Alan Sbarra
Alan Sbarra
average bottom employees gets pay people replace
What it does is replace higher-salaried employees with new people at the bottom of the pay scale. It gets the average pay down.
airlines economics economy-and-economics expect flights fuel hard industry marginal network prudent
I expect more of the network airlines to do the same. Now that fuel is an issue, and other economics of the airline industry are pretty difficult, a lot of marginal flights are hard to justify. It's a prudent trimming of marginal routes.
bankruptcy creditors reason three
The reason they've been in bankruptcy for three years is because they couldn't get creditors on board, I think they're going to come out when they say they are this time.
buy money save spend time
There's always a trade-off. You save money when you don't buy new aircraft, but then you spend a lot more time and money on maintenance as they get older.
cut deals front line move time
They do it because they can make a lot of money. They're able to cut deals that move them to the front of the line when it's time to be paid.
flights taking
They are taking out some flights where they already have other flights anyway.
america becoming competition latin markets
Latin America is becoming more deregulated, but there still is not a lot of competition in a lot of markets and there is no Southwest competition.
base economy fuel given improving knows nobody oil optimistic planning prices starting view
Overall, I think they'll be OK, given that the economy is improving and fuel prices are starting to moderate. But nobody knows which way fuel will go, and to base your long-range planning on an optimistic view of oil prices, I think, is very risky.