Who said no one is flying

[Polar_stereographic]

Don't dispair,

I've just returned from a business trip to the Big Apple. Flew BA both ways, and let me tell you that the flight was full full full. So what's the story? I watched the previous flight depart NY and although I was not on it, it looked like there where plenty of folk traveling.

I find the same thing with the summer flights (as mentioned in a previous post). Every one I speak to that flies for a living tells me the same thing.

Must be a matter of time before the recruiting doors start opening again.

What do others think?

PS

[spitfire747]

Polar

Great to see and hear, I am sure it ill not be long before it all picks up again. Lets face it if the Europe - NYC route is "full full full" then things are promising for us all.

[MAX]

Unfortunately if management says 'no-one is flying' then they wont recruit pilots.

MAX <img src="cool.gif" border="0">

[Polar_stereographic]

MAX,

That's my point exactly. There is a lot of management saying all sorts of things that is not supported by the evidence that I have.

PS

[BillyFish2]

Polar,

Good to hear. That's the sort of news we could do with.

[Polar_stereographic]

BF2

I say ride the storm out. I know that there are some on this site who do not see this in that way, and I just know that this thread will take a bit of stick from them.

All I'm saying is that in my view the evidence does not support the the doom and gloom thrown around by the airlines. Me thinks that there are other reasons behind what they are saying.

btw, it's my understanding that BA are yet to lay anybody off (I'm talking about from the flight deck here).

PS

[Megaton]

PS,

Hope you're right but one flight doesn't really make for evidence.

[Polar_stereographic]

HP,

Read carefuly again, and you'll see that I'n not basing it on just one flight.

PS

btw, the airport was solid this morning too. I could not find my taxi man for all the names being held up. Had to phone him to find where he was!!

[Megaton]

I'm sorry. I'll try to be more explicit in future but one trip encompassing 2 flights and some time spent in an airport still does not make for overwhelming evidence. Also, the flights may have been full but you don't know how much revenue was generated by those flights. I still hope you're right but I still think the evidence is flimsy.

[Rowley]

Sounds good to me!!

Im still using the wait and see attitude though! <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

I reckon in about 1.5 - 2 years we should see something like we had in about 1997- A good recruitment market!

I await the master WWW's comments <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

[Polar_stereographic]

HP,

I'm not going to get drawn into argument over this, but I have drawn my evidence from more than one place. Among them -

Quotes:

"I find the same thing with the summer flights"

"Every one I speak to that flies for a living tells me the same thing."

Also, read some of the other replies.

I agree, I do not have the numbers to make any statistical certainty, but I am just expressing my view as I see it.

PS

[Megaton]

All right, you win. :) :)

I'm off to buy shares in UAL, AA and BA. Now where's my Enron portfolio gone.....

[MAX]

Now, Now. I like the term 'ride the storm out'. Like we have a choice. <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

[Tosh McCaber]

Whilst flights may look as busy, and could well be as busy, as they were pre-crisis, is it not a fact that, even with the previous and present volume of traffic, most of the airlines were overstaffed at that time. Sept 11 gave them the impetus to rectify the situation- drastically, so far as Wannabes are concerned!

[Canada Goose]

Not wanting to pish on anyone's chips here, but, I too have heard and personally flown on full full full flights, but the impression that I was under is that there are less flights being run on existing sched's, as well as certain less profitable routes (pre-9/11) that have been axed. I live a couple of miles out from the threshold and a couple fo degrees off the approach/departure path for rwy 07/25 here in Ottawa and I can tell you that I have noticed a drop off in traffic since 9/11. I seem to be no longer awoken at 6:30 am with the roar of a 737 climbing out over my house (with picture frames rattling on my walls <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> ).

So, my synopsis, slightly less people wanting to fly since 9/11, BUT, a lot less flights = FULL flights. Having said all that, I hope I'm wrong and PS is right .......

Happy ldgs..

CG <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[spitfire747]

My glass is half full not half empty..

