Why are commuter flights so expensive?

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:



Second is the issue of cost structure. No matter how you look at it, running
an airline is a hellish business. It's as capital-intensive as real estate,
only your main assets are always depreciating. Operating costs are
astounding, and not easily adjusted. Pilots, mechanics, FAs, gate leases,
etc. all add up very quickly, and it takes years to adjust the formula. So
newcomers will always have the advantage because they built their business
models around last year's conditions, and not the last decade's. But come
ten years from now those newcomers could be in just as bad shape.

Look at Southwest. They are doing it right. All the people really want
is a seat at the cheapest possible rate. We don't need your fancy clubs
and we certainly don't care about boarding the plane 5 minutes before
everybody else. Just get to my destination when you say you will and be
friendly about it.

Interestingly for us, the future is in some ways headed in our
direction. Regional jets are replacing not only the Saab 340s and Dash 8s,
but MD-80s and DC-9s as well. Many of the new airlines have all-RJ fleets
from the ground up.


That's because an airline pilot just isn't worth $175K per year.
Period. Get a jumpseat ride in an RJ and you'll see a 7 year can fly
one. When the computer voice says 10 feet pull the power and the nose
up and you land. There's nothing to do anymore. Which is good, that's
what makes it safe.

"Colin W Kingsbury" wrote in message
k.net...
[...]
FWIW, the "system" does make some sense. First, it clearly connects pay to
volume of work. On a busy night you work harder and get paid more. This is
fairer to the staff and simpler for management.

True. However, management could simply either pay waitstaff on commission,
or even easier for management, just prorate their pay based on gross
receipts.

Second, it connects pay to
quality very directly. The waitress is essentially paid by the customer
after the service has been delivered, allowing you to vote with your
wallet.

That's the theory. However, in reality you have a wide variety of customers
with a wide variety of tipping styles. You never know which guy you've
worked your ass off for is going to stiff you, and you never know which fat
cat is going to drop a load of cash even though you let his water glass sit
empty for three minutes.

Now whether waitstaff generally are in favor of this little game of
roulette, I don't know. A lot of waiters I know get paid handsomely, mostly
through tips, and they like their jobs. But as a customer, I have to say
that I find tipping to be an archaic, inefficient custom.

I am one of those who feels tipping is getting a little out of hand- more
and more people expect it and the percentage people think they're entitled
to keeps going up. But, I have no doubt that the alternative would lead to
much worse service.

I have a HUGE doubt that the alternative would lead to much worse service.
A food service business will only do as well as their waitstaff performs.
We may tip low for poor service, but more importantly, we just don't go
back.

A local Italian restaurant was our favorite for several years, but there was
only one good waiter there. We always made sure we sat in his section when
we went there, and we got the five-star treatment every visit. We tipped
him well. But, when he had a falling out with the management and went to
work somewhere else, we only gave the restaurant a couple more tries before
deciding that there was no hope of ensuring that we got good service there.

Our response would have been exactly the same had service charges been
included in the bill. With or without tipping, service quality depends a
LOT more on repeat business and management's ability to train and keep
competent waitstaff around.

And as far as tipping "getting a little out of hand", don't even get me
started on the recent (last 5-10 years) tradition of people in what are
really production jobs (behind-the-counter positions, primarily) expecting
tips too. It's one thing if you're really a waiter who just happens to work
behind a lunch counter instead of cruising the tables. But when you're just
serving ice cream to a steady queue of people who walk right up to you?
Forget it.

Someone tell me again what all this flying stuff is doing in a food service
newsgroup? I seem to be a bit confused...

Pete

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:

Just keep in mind that your average waitress is paid somewhere around
$3/hour by the restaraunt. Thus if you don't tip, the person basically
doesn't get paid.

The better alternative would be to pay them fair wages in the first place.

FWIW, the "system" does make some sense. First, it clearly connects pay to
volume of work. On a busy night you work harder and get paid more. This is
fairer to the staff and simpler for management.

Easier for the management? Certainly. But fairer to the staff? No!
Getting enough work is the management's job. The tipping system just
puts the risk on the employees.

