7636 replies to this topic

[Nparker]

How about this, we have people put under with a general anaesthetic for the duration of a flight? ...

I've often thought that would be a good way to fight hijacking and other terrorist*-related flight issues.

 

* can I still say terrorist, or is that disparaging a group of people?

[LJ]

It all comes down to cost per mile. Westjet's pilots are on the verge of forming a union which will impact Swoop. And their cost to operate will be significantly higher due to a variety of factors.

 

There's plenty of room for ULCC's in Canada, and while Swoop will for sure inject some much needed pricing wars onto the market, it's unlikely to upstage all competition given its higher cost to operate (no doubt it can bleed competition for a while, but eventually that has to stop).

Sorry, that is just not the case. Most of the cost per mile is the same for everybody, the only way Swoop will be able to offer lower fares is to pack in 189 customers into what was a 156 passenger plane. The population of Canada is so small comparatively that the only places a ULCC would be able to operate is Vancouver and Southern Ontario. We will not see them here that is for sure. Swoop will last as long as it has to to put the other pretenders out of business then it will quietly fold back into the mainline.

[lanforod]

^ you may be right regarding how long it'll last, though just packing in more seats isn't the only way to offer lower fares. As mentioned earlier, charging for every single extra beyond your basic seat works as well.

30 more passengers packed in is only going to be $3000 more in fares if the fares are $100. It's when 100 people buy overhead bin space, 50 people buy a $3 cup of tap water, bare minimum staffing for the whole plane, minimal cleaning per flight, perhaps no reserved seating, flying at the most efficient speed, not flying any routes that won't fill the plane up (as LJ mentioned) etc. Many ways to keep those costs down to 'ultra low', they just have to be ruthless about it.

[Mike K.]

Market research has concluded there is room for two or three ULCC operations, but not more.

Currently millions of flights by Canadians start and end in the US due to cheaper fares. The real money is in finding ways to get those travellers to fly with a Canadian carrier, and then you focus on the folks who are already overpaying to fly with Westjet and Air Canada.

Employee numbers are legislated by TC so there must be a given number of crew per passenger load.

[Mike K.]

Aha, here's the clincher:

 

“We support all forms of improvements and airline expansion,” Adamus said. “We’ll just want to make sure that the pilots work (with the ULCC) is going to be theirs to do, that the work is not farmed out to some other third party… we’ll have to wait and see exactly what the company has planned in that area.”

 

- http://business.fina...expansion-plans

 

This is where Westjet will be challenged right out of the gate. The union won't sit idly by as Swoop starts to cut into Westjet's mainline operations, and this is what Jetlines has been counting on.

[VicHockeyFan]

Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has long dreamed of creating a human colony on Mars, is planning to build a new rocket ship code named “BFR” capable of traveling anywhere on Earth in under an hour.

 

If the concept becomes reality, Musk said a journey from New York to Shanghai can be done in about 30 minutes. The surprise announcement means that his Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which has already disrupted the aerospace industry with reusable launches, plans to ferry humans not just to distant planets but across this one as well, setting up a potentially competitive challenge to the commercial airline industry.

 

“If we are going to places like Mars, why not Earth?” Musk said Friday at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

 

Toward the end of Musk’s highly technical presentation, animation played on a big screen behind him, showing scores of people getting on a high-speed ferry in New York, then boarding the BFR on a platform in the water. The spaceship then travels to Shanghai in roughly half an hour.

 

“Fly to most places on Earth in under 30 mins and anywhere in under 60,” Musk wrote in an Instagram post after he’d left the stage without taking questions. “Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that.

 

http://business.fina...-musks-new-plan

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 29 September 2017 - 09:18 AM.

[Mike K.]

ULC rocket ship carriers? I'm in.

[VicHockeyFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg0BB2bCDPo

[Bingo]

Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has long dreamed of creating a human colony on Mars

http://business.fina...-musks-new-plan

 

There are a few women who would like to send some of the guys back there.

[VicHockeyFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo1OiBsWMp0

 

27,0000 kmh

[Mike K.]

Wouldn't there be more money in selling the technology to North Korea and other baddies?

[Mattjvd]

I hope that stands for "Big F***ing Rocket"

[VicHockeyFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ

[Bingo]

I suppose you would need a few huge parachutes for that much weight, and they have probably already tried that.

[Bingo]

I think that even though it was expensive the space shuttle concept worked well.

Make some new ones and fly them without a crew and land them on a runway...after all this is ROCKET SCIENCE.

[nerka]

 

27,0000 kmh

And with any luck you won't be misidentified as an incoming North Korean missile :-)

Edited by nerka, 29 September 2017 - 01:55 PM.

[VicHockeyFan]

I think that even though it was expensive the space shuttle concept worked well.
Make some new ones and fly them without a crew and land them on a runway...after all this is ROCKET SCIENCE.

They are using a new one already.

https://spectrum.iee...-amid-questions

[LJ]

Aha, here's the clincher:

 

“We support all forms of improvements and airline expansion,” Adamus said. “We’ll just want to make sure that the pilots work (with the ULCC) is going to be theirs to do, that the work is not farmed out to some other third party… we’ll have to wait and see exactly what the company has planned in that area.”

 

- http://business.fina...expansion-plans

 

This is where Westjet will be challenged right out of the gate. The union won't sit idly by as Swoop starts to cut into Westjet's mainline operations, and this is what Jetlines has been counting on.

The ULCC will operate as a totally separate entity from mainline, with a different operating certificate, pay rates will be less for sure.

They will keep the mainline pilots in check by promising them the shiny new 787's and new destinations to fly to.

[VicHockeyFan]

The pilots do not even have a first contract yet, so that must weigh this in the pilots favour now, not the airline's.

[Mike K.]

Right. It was the “threat” of the ULCC that spurred the latest vote and the pass. The previous unionization vote prior to any talk of an ULCC failed.