4 ms·

Not quite. The extra seats only provide additional revenue when the flights would have otherwise been full. From the article, the average flight is only 80% ful

Not quite. The extra seats only provide additional revenue when the flights would have otherwise been full. From the article, the average flight is only 80% full, which means those six extra seats aren't providing any additional revenue. To determine the actual revenue increase from those six extra seats, we would have to know how frequently flights have less than 6 empty seats.

smoyer 13y ago
People don't like booking the last seat on a jam-packed flight. If given the preference, they'll find a flight with some room (this applies in other cases where people decide whether or not to be in a crowd). So I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that Southwest's 80% capacity remained constant before and after the six additional seats were added. EDIT: Here's a related article where church seating on pews versus individual chairs is discussed - and airplane seats are even mentioned: http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=2380 http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=2380
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  " (4.8 * $141.72 * 93,350 = $63,689,399) in additional revenue." x 12, since the number of flights is a monthly number.. which gives you (roughly) the same number in the article.
  - peter_l_downs 13y ago
    Ah, I'm dumb.
    - rgbrenner 13y ago
      Missing a detail doesn't make you dumb... I do it all the time. Too many examples to list here
endtwist 13y ago
While these numbers will never be perfect, per se, RITA[1] shows that in 2011, Southwest's loadfactor was 80.8% while in 2012, loadfactor was 80.4%. So, the flights remained around 80% full on average. I took this into account in my calculation and assumed roughly 4.8 more seats were filled on average per flight, not a full 6. [1] http://www.transtats.bts.gov/carriers.asp?pn=1 http://www.transtats.bts.gov/carriers.asp?pn=1
- ErrantX 13y ago
  There are a number of factors in play. But without knowing how the priced seats, and the number of capacity flights, this could just as easily be normal growth as it could be the impact of extra seats. Not that I'm saying you are wrong, just that it's not the only explanation of the known facts.
- rfatnabayeff 13y ago
  The article states that reducing leg room from 32 to 31 inches allowed for one additional seat row. Which means that there were already no less than 32 rows on those planes. Six seats per row give 192 passengers. RITA numbers clearly show that the load factor have never exceeded 90% since 2010. That means that at least 10% of seats were empty, that is, 19 seats. There is no sense of adding another 6 seats just to have them empty. If there were a demand for six seats, the people demanding them would just have occupied those of 19 free ones. Adding another row only makes sense if the plane is full and there's additional demand for seats. We should have looked at the load factor distribution, not only at it's mean value. Most attentively we should have looked at the standard deviation of the load factor around it's mean, but RITA didn't provide such an information.
- jdoliner 13y ago
  I think the key question then is why it was that 4.8 more seats were filled on average per flight. If we had data the showed that the distribution of plane occupancy were the same year over year save for a few occasions where last year the plane had been at capacity but this year those extra 6 seats had been put to use then the conclusion could be valid. However with the data I've seen so far it seems spurious to conclude that the extra 4.8 filled seats were caused by the extra 6 physical seats.
kamkazemoose 13y ago
You also need to calculate the extra fuel costs for the additional weight of the empty seats. If most of the time those seats are empty, they need to be utilized enough to justify their extra expense.
- ohazi 13y ago
  But we're looking at revenue, not profit. None of the expenses have been considered yet.
JulianMorrison 13y ago
Plane seats are over-committed on an informed guess of how many people will cancel, with enough slack built in as to mostly prevent the embarrassing case "I bought a ticket and there's no seat on the plane". So six extra seats may well equal seven extra tickets allocated for sale each time. Of course the bastards should still be tortured for reducing the leg room.

smoyer 13y ago

People don't like booking the last seat on a jam-packed flight. If given the preference, they'll find a flight with some room (this applies in other cases where people decide whether or not to be in a crowd). So I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that Southwest's 80% capacity remained constant before and after the six additional seats were added. EDIT: Here's a related article where church seating on pews versus individual chairs is discussed - and airplane seats are even mentioned: http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=2380 http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=2380

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rgbrenner 13y ago
" (4.8 * $141.72 * 93,350 = $63,689,399) in additional revenue." x 12, since the number of flights is a monthly number.. which gives you (roughly) the same number in the article.
- peter_l_downs 13y ago
  Ah, I'm dumb.
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    Missing a detail doesn't make you dumb... I do it all the time. Too many examples to list here

endtwist 13y ago

While these numbers will never be perfect, per se, RITA[1] shows that in 2011, Southwest's loadfactor was 80.8% while in 2012, loadfactor was 80.4%. So, the flights remained around 80% full on average. I took this into account in my calculation and assumed roughly 4.8 more seats were filled on average per flight, not a full 6. [1] http://www.transtats.bts.gov/carriers.asp?pn=1 http://www.transtats.bts.gov/carriers.asp?pn=1

ErrantX 13y ago
There are a number of factors in play. But without knowing how the priced seats, and the number of capacity flights, this could just as easily be normal growth as it could be the impact of extra seats. Not that I'm saying you are wrong, just that it's not the only explanation of the known facts.
rfatnabayeff 13y ago
The article states that reducing leg room from 32 to 31 inches allowed for one additional seat row. Which means that there were already no less than 32 rows on those planes. Six seats per row give 192 passengers. RITA numbers clearly show that the load factor have never exceeded 90% since 2010. That means that at least 10% of seats were empty, that is, 19 seats. There is no sense of adding another 6 seats just to have them empty. If there were a demand for six seats, the people demanding them would just have occupied those of 19 free ones. Adding another row only makes sense if the plane is full and there's additional demand for seats. We should have looked at the load factor distribution, not only at it's mean value. Most attentively we should have looked at the standard deviation of the load factor around it's mean, but RITA didn't provide such an information.
jdoliner 13y ago
I think the key question then is why it was that 4.8 more seats were filled on average per flight. If we had data the showed that the distribution of plane occupancy were the same year over year save for a few occasions where last year the plane had been at capacity but this year those extra 6 seats had been put to use then the conclusion could be valid. However with the data I've seen so far it seems spurious to conclude that the extra 4.8 filled seats were caused by the extra 6 physical seats.

kamkazemoose 13y ago

You also need to calculate the extra fuel costs for the additional weight of the empty seats. If most of the time those seats are empty, they need to be utilized enough to justify their extra expense.

ohazi 13y ago
But we're looking at revenue, not profit. None of the expenses have been considered yet.

JulianMorrison 13y ago

Plane seats are over-committed on an informed guess of how many people will cancel, with enough slack built in as to mostly prevent the embarrassing case "I bought a ticket and there's no seat on the plane". So six extra seats may well equal seven extra tickets allocated for sale each time. Of course the bastards should still be tortured for reducing the leg room.