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Most US airline systems are very old. Southwest’s particular problem is that because they run a point to point model compared to the hub and spoke of legacy air

Most US airline systems are very old. Southwest’s particular problem is that because they run a point to point model compared to the hub and spoke of legacy airlines, it is a lot harder to cold start the network from scratch. The legacy airlines can more or less just send everyone back to the hub and take inventory there.

hinkley 1y ago
They said all the point to point airlines failed to recover after Covid. That’s bad news for Boeing as well because their latest refresh for pretty much their entire fleet adds about 500 miles range to each aircraft (not 500 best case, but 500 FAA miles, safety margins and all), so the notion was that more point to point flights would happen, relieving congestion at the hub airports and reducing connecting flights. But then your inventory and employees are spread everywhere. At least with crew if they move to the hub city they have an easier time.
- bobthepanda 1y ago
  I don't think that point to point is necessarily dead or even really correlated to all the airlines' declines. Rather, the entire category of US low cost carrier and ultra-low cost carrier is suffering, and that just happens to be all the point to point airlines. But this is happening even to the more hub-focused LCCs, like JetBlue (which is busy trying to upgrade into a traditional class-based carrier). Now that every single legacy airline has a "basic economy", which is often competitive with the LCCs in pricing, there is no moat for the LCCs anymore. Legacy basic economy can be more attractive simply because of mileage programs and better frequencies (even if there is a connection); and legacy airlines have more wiggle room to lower prices in basic economy by raising prices in their premium classes. It also does not help that the 737MAX fiasco hit some LCCs like Southwest particularly hard due to the practice of going all in on an aircraft type.

hinkley 1y ago

They said all the point to point airlines failed to recover after Covid. That’s bad news for Boeing as well because their latest refresh for pretty much their entire fleet adds about 500 miles range to each aircraft (not 500 best case, but 500 FAA miles, safety margins and all), so the notion was that more point to point flights would happen, relieving congestion at the hub airports and reducing connecting flights. But then your inventory and employees are spread everywhere. At least with crew if they move to the hub city they have an easier time.

bobthepanda 1y ago
I don't think that point to point is necessarily dead or even really correlated to all the airlines' declines. Rather, the entire category of US low cost carrier and ultra-low cost carrier is suffering, and that just happens to be all the point to point airlines. But this is happening even to the more hub-focused LCCs, like JetBlue (which is busy trying to upgrade into a traditional class-based carrier). Now that every single legacy airline has a "basic economy", which is often competitive with the LCCs in pricing, there is no moat for the LCCs anymore. Legacy basic economy can be more attractive simply because of mileage programs and better frequencies (even if there is a connection); and legacy airlines have more wiggle room to lower prices in basic economy by raising prices in their premium classes. It also does not help that the 737MAX fiasco hit some LCCs like Southwest particularly hard due to the practice of going all in on an aircraft type.