The world is full of pesimists but out-numbered by optimists like me !!!. .(If I wasn't i wouldn't be investing borrowed money on flight training.... would I )

Join me .. raise your glass and drink to the rosey future of air travel... !!

Enjoy !

[scroggs]

While this topic is of interest to Wannabes, it is not intrinsic to the process of obtaining a licence or first job, so in the interests of minimising used bandwidth, I'm transferring it to Aircrew Notices - you can carry the discussion on there.. .While I'm here, the traffic figures of BA and the like are publicly available. Currently, in the longhaul market, overall passenger figures are down between 16 and 25% down on a industry capacity reduction of around 10 to 15%. That means that, overall, there is a lower load factor on fewer flights. (Inevitably this information is a few weeks old). Also, due to the preponderance of promotional fares, the yield per passenger is well down - especially when you consider that many of the all-important business passengers hav traded down to economy. While passengers are returning, they ain't paying much!. .What this means is that many airlines (not all) are still losing money, and there is still a lot of work to do to turn it all around; witness BA's annoucement last week and the probable loss of 25% of the airline to come (16000 jobs). So don't look for an improvement in the jobs situation yet - it's probably still a year or more away.

[Polar_stereographic]

Scroggs,

While I accept that I am not an authority on this matter, I hear what is said and see diferently, hence my post. Rest assured I paid top dollar for an economy seat, business class being full up. Further more, the amount of drivers meeting passengers off aircraft was more than I've ever seen before, and I bet most of those is for the business community.

I've also paid top prices for my summer holiday flights too. AMM have the same number of flights to my destination than they had last year, but they have filled up sooner than before.

My personal theory is that BA is a special case, made worse in the current climate. I hear your's truely have turned in a profit, and we are increasingly hearing of the intended layoff not happening to the original extent al least.

Having spoken to lots of people from the office in NY, I do think that there is a genuine fear of flying over there that is not reflected to the same degree over here. BAA's December figure where only down 6%. Still down, but then Novembers figures where down 12%, so a 50% recovery in a month.

Quote "While this topic is of interest to Wannabes, it is not intrinsic to the process of obtaining a licence or first job"

True, but I though the wannabies forum was for all topics of interest to those seeking their first job, and surely that must include this topic. Seems strange to shove it off in my view.

PS

[5711N0205W]

To add another ineact unscientific observation to the list, last week I flew ABZ - NCL (Monday AM - BA / Brymon), NCL - BRU (Tuesday PM - DAT) and in reverse too (Thursday PM).

ABZ-NCL-ABZ - Dash 8 - Roughly 60% Load each time. .NCL-BRU-NCL - RJ100 (25 pax on way out, 17 on return) - BE in the next lounge did not seem to be doing much better.

[scroggs]

Polar. .I agree that things are getting better, but the overall picture isn't as rosy as your personal observations would suggest. Even if we fill all the seats available at the full fare, we only have 75% - 80% of the seats we had this time last year! Virgin's average load factor is around 80% at the moment; BA's a little lower. As I said, many of the seats are being sold on promotional fares and, while your flight may well have been full in Business, that just is not the case overall - believe me, I've seen the figures both for VS and BA, and while we're both doing better than the US companies, there's a way to go yet.. .As for moving this topic, we have been pushing the overall bandwidth available to Pprune recently, so we are being more rigorous in policing all the forums. Wannabes is strictly for subjects directly relevant to those obtaining their professional licences or their first commercial job. Where a subject either doesn't fit that criterion, or has wider implications, it will now be moved to spread the load. This is one such subject!

[Polar_stereographic]

Thanks for that Scroggs,

However: "Wannabes is strictly for subjects directly relevant to those obtaining their professional licences or their first commercial job"

Surely, this is relevant to the last point, but I'm happy to agree to differ on that one.

Fingers crossed that things pick up sooner rather than later, I for one think they will.

