Friday May 16 2008
All times are London time
My Financial Times column this week is on the proposed Delta/Northwest merger and why the companies have failed to do enough to restructure in the face of fuel price rises and a possible recession. You can read it here and comment below.
About this blog
I am the FT's chief business commentator and this blog is about business, finance, media, technology and related matters. I live in New York so there is a bias towards US topics but I range more widely. Comments and criticism, which hopefully are at least as interesting as anything I write, are welcome. There is more about me on my columnist page.
This is an amazingly ignorant and amateurish piece of prose. It’s obvious that you started with a conclusion and tried to backfill with assertions to prove it. For starters, you treat all US airlines with the same broad brush when there are significant differences between them in route structure, cost structure, product, etc. You won’t soon be flying on Southwest Airlines from New York to London anytime soon. Take Continental. It has no desire to compete against the Southwests of the world and, if you looked at Southwest’s route structure you won’t find that it wants much to compete with Continental either as it assiduously avoids the same routes. When other carriers were retrenching after 9/11, Continental was expanding–some 27% if I remember the number correctly–and virtually all internationally which is an entirely different business than the domestic one and much more profitable. If hardly anyone would choose to fly on an US international airline why are flights so full then? Are you seriously saying there are no alternatives to them on international routes when virtually all have the national carrier of the country involved flying them as well as lots of others generally? A completely ridiculous statement, though one might wonder if you missed the sterling performance of late of BA who couldn’t even get a terminal at Heathrow opened properly recently, stranding thousands of their customers. Just as Continental was the first airline to land at Heathrow under the new open skies policy. Meals are bad? Continental year in and year out wins award after award for its. Old aircraft? Continental has the youngest fleet in the US having made exactly the investment your article says it can’t. And it has the best order book of new aircraft of any US airline, with orders now locked up for both Boeing and Airbus years in advance. As for business class seats, flat beds are actually unhealthy which you would know if you had one clue what you are talking about. Further, after arguing that US airlines need to make money, you are obviously completely unaware that, in addition to being unhealthy, an airline has to reduce the number of available business class seats to put them in because they take up more room. And surveys have shown that business class passengers won’t pay one penny more to have them either. Guess what? That reduces revenues not increases them. Customer service? Continental’s is just fine. Go back and read the blog on The Wall Street Journal recently on them before making more ignorant statements.
Posted by: John Kulp | April 17th, 2008 at 4:05 pm | Report this commentI think the ad from Continental (perhaps last yr?) said it all. They were advertising that they had pillows and those duvets (or whatever they are) on their flights, unlike their rivals (obviously targeting US rivals). That’s your competitive edge? How low can you go?! I had a good laugh about that.
On international flights, I just pray I don’t have to fly on US airlines. I will tolerate them though, if the price is cheaper.
The worst is with the increasing code-sharing deals (John, I believe this has a lot to do with the full planes, not the quality of service), there’s less choice. I just make sure I get on the non-US flight. If I can’t, I just buy from the US company as I find them cheaper.
I remember on an intl. flight, 2 air hostesses complaining loudly about me taking up a row of seats on my own when there was a family having to sit in different rows. I wasn’t even hogging the seats, simply sitting in the seat I had been assigned to. How was I supposed to know, and why didn’t they just come to me to see if I could change seats, instead of complaining loudly so I could hear them (one eventually did, and I was happy to swap seats)? Just plain rude. I think it was a UA or AA flight.
I was stuck on a domestic NWA flight, it was delayed by about 3 hours (the flight was only 3 hours!). Most of the time, we had to be on the plane, with no a/c. Did we get served anything? Not even offered a glass of water. Food? We could but you had to pay for it.
On international flights, if I had to fly on a US airline, I’d probably choose Continental. It’s just a little better than what I’ve experienced on, e.g. UA, NWA, AA. But nothing to write home about when compared to JAL, Thai, Cathay, Virgin, ANA and many others. Even Air China was surprisingly decent. I’ve never enjoyed flying BA. Aeroflot had more leg room than BA economy class, and I’m talking about the 80’s and 90’s..
I don’t know anything about the health issues of flat beds. But I’m sure the US airlines aren’t concerned for our health too much, esp if they’re going to be introducing flat beds in the future.
Unless it’s a serious health issue, I’d prefer a flat bed. Best was the virgin upper class. Sweet. i’m glad my company paid for that one. I didn’t enjoy the non-flat bed biz class. I kept sliding down. Now that I’m a poor student, I’d be happy to be on the non-flat beds though, rather than be treated like a sheep on its way to the slaughter house.
Posted by: bobbytiger | April 19th, 2008 at 7:27 pm | Report this comment