All good points, but keep in mind that in March 1996, WS operated three 20+ year old 737-200's worth $5m a pop with an ASL of about 450 miles and managed to get 8+ sectors a day / 9.5 hours utilization, going head to head against both AC and CP. Both were formidable competitors at that time.
WS broke even in their third full month of operations in May 1996.
WS was able to put about 2,880 seats a day into the market with 3 aircraft worth $15m. That's about $5,208 per seat.
Porter gets about 7.25 hours a day each out of 29 E2 tails that cost $30.6m with an asl dancing around 1,200 miles.That sort of ASL's tells me they have no feed network to speak of and they aren't trying to stimulate the market.
Porter currently averages about 9,600 seats a day in the market with 29 tails worth about $887.4 m. That's about $93,200 per seat.
WS's asl when they had 27 tails in 2002, six years into the program, was 458 miles and they made 12% operating margins that year.
I'll guarantee Porter's margins are at least 22% pts below that these days.
There's a way to do it in Canada, but it seems all the new entrants steadfastly refuse to follow best practices.
Last edited by Speedboat; 26th Feb 2024 at 21:47.
Reason: Typos and detail