Mentour: "Will Killing the MAX-7 Save Southwest?!"
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Mentour: "Will Killing the MAX-7 Save Southwest?!"
Another interesting webcast from him.
Talking of a possible short term solution to buy another airline instead of waiting 2+ years for the 737-7 deliveries.
My personal opinion: Not a good idea. It'd disrupt many of the fundamentals SWA relies on if they try to integrate that airline.
What do you think? And why?
Talking of a possible short term solution to buy another airline instead of waiting 2+ years for the 737-7 deliveries.
My personal opinion: Not a good idea. It'd disrupt many of the fundamentals SWA relies on if they try to integrate that airline.
What do you think? And why?
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It's mildly clickbaitish, I agree. Nevertheless his point is backed by facts, so the whole video is worth a thought.
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I find Mentour pretty good and balanced in his analysis plus unlike some Youtube aviation channels, he is (or at least was) currently operational out of Girona for FR.
They specifically need the MAX 7 for their network.
They need an aircraft with that size. The question is if the higher efficiency (and certainty) of the A220 is worth the additional cost of having an aircraft with no commonality to their current aircraft in their fleet. And that is a matter of the fleet size.
They need the 737-cockpit, the -7-performance and the ground handling to remain exactly 737.
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Will they wait another 2 years and restrict their revenue, letting go opportunity - or tolerate an efficiency loss for the benefit of growth? As long as it's still profitable, why not?
One day they'll have to move on from the 737, and they won't be able to replace over 800 of them quickly so one day they'll be running at least two types.
That cost WILL occur - I guess it's a matter of how long they can put it off or, as Waito says, defer the opportunity at a cost. No doubt their economists and fleet planner shave terrabytes of economic models to assist.
That cost WILL occur - I guess it's a matter of how long they can put it off or, as Waito says, defer the opportunity at a cost. No doubt their economists and fleet planner shave terrabytes of economic models to assist.
SouthWest doesn’t have to just shop in the US. Porter the Canadian regional has 50 almost brand new E195’s that were just added to their Dash 8 400 fleet. It is privately owned and I am assuming would listen to a deal that would offer to take the whole fleet and have them go back to the Dash 8 operating model they used to have.
The E 195 has a 124 to 132 one class capacity, so pretty close to a MAX 7 and significantly better DOC.
Interesting speculation, however I would suggest that current the SouthWest C suite is showing signs of Boeing style management practices, including prioritizing short term profitability over investments in long term infrastructure that will ensure future success. None of these MBA bean counters are going to have the imagination or the stoned to make big decisions like breaking the one type model, even if it maybe in the best long term interests of the airline.
Herb must be rolling in his grave….
The E 195 has a 124 to 132 one class capacity, so pretty close to a MAX 7 and significantly better DOC.
Interesting speculation, however I would suggest that current the SouthWest C suite is showing signs of Boeing style management practices, including prioritizing short term profitability over investments in long term infrastructure that will ensure future success. None of these MBA bean counters are going to have the imagination or the stoned to make big decisions like breaking the one type model, even if it maybe in the best long term interests of the airline.
Herb must be rolling in his grave….
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Integrating a new a/c type into the existing company is what most of you discuss. That's a significant effort, unsteadiness
Mentour specifically speculates about buying into another company, where the fleet is already operational, settled, supplied, crews trained (and basically available in the first place) .
If it's profitable, good enough. Leave as it is, but market as SWA.
If they align routings with the existing ones: even better. SWA can open the desired routings in short time.
I see more trouble if they want to merge/integrate. On short sight at least.
Mentour specifically speculates about buying into another company, where the fleet is already operational, settled, supplied, crews trained (and basically available in the first place) .
If it's profitable, good enough. Leave as it is, but market as SWA.
If they align routings with the existing ones: even better. SWA can open the desired routings in short time.
I see more trouble if they want to merge/integrate. On short sight at least.
The SWA pilot contract requires pilot seniority lists to be merged if they acquire another airline operating equipment over 76 seats. Most US airline contracts have the same provisions. Prevents management attempting to whipsaw the two groups against each other.