Stefan

"Stefan" wrote

The better alternative would be to pay them fair wages in the first place.

Easier for the management? Certainly. But fairer to the staff? No!
Getting enough work is the management's job. The tipping system just
puts the risk on the employees.

Stefan

True, but with the risk on the employer, he will pay wages in line with
little or no education.. Where else do you know of that a high school
graduate (or not) with good people skills, and a good memory (or not) can
bring home over 200 bucks in 6 or 7 hours?

Waiting in a good establishment, is the answer. Some nights, 200 bucks will
not be brought home, but some nights a lot more. Makes taking the risk more
worthwhile, don't you think?\

After seeing the kind of service you get in some European restaurants, I
think tipping makes a big difference in the quality of the service.
--
Jim in NC


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"Morgans" wrote in message
...
True, but with the risk on the employer, he will pay wages in line with
little or no education.

Define "education". Those who make a "high income" from waiting have
extensive experience in the business. They have every bit as much
"education", in their field of work, as a college graduate. And there are
very few people in the table waiting industry who actually make anything
anyone would call a "high income".

Where else do you know of that a high school
graduate (or not) with good people skills, and a good memory (or not) can
bring home over 200 bucks in 6 or 7 hours?

All sorts of industries, including the computer industry. No, wait...I take
that back. You don't need good people skills in the computer industry.

Waiting in a good establishment, is the answer.

Without experience, no one is going to get a job at a "good establishment".
With or without a college degree. Starting wages for a waiter suck.

Some nights, 200 bucks will
not be brought home, but some nights a lot more. Makes taking the risk
more
worthwhile, don't you think?\

Plenty of people make that much money (and lots lots more) without nearly
the risk. More to the point, the quantity of money that comes in isn't a
direct result of the risk (as it might be in gambling large sums of money),
so it makes no sense to justify the risk simply based on the chance of large
sums of money.

After seeing the kind of service you get in some European restaurants, I
think tipping makes a big difference in the quality of the service.

After seeing the kind of service I get in some American restaurants, I think
tipping is a useless custom that makes no difference in the quality of the
service.

If tipping is such a great idea, why is it that I constantly run into lousy
service in restaurants, right here in America? The answer is that quality
of service has WAY more to do with how the restaurant is managed than it
does with the custom of tipping.

Pete

"Newps" wrote in message
...

Look at Southwest. They are doing it right.


I agree, but the problem is that Southwest cannot serve the whole country
and sustain its business model. They exist by operating direct service on a
very narrow range of routes. This is why you do not see SWA flying in and
out of BOS, LGA, or any number of other extremely high-volume airports.

All the people really want
is a seat at the cheapest possible rate. We don't need your fancy clubs
and we certainly don't care about boarding the plane 5 minutes before
everybody else.

Well, I used to fly upwards of 100,000 miles a year, rarely going two weeks
without at least one trip. When you do that you get to spend a lot of time
waiting for missed connections and weather delays, and the clubs really do
help. It's one thing to put up with the cattle call a few times a year but
every week? You'd go mad.

Likewise, the early boarding offers one key benefit: guaranteed overhead
luggage bin space. This meant (a) I could save time by carrying all my
luggage and (b) still be comfortable by not having to put a bag under the
seat. Like I said, when you do it constantly, it really adds up.

With times being tough the past few years, companies were free to force
their traveling employees to eat a lot of s--t and fly only the cheapest
available fares. As conditions improve this will change. Good employees will
demand better accomodations or they will quit. This is why I think Airtran
has been very smart to offer Business Class seating at reasonable prices. I
used to run a team of consultants and was always willing to spend a little
more to make the trip easier on them. As for the client, I would explain
that they were paying $1800 a day for the consultant's time, so they ought
to be willing to spend a few hundred more to make sure that nice fellow
showed up refreshed and ready to work, not chewed up and spit out.

