Are You GO for $39?

[aloha-anon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

Letters to the Business Editor

Three letters, two against, one for go!

Mesa's CEO 'must be brought to justice'
Hawaiian Airlines has every right to sue Mesa Airlines.

Hawaiian Airlines not showing much aloha
If Hawaiian Airlines continues to try and bully a competitor...

The real price of a $19 ticket is much greater
Ladies and gentlemen, a piece of our local ohana is being threatened while we are oblivious.

Go to the Star Bulletin Letters to the Business Editor for the rest of the story!

[aloha-anon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

aloha-anon, please limit your posts here to your own comments. If you want to mention other writings, link to them with a brief excerpt, don't republish them wholesale. Also, please don't start a new thread with every new anti-Go! thought that occurs to you. This combined thread is more than sufficient.

sorry there was quite a bit of information out there this morning.

[Konaguy]

Re: Understanding Go!

We have no options.
We will enjoy the ride at $39 or whatever cheap fare any of the airlines can manage to throw at us. Demand for interisland travel has spiked up since Go's entry and that is good. We can all go holo holo more often off island to visit tutu, uncles, aunts, parents, siblings, friends and cousins more times this year than we did in the very recent past. Thanks to the $39 fare war.
My trip on Hawaiian is coming soon. $39 folks. Enjoy the ride.

I completely agree with you Mel, which has been very rare. That being said
I'd really hate to imagine if HA/AQ did indeed merge. I recall the they initally
proposed it on December 19, 2001. If people think Go is bad, just imagine
if we only had a merged HA/AQ.

[1stwahine]

Re: Understanding Go!

I completely agree with you Mel, which has been very rare.

You made me SMILE Aaron!

MAHALO

Auntie "sick" Lynn

[aloha-anon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

http://starbulletin.com/2006/07/27/b...s/story02.html

go! losing about $300 a flight

this according to their ceo in an investor conference call yesterday. Given his history of half truths and his well known ability to lie I am certain go! is losing much more than $300 a flight.

But they will make up for it on volume with 12 more larger airplanes !!!!!

pppfffttt!

[Miulang]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

As long as there are 3 major interisland carriers, wouldn't go!'s load factor go down? I assume that everybody who wants to fly interisland today is doing so to take advantage of all the cheap fares, so the total universe of additional interisland customers is not going to increase appreciably. Assuming they are not also planning to increase the number of flights, I don't see how they can keep up their load factors unless they start code sharing with those bigger planes, which is how they have made their money everywhere else.

Miulang

[pzarquon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

Given the charges that Mesa's go! is engaged in predatory pricing, this news item is pretty interesting:

The governor of American Samoa accuses Hawaiian Airlines of predatory practices and is giving the carrier 90 days to get out of the territory. Togiola Tulafono has been complaining for months that Hawaiian charges more for its Pago Pago service than for other routes of similar distance.

[aloha-anon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

As long as there are 3 major interisland carriers, wouldn't go!'s load factor go down? I assume that everybody who wants to fly interisland today is doing so to take advantage of all the cheap fares, so the total universe of additional interisland customers is not going to increase appreciably. Assuming they are not also planning to increase the number of flights, I don't see how they can keep up their load factors unless they start code sharing with those bigger planes, which is how they have made their money everywhere else.

Miulang

exactly, check the newest entry in Forman's Air War Blog.

[aloha-anon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

Given the charges that Mesa's go! is engaged in predatory pricing, this news item is pretty interesting:

Governor Togiola Tulafono needs to be reminded that the airport at PPG is a US FEDERAL airport, not governed by Samoa. He is way outside of his jurisdiction.

[Miulang]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

Governor Togiola Tulafono needs to be reminded that the airport at PPG is a US FEDERAL airport, not governed by Samoa. He is way outside of his jurisdiction.

I was trying to figure out how to find out what other carriers fly into PPG, and I guess American does (at least it lists PPG as a city it flies into), but I could never find a flight to get there from HNL! Even HA doesn't fly into PPG daily, so the $880 O/W price may not be gouging...it may just be the cost because there are so few passengers. Does Air NZ fly there from HNL? Of course I expect its rates to be different from the American carriers anyway because it flies under a foreign flag.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

So if, according to that blog that al-anon posted, the breakeven for go! would be somewhere around $53 OW, would a "fair" permanent price for all carriers with a little profit added in be < than $70 OW? That's sure what it sounds like. Would everybody now flying for $39 be happy if go! raised its fares to $70 and HA and AQ also kept their fares at around the same price? probably not. But if you want the choice, you also have to make some sacrifices, too. Right now price is the differentiator. On a level price field, how would consumers pick the carrier to fly on? By flight schedule? Amenities? what?