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I recently was granted a visit to a B737 Max on the ground and was amazed at the similarity with the B737-300's and 400's I flew back in the 1980's. At some point Boeing will have to move on and the pain for airlines such as Southwest and Ryanair is really going to hurt.
SouthWest doesn’t have to just shop in the US. Porter the Canadian regional has 50 almost brand new E195’s that were just added to their Dash 8 400 fleet. It is privately owned and I am assuming would listen to a deal that would offer to take the whole fleet and have them go back to the Dash 8 operating model they used to have.
The E 195 has a 124 to 132 one class capacity, so pretty close to a MAX 7 and significantly better DOC.
Interesting speculation, however I would suggest that current the SouthWest C suite is showing signs of Boeing style management practices, including prioritizing short term profitability over investments in long term infrastructure that will ensure future success. None of these MBA bean counters are going to have the imagination or the stoned to make big decisions like breaking the one type model, even if it maybe in the best long term interests of the airline.
Herb must be rolling in his grave….
The E 195 has a 124 to 132 one class capacity, so pretty close to a MAX 7 and significantly better DOC.
Interesting speculation, however I would suggest that current the SouthWest C suite is showing signs of Boeing style management practices, including prioritizing short term profitability over investments in long term infrastructure that will ensure future success. None of these MBA bean counters are going to have the imagination or the stoned to make big decisions like breaking the one type model, even if it maybe in the best long term interests of the airline.
Herb must be rolling in his grave….
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Realizing it's a thread, I still (as SLF/attorney) want to say "hey pull the reins some here". I recall AW&ST articles - at the time of publication, not archived - about Southwest employees being trained for, and performing, several different roles to facilitate (and maybe the correct word is, to "enable") fast turn-around times, in the summer of 1975. Maybe it was 1976. The cabin crew uniforms, yes, a point of anachronistic interest, perhaps. But it is exaggerating the situation to invoke the name of the founder.
I believe if Herb K. were to be briefed on the state of affairs at the airline he founded and drove forward - remember, wasn't it the Texas Railroad Commission that controlled the routes and fares before deregulation, and how the business enterprise he founded had to kind of scratch and claw for slots and permission to operate at all in Texas, at Love Field (iirc), so contemporary "disrupters", maybe take note - if he were briefed he would want to make two points clear. First, I believe Herb K. would be quite displeased, although most likely not surprised, by the litigation filed by the pilots' union against Boeing. Not the content of the suit as such, not the fact they sued Boeing, but the root issue, that the pilots had stridently opposed having a new variant of the 737 which would have required more training. Opposed to acquiring the piloting profession's additional increment of knowledge, skills and abilities? This (imho) would have shocked the man who required everyone (or nearly everyone) employed to do multiple jobs to turn airplanes around more quickly, part of the method (I'm not a pilot, you understand, I don't know the diference between "ways" and "means" for implementing strategies) for getting a toehold - which is all it was at first - against entrenched carriers. Remember, at the start, Mr. Kelleher wasn't getting telephone calls from Mr. Crandall to discuss, that is, anything other than airline fares. (If this post misstates anything about the SWA pilots lawsuit against Boeing in the aftermath of the 737 MAX accidents, I'm not cutting time to go read old pleadings, and (though I tried) I wasn't part of their legal team.)
Second, I think Herb K. would scoff at the idea that intergrating seniority rosters could even be tried in this environment, the ridiculous blame placed on air transport operators for situations way outside their control for one thing, the outrageous misbehavior and misconduct of pax for absolutely no good or respectable reason - yes not involving pilots directly as such but indicative of there being no willingness in the the Executive Branch - at present anyhow - to help such an acquisition (of another airline operation like Porter reportedly did) reach closure.
Should Southwest migrate its operation away from all-737? Of course it should. What was so "workhorse-special" about the 737 back in the Love Field early days isn't true anymore. But that having been said, I'm not so sure - because I don't fly airplanes and I would absolutely positively want to know the wide-ranging views of the pilots who do. Is it really better from an operational standpoint to have just one type to know and to keep current on? Does the company really and truly obtain safer operations overall, more efficient operations overall, with just one type? As noted above, if the lawsuit and its background had a good basis in fact, then "one type only" thinking led to unjustified rejection of a new variant which - if Boeing had not lied (and people had not died (with apologies to Paul Cassell, Counsel for some families of the crash victims and legally under federal law, crime victims)) - would have required some more extensive "differences training."
