Avi8r747 From United States of America, joined Apr 2009, 24 posts, RR: 0 Posted (10 months 1 week 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 2325 times:
Found this article in the WSJ to be pretty interesting. Just a little insight to where all the money from passengers go to and how little extra is left over for actual profit.
planespotting From United States of America, joined Apr 2004, 3438 posts, RR: 5 Reply 3, posted (10 months 1 week 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 1946 times:
Quoting KDAYflyer (Reply 1): Interesting read. It amazes me how many seats are needed to cover the government regulatory costs and so on.
That's what I thought too (FYI for folks who didn't read the article - it's 14 seats worth). I wonder what the breakdown of those 14 seats is for the following:
BEG2IAH From United States of America, joined Apr 2004, 827 posts, RR: 12 Reply 4, posted (10 months 1 week 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 1828 times:
I had a pleasure to meet the author of this article, Mr. Scott McCartney. He is a real aviation enthusiast and takes his job very seriously. A breath of fresh air in today's media.
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Avi8r747 From United States of America, joined Apr 2009, 24 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (10 months 1 week 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 1396 times:
Even though this particular artical was based off a hypothetical flight, it still gives you a great insight into how little profit an airline makes, and opens your eyes to literally everything needed to occur to get that aircraft in the air with everyone on board. With almost half the passengers paying for fuel and salary alone.
It's an entirely different kind of flying; all together!
traindoc From United States of America, joined Mar 2008, 309 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (10 months 1 week 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 1244 times:
Unfortunately John Q Public will not see (or read) this article. The American public wants to pay Walmart prices for air travel, but wants to fly on Nieman Marcus. Yes, the airlines live on a thin line between profit and loss. They are getting smarter and controlling capacity which allows them to do less discounting. However, the frequent and premium traveller are their main source of profit as many of the seats are still priced below cost.
The economy has gotten softer. I have received more emails about fare sales in the last 3-4 months, than I have in the past 2 years. This includes AA, CX, WN, UA, LH and QF.
KFlyer From Sri Lanka, joined Mar 2007, 1208 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (10 months 1 week 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 1188 times:
This is when you look at a US carrier. If you looked at the finances of an Asian counterpart, you will note that 45%+ of the expenditure is on fuel, nearly 5% on various regulatory costs, about 8-10% on crew salaries and in most cases less than 5% for all the expenditure of corporate/office staff (even including items such as housing, medical etc.).
The opinions above are solely my own and do not express those of my employers or clients.
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