What is Southwest airlines Nuts ?

C J Campbell wrote:

What if, for example, Microsoft wants to send a team from Redmond to Intel
....
Hmmm. What to do? What to do?

Buy a Macintosh? :-P

Stefan

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

The vast majority of corporate level flying is now done by middle level
managers. Corporate aviation is very competitive with the airlines when
you
consider the cost of transporting a workgroup to and from a distant
airport,
getting them through security, arranging their schedule around that of the
airline, and possibly putting them up for a day or two instead of having
them return right away.

I have four people working for me. None of them makes much over $150K a
year. But I have an aircraft (B36TC) and am contemplating getting another
(TurboProp) to run them around the midwest.

Here's why: When we go out to meet sub-xontractors, negotiate business,
inspection construction sites, insppect potential builinf sites, we can hit
two or three a day.

To cover that much territory I'd need to double my staff. That would cost
another $500K per year.

A B36TC and a turboprop are cheap by comparison.


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

best i can tell, "airline" is a fairly accurate depiction of the joys
of airline travel complete with crowds of irritable (and irritating)
people mashed together in cattle-car fashion by irritating uniformed
minimum wage workers.

that's entertainment.

dan

I thought the same thing about driving from NY to Virginia on biz. Then I
got caught in the Wash DC Beltway traffic... NYC traffic pales in
comparison. Next time I fly.

Marco Leon


"Peter MacPherson" wrote in message:

Can't blame them. After driving to the airport, getting there 2 hours
early
for
security, praying your flight leaves on time(or at all), it's easier to
drive.



"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"569" wrote in message
oups.com...
That airline is pure hell. I used to travel 250,000 miles a year
for
business, all domestic. I refused and still refuse to fly them.
It's
no better then the Greyhound bus.


Well, you get what you pay for. That is the market that Southwest
caters
to.

Southwest flies more passengers by far than any other airline and is
one
of
a few actually making money. If other airlines want to survive it is
the
Southwest model they will have to adopt.

Southwest is the most profitable, but although some other airlines have
tried to copy them, they have so far not been nearly as successful.

I wonder if business travelers should bother with the airlines at all
anymore.

True, but this is where flying yourself really pays off. NY - VA would
be a nice quick trip flying yourself. I have a friend in the Boston area
who flies to DC area every week. Before he bought his Bonanza he was
flying down there on the airlines. The flight on the airlines is only an
hour
to DC from Boston, but when he factored in the drive to the airport, getting
there early for security, etc.., he could get there faster in his own plane.
Now he drives 10 minutes from his house to the airport where the plane
is hangared, lands at JYO(Leesburg, VA) and grabs a rental car. To me this
is the perfect way to use GA for business travel. His company loves it
too....
they don't have to shell out $600 for the airline tickets. g



"Marco Leon" mmleon(at)yahoo.com wrote in message
...
I thought the same thing about driving from NY to Virginia on biz. Then I
got caught in the Wash DC Beltway traffic... NYC traffic pales in
comparison. Next time I fly.

Marco Leon


"Peter MacPherson" wrote in message:

Can't blame them. After driving to the airport, getting there 2 hours
early
for
security, praying your flight leaves on time(or at all), it's easier to
drive.



"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in
message
...

"569" wrote in message
oups.com...
That airline is pure hell. I used to travel 250,000 miles a year
for
business, all domestic. I refused and still refuse to fly them.
It's
no better then the Greyhound bus.


Well, you get what you pay for. That is the market that Southwest
caters
to.

Southwest flies more passengers by far than any other airline and is
one
of
a few actually making money. If other airlines want to survive it is
the
Southwest model they will have to adopt.

Southwest is the most profitable, but although some other airlines have
tried to copy them, they have so far not been nearly as successful.

I wonder if business travelers should bother with the airlines at all
anymore.

Dan Luke wrote:
"C J Campbell" wrote:
I wonder if business travelers should bother with the airlines at
all
anymore.

??

What's the alternative for most of them?
snip

A lot of them are reevaluating the need to travel at all. In the IT
world, audio/video conferencing and remote access has become an
attractive alternative to travelling in the TSA controlled, commercial
airline environment. It has become such a hassle, that it is no longer
convenient or cost effective.

I'm not surprised at the number of airlines that are in or facing
bankruptcy these days. Their product has changed from something that
was a convenient way to generate business in remote locations, to
something that is dreaded and considered a last resort.
John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

"C J Campbell" wrote:
"C J Campbell" wrote:
I wonder if business travelers should bother with the airlines at all
anymore.

??

What's the alternative for most of them? High-power bigwigs who can
justify charter or private jet travel are a small fraction of business
travelers.

The vast majority of corporate level flying is now done by middle level
managers.

How do you know? (I withdraw my statement that high-power bigwigs who can
justify charter or private jet travel are a small fraction of business
travelers, since I based it on my own anecdotal observations). Even if this
is so, how frequently does the average MLM traveler fly?

Corporate aviation is very competitive with the airlines when you
consider the cost of transporting a workgroup

But how many business travelers are parts of workgroups? How many are single
travelers? It's true that GA is skimming off a lot of business class
travelers from the airlines, but how many are left that could economically go
GA? Your statement seemed to include them all.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
...

Southwest flies more passengers by far than any other airline

Actually SWA has only become a top-5 player in the past five years or so.
Last I checked, DL, SW, and AA were all pretty close to each other.

http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/20...bts019_04.html

and is one of
a few actually making money. If other airlines want to survive it is the
Southwest model they will have to adopt.


Southwest does not operate a national network, but rather flies a large
number of point-to-point flights. The difference is subtle but significant.
SW is fine if you're going from Manchester to Midway, but if you're trying
to get to Boise it doesn't necessarily work so well and connection times
often run over two hours versus 60mins on a hub-and-spoke carrier. As
Southwest has gotten bigger and served more cities with higher frequency
this has become less of a problem, but their model has its limits. They
intentionally avoid most large airports (BOS, ORD, JFK, LGA, EWK, SFO) as
well.

-cwk.

C J Campbell wrote:

I wonder if business travelers should bother with the airlines at all
anymore.

A few years ago, my job took me to Atlanta frequently, so we'll take that as an
example. A flight from Newark to Atlanta takes about 4.5 hours from my door to
the hotel near BellSouth headquarters (flight time about 2 hours 15 minutes). If
I were stupid enough to drive it, we're talking about 18 hours at 5-10 mph over
the speed limit. Even that would beat Amtrak.

And "conference calls" will not do the job in many cases. We would've lost a 50
mil contract if I couldn't have been face to face with the subject matter
experts on one occasion (our competition *was* face to face with them).

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

Dan Luke wrote:

Even if this
is so, how frequently does the average MLM traveler fly?

At my former employer, most of them flew somewhere about twice a year. Then
there's a person for whom I used to work who flies to Birmingham every week. At
that, it's cheaper than moving her there (if she'd even agree to move).

But how many business travelers are parts of workgroups? How many are single
travelers?

The vast majority of ours were single travelers. At times we might send as many
as three people down, but that was rare.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.