number of different types of planes in the fleet (Southwest has only 737’s, but doubtful others may need more than one). The gives costs saving by needing fewer parts and mechanics as well as increasing scheduling flexibility.
I would look for other forms of revenue, high value freight perhaps. I would also try to shift $500 MM of ATC/airport costs to GA by lobbying the federal government (sorry, could not resist).
Didn’t standby seating go by the wayside of 9-11?
Now a days, only time I see standby is for when flights are delayed AND you are in the secure area of the airport.
It used to be you could hang around the gate and see if you could get on the next flight standby, but now due to security limitations, you now have to have a boarding card in hand to get past security to get to the gate.
I never could understand why in the past, if you wanted to go standby, the airline would rather fly with an empty seat then fill it with a reduced priced paying passenger. (price on memory used to be a full refundable fare to go standby).
Allen
I would do what SWA does and understand ‘why’. SWA is always an efficient company, practicing this basic principle in good times and bad. This is why SWA does well in tough times and they don’t lay off thousands of employees on a whim. They always grow and they always turn a profit. They run an efficient business all the time by maximizing the utilization of all assets including aircraft, equipment, gates and employees.
Part of the reason I don’t think SWA operates a HUB is because of their efficient use of assets. They have large operations in LAS, PHX, MDW and so on that do offer connections. Their aircraft do not all arrive and depart around the same time in big waves. The connections are made by frequency of service between two points. Their arrival and departures are a constant flow. This makes SWA much more efficient then a typical HUB operation where alot of employees, gates and equipment are needed for short periods of time. They operate this way at their large and small markets.
dump all CRJ and ERJ point-to-point flying.
give fewer FF miles for deeply discounted fares (as Air Canada does)
Order 787’s or A350’s
constantly push for lower costs on your full-content agreements with the OTA’s and contracts with the GDSes
Develop work practices that better prevent damage to aircraft and equipment.
Develop a new paint scheme that requires less paint
Every employee flies standby a lot. The continued existence of employee non-rev flying is pretty much the only thing that management and unions can agree on.
Introducing the next low-cost airline: BareMetalAir.
We here at BMA would like to thank you for flying BMA. We know you have a choice when flying and we’re glad you picked us. Have a seat on the bench’s provided and try to remain upright. Now we won’t be serving food on the flight, but when we take off have a look to your right out the window and you’ll see a McDonald’s you COULD have eaten at.
New thought, instead of bench’s have passenger’s sit on their luggage.
You joke, but I remember a report I saw about American Airlines, which flies (mostly) unpainted airplanes (=bare metal) and it saved them about 300 pounds per plane and thousands of dollars per year in fuel cost per plane.
Just a suggestion, benches and passengers are the plurals of the respective words, your use of apostrophes denotes possession, not what you were intending. (http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/slaphead.gif)
I’m rather flagrant with my disregard of the apostraphe. My apologies.
I’m rather amazed at some of the paint schemes airlines have on their planes. The Airtran plane with Elton John, the ASA planes with either ATL or DFW painted on the sides. Comair with the forget-me-nots.
I’d rather they fix the seats up inside instead of worry about the paint outside.
Can you say marketing? I knew you could.
Can’t see the inside when it flies over.
My guess is that the airlines will primiarily figure out more ways to nickel-and-dime its paying customers, adding more fees:
a checking-in fee,
a passenger handling fee,
a bag-handling fee for every bag, whether checked or not.
a charge for the privilege of bringing one’s own food on board,
a charge for all carrier-provided beverages and/or snacks,
a charge for all carrier-provided movies and/or audio entertainment,
a charge for all carrier-provided reading materials,
a charge for the privilege of bringing one’s own reading materials onboard,
a charge for usage of one’s own electronic equipment during the flight,
a surcharge for all passengers weighing in excess of some specified weight, and, of course,
a “compliance with applicable air fare rule-monitoring fee” to ensure we didn’t abuse the carrier’s “minimum-stay” rules!
…and a fee for using the lavatory, and maybe a fee for talking to the FA (otherwise they will just ignore you). 
How is this a change?
One thing i read about in one issue of airliner world was the CEO of Shanghai had an idea of asking people to go to the loo before a flight then the aircraft could carry less water for the on board toilets saving about 60kg probably even more for each flight. if you take into account every flight for a year it could save quite a bit for having to carry less fuel.
obviously this will be for flights upto about 4-5hours.
quite a good idea i think
How about fare regulation (minimums) to assure a profit for investors, pay employees better and provide benefits, limit CEO pay packages.
This means you will have to pay more for your travel.
But it beats the parade of CH11’s and low paying jobs in an industry that deserves better. You get what you pay for.
No, it isn’t/couldn’t be a charge. I was just poking fun at flight attendants as it seems to me like they spend the majority of airline flights sitting in galleries complaining about the terrible management of airline etc. instead of serving the customers (at least in coach).
I’d start by having my pilots shut down the APUs while parked at the gate and plug into the jetway’s electrical hookup. I’d keep the seatback pockets empty of everything except the safety diagrams and the vomit bags (sorry SkyMall). I think AA may have instituted these 2 ideas already.
We’d start carrying small freight as well. You only have so many paying seats per flight, so you may as well make some dough in the cargo hold as well, even if it increases your weight a little. I’d probably charge for drinks/snacks…nothing exhorbitant (a la movie theaters); maybe a buck for a soda & another one for a small bag (like the mini bags of Doritos, etc.) of chips/pretzels. On longer flights, meals could be preordered with ticket purchase for $5 each. Maybe sell small ad space on the tray tables…? I wouldn’t want the insides of my plane to look like a city bus, but something like the tray idea would be fairly discreet, even invisible when the trays are upright.
These, of course, are just the changes that could be instituted fairly quickly. A detailed analysis of our route and fleet structures would be necessary to REALLY squeeze the most possible out of every penny we spend & every drop of fuel we burn.
Plane, we do have that policy in effect, although alot of pilots ignore it. I have to actually post the various different materials related to it around the office to promote awareness. Ha.
But the different numbers for the amount of money saved by killing the apu on turns is crazy. I’ll track some numbers down and post them.