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Let's Buy Spirit Air

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Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#471

Post by cozzyd »

kelnos wrote: post #346
miki123211 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair (EU) also does this, but the US is indeed pretty obnoxious here. United even has commercials before the safety video; combined with the "if you're watching explicit content on this flight, please mind the children" announcement, those flights onestly honestly felt pretty surreal to me.

United has gotten worse and worse with this. The ads after (not before) the safety video, and also before each movie you watch (and it's usually the same ads before every movie). A few years ago the ads were skippable, but not anymore. The flight attendant also makes an announcement about the United-branded credit cards near the beginning of the flight. But this is really just an illustration of what the top-poster o…

The annoying thing is... I already have a United card :) (and being able to board early and bring a normal size carry-on on basic economy is one of the best perks).

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#472

Post by Eric_WVGG »

rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

Doesn’t have to be a profit-making venture though, just needs to cover the cost of flights — which are not money losers.

If they can build a model similar to REI, count me in.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#473

Post by fooker »

rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

> turned into regulated utilities

Regulation won't magically save low margin businesses.

Nationalizing might, but then you make it difficult to compete for others. And of course, there's plenty of precedence of nationalized airlines failing catastrophically and having to be sold off to private or foreign entities to keep functioning.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#474

Post by foolfoolz »

Brendinooo wrote: post #426
pm90 wrote: post #205

The real solution should be a massive intercity bullet train program that connects major transit hubs, like the interstate highway buildout. The massive infrastructure spend would kickstart the US economy and provide thousands of jobs.

Bullet trains would be good in tighter networks of cities. Southern Cal, Acela corridor. But I'm just not sure the demand would be there for longer distances unless it's so cheap that it's worth the extra time. Like what's China to Kunmung, a 6 hour flight vs a 12 hour train, at a comparable cost?

even SF to LA would have trouble with a high speed rail because the price would likely be the same as a flight

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#475

Post by xattt »

kelnos wrote: post #346
miki123211 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair (EU) also does this, but the US is indeed pretty obnoxious here. United even has commercials before the safety video; combined with the "if you're watching explicit content on this flight, please mind the children" announcement, those flights onestly honestly felt pretty surreal to me.

United has gotten worse and worse with this. The ads after (not before) the safety video, and also before each movie you watch (and it's usually the same ads before every movie). A few years ago the ads were skippable, but not anymore. The flight attendant also makes an announcement about the United-branded credit cards near the beginning of the flight. But this is really just an illustration of what the top-poster o…

> flying people places doesn't make enough money

Does it not make enough money for viability, or does it not make enough money for sociopath types in C-suites?

If it’s the latter, there will never be enough money for them and will keep pushing increasingly absurd customer-milking initiatives.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#476

Post by rapatel0 »

gizmo686 wrote: post #94
rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.

Power companies are the classic example. If power companies were forced to compete, their costs + competition tend to drive them out of business. As a result most power companies are forced to operate in really tight constraints with very limited but predictable margin.

I'm not saying that this a better outcome (power companies have their problems too). I was just commenting that this issue parallels the historical solution that was applied to utility companies.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#477

Post by tristor »

rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

> Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere

There's another more fundamental problem with airlines like Spirit, which is they can't effectively make this change. Loyalty programs / credit card tiers require differentiated service. This is one of the drivers for why Southwest changed their entire seating model to match the other big players in the industry even though their Ops data showed faster boarding times using unassigned seating.

When you're on the lower tier of the market like Southwest and other budget airlines, creating differentiated service mostly means making things worse for most passengers, not better, in order to have loyalty programs provide a pathway to avoid the suck.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#479

Post by rockostrich »

rapatel0 wrote: post #48

Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them. Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.…

Low cost carriers are almost an entirely different industry than traditional airlines. For example, Frontier has a loyalty program as well as their "Go Wild" pass which is essentially "Movie Pass" for flying domestically in the US, but that operates as a loss leader for ancillaries, where they make most of their money (around $70 per passenger). As others have mentioned, RyanAir also has a loyalty program that they lose money on.

Traditional airlines are very much like Starbucks nowadays in that they are essentially banks, but low cost carriers are closer to movie theaters where they essentially make nothing selling the actual seat so the more people they get in the door, the more they can make on ancillaries.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#480

Post by tristor »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #24

I could easily afford any of their competitors but I always picked Spirit airlines. The pricing makes sense, pay more if you need more things. I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus, I got treated well every time by their staff and the experience was fairly consistent. Other airlines also have cramped sits, what little they did better than Spirit isn't worth the price, and the experience was incons…

> I liked Spirit because it was more akin to riding the bus

This is exactly why I would never be caught dead on Spirit. Sartre got it right, "Hell is other people." My issue with Spirit and other budget airlines as a frequent traveler was never about the planes, the staff, or the operations, it was always the other passengers. It's bad enough dealing with people in general in the circumstances we all find ourselves in stuffed into an airplane, but budget airline travelers are generally exactly the sort of folks who ride the bus, which is why nobody wants to ride the bus in the US.

I say all this as someone who enjoys public transport when I'm in Europe and has no problem flying budget airlines in Europe like KLM Cityhopper or EuroWings, because everyone across society uses public transport and budget point airlines in Europe. In the US though, public transport and budget airlines are nearly only used by people who you'd rather not be stuck near for hours at a time for fear of being attacked, coughed on, or otherwise somehow harmed even if minimally which is entirely avoidable by just not.

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