Miulang

[mel]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

The Samoan issue with Hawaiian Air came up on the TV news last night and again in this morning's Star Bulletin:


Hawaiian Air Cited for Biased Service

In an executive order issued Wednesday, Tulafono declared that Hawaiian used its monopoly position to force American Samoans to pay twice the fare of other passengers traveling identical distances within the United States.

Prices for the Honolulu-to-Pago Pago round-trip flights currently range from about $750 to $1,000.

In the past, Tulafono requested that those rates be reduced to about $500, which is comparable to flights from Hawaii to California.

This is what happens when you have a monopoly. The airline milks the travelers for this much money traveling between Honolulu and Pago Pago while it is cheaper to fly the same distance HNL to LAX.

That is why we need to have more than one or even two airlines flying in the same market. It keeps prices competitive, which benefits the traveling public.

I recently read a book on Aloha Airline's 50th year of operations, and in that book it stated way back in the late 1940s and early 50s that Hawaiian Airlines did everything in their power to keep Aloha Airlines out of the market.

During the merger plan of 1970-72, Hawaiian got Aloha to practically sell nearly all of its assets (its then very new fleet of Boeing 737s) before they would merge and fly with a common aircraft, Hawaiian's DC-9s. At the last minute Hawaiian pulled out of the merger and left Aloha stuck with only a few planes in their inventory. Aloha later sued Hawaiian.

And so it goes. Nothing is new. Hawaiian continues to flex their muscle to keep competitors out of certain markets.

[Miulang]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

The Samoan issue with Hawaiian Air came up on the TV news last night and again in this morning's Star Bulletin:


Hawaiian Air Cited for Biased Service



This is what happens when you have a monopoly. The airline milks the travelers for this much money traveling between Honolulu and Pago Pago while it is cheaper to fly the same distance HNL to LAX.

That is why we need to have more than one or even two airlines flying in the same market. It keeps prices competitive, which benefits the traveling public.

I recently read a book on Aloha Airline's 50th year of operations, and in that book it stated way back in the late 1940s and early 50s that Hawaiian Airlines did everything in their power to keep Aloha Airlines out of the market.

During the merger plan of 1970-72, Hawaiian got Aloha to practically sell nearly all of its assets (its then very new fleet of Boeing 737s) before they would merge and fly with a common aircraft, Hawaiian's DC-9s. At the last minute Hawaiian pulled out of the merger and left Aloha stuck with only a few planes in their inventory. Aloha later sued Hawaiian.

And so it goes. Nothing is new. Hawaiian continues to flex their muscle to keep competitors out of certain markets.

The only way to get rid of the monopoly that HA enjoys in American Samoa is to get more people from Samoa to get on an airplane. But it's kind of a catch-22, because more Samoans can't get on that airplane because the prices are too high!

The fact that even the monopoly carrier feels that it can only justify 2 flights a week to/from PPG tells me that having another carrier come into the picture in order to force down prices would ultimately result in both carriers going under. I think another airline might consider entering the market if HA was already flying into PPG every day rather than only twice a week. And do both those flights have load factors that allow for profitability for HA? My guess is no.

Miulang

[aloha-anon]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

I was trying to figure out how to find out what other carriers fly into PPG, and I guess American does (at least it lists PPG as a city it flies into), but I could never find a flight to get there from HNL! Even HA doesn't fly into PPG daily, so the $880 O/W price may not be gouging...it may just be the cost because there are so few passengers. Does Air NZ fly there from HNL? Of course I expect its rates to be different from the American carriers anyway because it flies under a foreign flag.

Miulang

The AA flight into PPG is only a code tag on the HA flight

[mel]

Re: Are You GO for $39?

The only way to get rid of the monopoly that HA enjoys in American Samoa is to get more people from Samoa to get on an airplane. But it's kind of a catch-22, because more Samoans can't get on that airplane because the prices are too high!

True.

The fact that even the monopoly carrier feels that it can only justify 2 flights a week to/from PPG tells me that having another carrier come into the picture in order to force down prices would ultimately result in both carriers going under. I think another airline might consider entering the market if HA was already flying into PPG every day rather than only twice a week. And do both those flights have load factors that allow for profitability for HA? My guess is no.

Economically not feasible again, yes. I made the post based on the theory that if you do have competition, prices are more competitive. Aloha Airlines was flying there for a short time about 3 years ago, but they pulled out, lack of demand.

What American Samoa probably needs to do is market themselves better as a tourist destination to build traffic and perhaps someday they can lure more than one airline to the market. They simply don't have the numbers now.

What Hawaiian or another carrier needs to do is fly a smaller plane to and from American Samoa. Right now Hawaiian flys a large Boeing 767. I wonder if they are able to fill the plane up. This is probably a market that would be better served with a smaller aircraft like the Boeing 737-700 or 800 series.

Probably a better fit to American Samoa will be Continental Micronesia. I think they already fly 737s in the region and probably can do so cheaper than what Hawaiian is flying.