IMHO we need to weed the 6 majors (UA, US, AA, DL, NW, CO) down to three or
four, probably by allowing some of the mergers that would have been
unthinkable previously. UA, US, and DL are all sick men and I expect them to
look nothing like they do today within a few years. I do not expect US to
survive at all and do not understand how UA has managed to avoid going back
into bankruptcy.

-cwk.

"Colin W Kingsbury" wrote
I agree, but the problem is that Southwest cannot serve the whole country
and sustain its business model.

Then maybe the portions of the country that can't be served by that
busiess model have to pay a lot more. Or maybe the hub-and-spoke
model is outdated. In fact, maybe it was never a good model in the
first place, and was only used because certain costs (airport/highway
expansion, air traffic control) could be externalized. Maybe the
future is in large numbers of smaller airplanes (737 and down) flying
point-to-point routes.

Like I said, when you do it constantly, it really adds up.

It sure does. I used to travel on business regularly, and I hated
Southwest. Just realize that the business traveller of old is an
endangered species, which is making the old style airlines hurt.

With times being tough the past few years, companies were free to force
their traveling employees to eat a lot of s--t and fly only the cheapest
available fares.

Yup.

As conditions improve this will change. Good employees will
demand better accomodations or they will quit.

You're kidding yourself. This is the economy we can look forward to
for years. Think jobless recovery.

This is why I think Airtran
has been very smart to offer Business Class seating at reasonable prices.

I doubt it. I think the Southwest model is the future - one class.
One might even say no class.

IMHO we need to weed the 6 majors (UA, US, AA, DL, NW, CO) down to three or
four

Which will happen, I can assure you.

probably by allowing some of the mergers that would have been
unthinkable previously.

And what good will that do? The fundamental problem isn't too many
players - it's too much capacity. The business traveler isn't coming
back. He's doing his job by remote control, usually via phone and
internet - and usually from Bangalore.

Michael

in article , Peter Duniho at
wrote on 11/29/04 2:35 PM:

If tipping is such a great idea, why is it that I constantly run into lousy
service in restaurants, right here in America?

lol. Uh, Peter, if your real-life persona is in any way similar to the one
you display in this forum, I would worry less about the lousy service you're
getting and start worrying more about what those no doubt beleaguered
waitresses and waiters are putting in your food.

"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
...
lol. Uh, Peter, if your real-life persona is in any way similar to the one
you display in this forum, I would worry less about the lousy service
you're
getting and start worrying more about what those no doubt beleaguered
waitresses and waiters are putting in your food.

You're obviously too obtuse to have picked up on this, but I'm generally
short-tempered only with people that start out being stupid or acting like a
jerk. That's true here, as well as in "real life".

I can be quite patient and friendly with people who act in a manner becoming
someone deserving of such respect. While I've had plenty of instances of
poor service in a restaurant, I've yet to run into a waiter SO dumb as to
actually act like a jerk to a customer, and I've had no trouble at all being
perfectly polite and gracious to all the waitstaff I've run into over the
years.

Like I said, the concepts I describe in this post may well be over your
head. Don't feel too bad if you just don't get it. I'm not expecting you
to.

Pete

in article , Peter Duniho at
wrote on 11/30/04 8:24 PM:

"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
...
lol. Uh, Peter, if your real-life persona is in any way similar to the one
you display in this forum, I would worry less about the lousy service
you're
getting and start worrying more about what those no doubt beleaguered
waitresses and waiters are putting in your food.

You're obviously too obtuse to have picked up on this, but I'm generally
short-tempered only with people that start out being stupid or acting like a
jerk. That's true here, as well as in "real life".

I can be quite patient and friendly with people who act in a manner becoming
someone deserving of such respect. While I've had plenty of instances of
poor service in a restaurant, I've yet to run into a waiter SO dumb as to
actually act like a jerk to a customer, and I've had no trouble at all being
perfectly polite and gracious to all the waitstaff I've run into over the
years.

Like I said, the concepts I describe in this post may well be over your
head. Don't feel too bad if you just don't get it. I'm not expecting you
to.

Pete

Aw Pete, I was just having a little fun with you.

By the way, I spit in your soup.