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Originally Posted by meyers9163  You MIGHT be right, but my question is will marketing alone bring Midwest to a profitable airline? I mean at the end of the day a customer will base who they fly with mostly on price alone, would you not agree? If Midwest is not cheap or does not have the scheduled needed by a pax they will simply go else where. I think there's a whole lot more to it then just marketing needed. And simply a cheaper pilot group and workforce will not make a place profitable as proven time and time again. |
Part of it is about the money. I remember when I was in the service, I would look for the absolute cheapest I could possibly find to get home on the holidays. I didn't care about anything but the price. I had good food and a girl waiting for me at the airport. Nowadays, I have a family and look for other things as well. As few connections as possible, nice employees, etc...I'm willing to pay extra for that. Southwest wins in a lot of categories, but they don't win in comfort and connections. I don't know if RAH can beat them at their own game. That's a long shot. But mke does have a market and I think as long as RAH puts Midwest out there, on the air in a way today's flier can relate, they will be successful. Someone on my company board mentioned that they think Southwest isn't aiming to control mke and I agree. That wouldn't be the smartest move and they know it. They're going to profit off their bread and butter, nonstops to cities that mke peeps wanna hit. However, mke capacity is big enough to make room for another airline, but not profitable to share. The real battle will be between Midwest and AirTran. The winner will have the best balance of availability and price, but not necessarily be the cheapest.
When you line up the three operations and compare them on one route, you'll see a micro market. Take LA for example. If I'm by myself, going to visit my brother, I'm willing to take a red eye if it's cheap. But if I'm with my family, I want comfort and good service. Southwest is great, but I've actually taken them on long legs westward and it's not fun at all. AirTran and RAH can easily take a chunk of a route like that if they play their cards right. RAH can actually win that one, but they have to be the alternative, IMO. It's those shorter nonstops that they are going to have trouble with Southwest on.