I'll bet, ranting SLF/attorney as I am, that Elliott venture or hedge fund people will have plenty of differences with current management and Board. We'll see.
Edit: Elliott Investment Management is an activist investor, of course.
I believe if Herb K. were to be briefed on the state of affairs at the airline he founded and drove forward - remember, wasn't it the Texas Railroad Commission that controlled the routes and fares before deregulation, and how the business enterprise he founded had to kind of scratch and claw for slots and permission to operate at all in Texas, at Love Field (iirc), so contemporary "disrupters", maybe take note - if he were briefed he would want to make two points clear. First, I believe Herb K. would be quite displeased, although most likely not surprised, by the litigation filed by the pilots' union against Boeing. Not the content of the suit as such, not the fact they sued Boeing, but the root issue, that the pilots had stridently opposed having a new variant of the 737 which would have required more training. Opposed to acquiring the piloting profession's additional increment of knowledge, skills and abilities? This (imho) would have shocked the man who required everyone (or nearly everyone) employed to do multiple jobs to turn airplanes around more quickly, part of the method (I'm not a pilot, you understand, I don't know the diference between "ways" and "means" for implementing strategies) for getting a toehold - which is all it was at first - against entrenched carriers. Remember, at the start, Mr. Kelleher wasn't getting telephone calls from Mr. Crandall to discuss, that is, anything other than airline fares. (If this post misstates anything about the SWA pilots lawsuit against Boeing in the aftermath of the 737 MAX accidents, I'm not cutting time to go read old pleadings, and (though I tried) I wasn't part of their legal team.)
Second, I think Herb K. would scoff at the idea that intergrating seniority rosters could even be tried in this environment, the ridiculous blame placed on air transport operators for situations way outside their control for one thing, the outrageous misbehavior and misconduct of pax for absolutely no good or respectable reason - yes not involving pilots directly as such but indicative of there being no willingness in the the Executive Branch - at present anyhow - to help such an acquisition (of another airline operation like Porter reportedly did) reach closure.
Should Southwest migrate its operation away from all-737? Of course it should. What was so "workhorse-special" about the 737 back in the Love Field early days isn't true anymore. But that having been said, I'm not so sure - because I don't fly airplanes and I would absolutely positively want to know the wide-ranging views of the pilots who do. Is it really better from an operational standpoint to have just one type to know and to keep current on? Does the company really and truly obtain safer operations overall, more efficient operations overall, with just one type? As noted above, if the lawsuit and its background had a good basis in fact, then "one type only" thinking led to unjustified rejection of a new variant which - if Boeing had not lied (and people had not died (with apologies to Paul Cassell, Counsel for some families of the crash victims and legally under federal law, crime victims)) - would have required some more extensive "differences training."
I'll bet, ranting SLF/attorney as I am, that Elliott venture or hedge fund people will have plenty of differences with current management and Board. We'll see.
Edit: Elliott Investment Management is an activist investor, of course.
Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 22nd Jun 2024 at 23:09.
Boeing already moved on. The 757, 767, 777, 787. Yet the 737, as is, remains a popular product with the buyers. Buyers didn't ask Boeing for a new flight deck on the 737, they asked for fuel efficiency to the similar market Airbus.
The comparable model 737’s have always had better fuel efficiency than the A320 series. They also have a better dispatch reliability. The Airbus needs a new wing. That’s the one thing Boeing did right. The NG wing is excellent.
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He talks of picking up Breeze Airways. They currently operate EMB 190/195. BUT: That airline already took delivery of first A220s, and are in progress to get 80 of them (no mention of the timeline though) . But certainly there's no waiting for years until a viable fleet of modern and very efficient aircraft allow expansion. And how about seat capacity? Well, it's the perfect alternative to the MAX -7 in this regard.