Do you really believe an airline will restrict the number of flights to avoid insourcing personnel?

8 thoughts on “Do you really believe an airline will restrict the number of flights to avoid insourcing personnel?”

1. Padraig comment in an earlier post…. “ Stop bragging about 80 percent load factors. I fly all over the U.S. and experience 95 plus!”. The reason why they’re bragging Padraig is because they are all novice armchair airline executives who think they know how to manage and market. They need to brush up on the key measurements such as yield and RASM’s. Maybe they need to pick up “Airline Management for Dummies” at Barnes and Noble or at least check out https://www.southwestairlinesinvestorrelations.com/investor-resources/investor-faqs/airline-glossary

   This latest post is proof positive. Generally if an airline has a policy, or collective bargaining agreement that stipulates the number of flights that are needed before insourcing, it is normally based on a constant schedule indefinitely. Which blows “supporting this belief” out of the water. Perfect examples are the seasonal markets that have a sparse schedule in the off season, only to add several during peak season, without having to insource. My “belief’s” make much more sense. IRWT. Slainte’ Padraig

2. thanks for your informed thoughtful comment.. Most here forget that airlines are businesses that answer to their shareholders, employees, and lenders, and are so heavily regulated that they also have to answer to the FAA, DOJ, and DOT. Not like running a corner candy store.

3. Clark,

   Off the bat, to put it simply, we have definitive proof that JetBlue only insources AO/GO when flights exceed three daily at an outstation. This is a corporate policy with only minor exceptions, usually when legality or unions come into play. I am not exactly allowed to share anything publicly so you will have to take me at my word – I don’t really care either way. Not sure why you are so unsure of our opinions or beliefs, exactly what qualifications do you have?

   Let me ask you – with almost a free ride from Massport at ORH, the 25-minute flight time, and the ability to tanker fuel at JFK, what do you think the CASM/RASM was for the JFK flight? Because from our sources at JetBlue network planning, the JFK flight actually did yield a pretty remarkable ROI for the load factors they were running. There was a lot to be excited about if the route continued to grow. This is the reason, emerging from COVID-19, they returned to ORH with FLL and a reliable JFK schedule, not just politics. Instead of the much longer stage length to MCO on what was a cost-inefficient aircraft, developing a connection market to JFK was actually a pretty smart move. It just didn’t pan out.

   Your point would be valid if JFK was drawing back just for the summer (don’t forget too now slots have to be accounted for), but there is some truth to what you said. This ultimately is a business decision; the NPV of operating JFK-ORH finally outweighed the politics that protected the route. As the E190s get retired, more JFK outstations will either be upguaged to the A220 (when they start launching them out of JFK – almost all of them are at BOS at the moment) or move to American regional, likely on the same service AA has at ORH. This was a smart counter-move on JetBlue’s part to address some housekeeping at JFK as unquestionably both of these “new” markets will perform.

4. I only hope they make RSW a daily year-round flight. For now, aside from Early January – End of March, there’s only 2 daily flights w/ JB. They have room to make RSW year-round without upsetting contracts.

5. It wouldn’t be a problem if the JB ORH-JFK flight was cancelled, and the AA ORH-JFK flight was at least twice daily with an early morning/early afternoon departure; also if the AA ORH-JFK flight was integrated on the AA’s website to offer JB connections. As of now, that is not the case. There isn’t any JB flight connections available on the AA website, making the AA flight irrelevant right now.
   Also, I cannot understand why Delta doesn’t have any flights to Atlanta from ORH. The LaGuardia flight is just too late to be able to make any decent connections.

6. Dylan must have read the book! Thank you for validating that the world does not revolve around load factors. “Almost a free ride from Massport”, “smart move by JetBlue” coming back with 2 JFK sounds like 2 entities are trying hard to make ORH successful. Too bad the community didn’t support it.

   Btw, qualifications. UMASS BS/BA. ASU MBA aviation management. 16 years w 2 major airlines, director revenue/yield management, manager route planning, financial analyst labor relations. Oh yea, Multi-Engine CFI CFII with over 8k hrs.

7. Agreed completely, Clark. When I reference load factors, it’s more to analyze the trend of how the service is performing. Measures of profitability are first and foremost, but seeing loads quarter-full is disheartening to say the least. As far as I’m concerned, the Worcester market has so many unknowns that can only be told by how many people are actually on these flights.

   The good news is it finally looks like JetBlue is playing ball at ORH – they were NOT expecting the FLL flights to perform the way they did when they upguaged to A320s last summer. Now, hopefully American and Delta can follow suit. While direct flights are nice to have, there is no question a successful airport should have reliable service to hubs.

   I also apologize for my harsh tone and rudeness. I am better than that.

   Bitfly – I don’t think anyone will disagree with you on Charlotte and Atlanta. But don’t you think that Massport knows that? The problem lies with the airlines, and it has to be something as simple as being unwilling to serve those airports for whatever reason. There is an idea that airlines are worried about leakage impacting their successful stations like PVD and BDL, and maybe there’s some truth to that. It could be fleet limitations, crew shortages, gate availability, etc. Unless you have an in, there’s no way of knowing for sure (so start networking!!!)

   Unquestionably the AA flight STILL not connecting to anything in JetBlue’s system is a major factor in it’s abysmal performance so far. I do believe that if we don’t have service to large hubs like Atlanta and Charlotte, both of these flights to NYC make the most sense. It’s a 30 minute hop, combined between LGA and NYC will really get you anywhere in the world, especially to Florida. I bet if these flights pick up and do well, they will be more willing to test larger markets.

   To add to your thoughts on American, which again I agree, what’s more likely is the flight could shift back to PHL where it actually was doing really well before COVID struck. Don’t forget, the short time period after they launched PHL again the single flight landed at 7 PM and departed back again to PHL at 8. What are you connecting to with that? These flights MUST have a combination of both O/D and connecting passengers to succeed. Let’s just be happy we don’t have Detroit back with Delta. Systematically speaking, Detroit is underwhelming for everyone at the moment, I doubt ORH would be an exception.

8. The AA flight to JFK is a miserable failure because the only Florida destination AA flies to out of JFK is Miami and if there is one strength in the Worcester market, it’s people traveling to Florida.

   As stated many times already in this blog, the Delta flight is just too late to make most connections unless you want to get to your destination super late. The other issue with Delta flying to LaGuardia is that anyone trying to fly out West or internationally would have to make at least 2 stops because of something called a “perimeter rule” that prohibits flights to/from destinations more than 1,500 miles away.

   In all honesty, Jetblue should just focus on the Florida and other leisure destinations out of ORH. AA and Delta should be the airlines flying to hubs, but those hubs MUST be DC or Charlotte for AA and Atlanta for Delta if they have any hope of being successful here.

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