Regards

PS

[EGCC4284]

We are still busy putting plenty of JET A1 on

<img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0"> <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

[scroggs]

Just as an aside, Polar, many flights I've operated recently have been overbooked in economy, resulting in Premieum being filled by the higher-paying (contract?) ecomomy pax, and Upper being filled by premium pax. Some economy pax may end up in upper, if they're lucky. Unfortunately, in this case, lots of bums on seats doesn't translate into lots of revenue!. .Still, better than empty aeroplanes, eh? <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[Polar_stereographic]

Scroggs,

Thanks for that. I must confess I suspected as much, but in the interest of sparking up the debate chose to keep that aspect to myself.

I hear things may be on the up at VS (from one of you very own skippers), and I still maintain that this will become more of the trend sooner rather than later IN MY VIEW. Even the normaly very pesimistic WWW's glass is showing signs of being half full rather than half empty. It ain't fixed yet, but it won't be broken for as long as was first predicted.

Keep up the good work

PS

[Ace Rimmer]

To add my $0.02 worth, Since 1 Jan I've made six crossing of the pond. I can reveal that the loads on every flight were good (so good that I got - and Mrs R on one of em hurrah extra brownie points - upgraded on four out of six sectors. Of course I dunno what the yields were, certainly sod all on two of the six since they were comps. But the fact is that I see very similar numbers of bodies in the a/c and in the terminals (incidentally BAA report that its overall traffic in Jan was now a mere 3% down year on year another 50% improvement compared with Dec BTW) - can it be very long before they move into the positive.

Of course misery mongers can point at Big Airways and say but look at them they're losing a squillion quid a second - true but isn't that more a result of utterly incompetant management who seem to adopted a bizzarro-world school of business practice rather than pure market forces?

[scroggs]

Ace. .you're right, the numbers of passengers through BAA airports is only 3% down on this time last year, but I suspect that is largely due to the efforts of the low-cost chappies (and good luck to them!). All the major UK-US airlines cut capacity by between 15% and 25% after 9/11, and it's only in the last week or so that there have been mumblings about reversing some of those cuts. If all the remaining long-haul flights are full (and they're not), the transatlantic carriers' revenue must still be well down on last year overall - and that's without the migration down the cabin!. .However, things are improving for many of those airlines - $15 billion certainly helped the US lines employ 'attractive' fare policies for the last couple of months (and therein is another debate!), and VS is now doing pretty good, thanks. Even BA is doing OK across the pond, if not elsewhere. Most of those lines have cut costs hugely; the challenge now is to get those business pax back into 'J' so that the revenues get back nearer a sustainably profitable level.

[Polar_stereographic]

Just to add to his,

Myself and the rest of the family are off to our pad in Mallorca in the company of Easy's new Gatwick service. This is a new, (twice daily service in summer) that did not exist this time last year. We paid £22.50 a ticket, so no chance that they will make money out of us, but then we did book it just after the service was launched. The price for tomorows flight today is £146 (one way). Now, I'd say that's not bad for a med destination mid winter, for a new service as I said that did not exist this time last year. I'm back on Wednesday, and rest assured I'll feed back how busy the flight was. I for one am intreagued.

I guess also the good news about reasonable loads is that it get's people back into the air, and I'll hazard a bet that the yealds will recover in the not too distant future.

PS

[Polar_stereographic]

Top of the morning folk....

Well, I'm back, and I can tell you the flights going out and back where FULL FULL FULL.

Ok, understandable Saturday going out, but full on a Wednesday comming back? Check in girl said they had six seats left.

How do they do it? Full marks to them I say, if they can fly a new daily service, fill them up, shows me there is a demand out there. Sure, he's probably pinching some seats of BA et al, but I'm sure for every seat that he pinches, he creates one too. We are a case in point. Full marks as I said to the man.

PS

ps and NO, it's not nice to be back.

[AtlPax]

Well, on this side of the pond I recently flew ATL - MIA - POS (Port of Spain, Trinidad) and back and all flights were FULL. (BTW - I looove that extra leg room, AA <img src="cool.gif" border="0"> )

But what I really wanted to add with this post: tonight I heard an ad here in Atlanta on the radio from Airtran Airlines wanting to recruit Flight Attendants. I would certainly interpret this as being a good sign.