WJ vs. AC......performance

[watermeth]

to stick to the basics, cash per share, net margin ratio and long term debt over equity are key elements to determine a company's health and capacity to make money.
stock price doesn't mean much compared to value. price is only the mirror of what investors are willing to pay to obtain this particular stock. it comes and goes with good or bad news, newspaper's front page, media coverage, etc... just look up bbd. price is more or less bs because it will always have a tendency to go back to its value when tough times show up UNLESS the company is in a solid good economic health.
however a significant drop or rally has its reason. It's interesting to know why.

[Duke p]

Mostly just tired of Realitychex.......his/her argument did nothing to explain why Air Canada still exists today......and in it's current form.

I think he has explained that tirelessly. A low interest rate environment combined with cheap fuel is funding an irrational expansion. Why is it irrational? Growth is sacrificing yield for marketshare. Why do I care? Our WS stock price, which is now only rising after a year of decline. Why did that happen? The street became concerned in 2014 that our competitor is engaging in destructive completion for marketshare. (Our stock started its decline prior to the Alberta economic concerns) Does ESPP align the interests of the employee with the interests of the company? YES!!!!!!

Realitychex, I suppose AMS would be also be grouped with CDG as an over serve market?

"Irrational growth".........irrational based on what exactly?? You know nothing of the go forward strategy....it doesn't "look right" to you, and you don't understand it, hence.....???

CEO's, brilliant CEO's I might add, care not what you deem "irrational".

There is a plan......just watch, and quote me later.

DP.

[Fanblade]

A low interest rate environment combined with cheap fuel is funding an irrational expansion. Why is it irrational? Growth is sacrificing yield for marketshare.

Air Canada and US airways were the only two airlines in North America to follow the Seabury plan of chasing yield following the bankruptcies of the early to mid 2000's. Use of smaller aircraft to attempt to right size a market. Keep supply tight and yield high. It doesn't work. US Airways went bankrupt twice. Air Canada went bankrupt almost twice. US Airways started their upguaging and densification process ( chasing CASM) by the end of last decade. Air Canada not wiping their balance sheet clean a second time, took well into 2012 to begin the upguaging process. This is a transition that continues today and will not be complete for a few years to come.

A couple of examples.

5 years ago YYZ - YVR was almost entirely narrow body. Today the route has five flights a day less, yet an increase of seats available as the route has transitioned to far more wide bodies. Remember many of these wide bodies coming into the fleet are narrow body replacement, rather than fin growth. AC has shed 35 narrow bodies in the last 4 years.

5 years from now AC's tier two feeders will be the same size as they were 5 years ago. But they too are going through fleet renewal and upguaging. Same amount of aircraft but twice the amount of seats.

The vast majority of AC's growth is not flights or destinations. It's mostly seat growth through upguaging, densification and better utilization. AC's overall fin count has barely changed. Pilot numbers are up but only by a couple hundred. Normal retirement rates of 100-150/year are transitioning back, so although hiring is strong attrition is increasing.

So what is actually going on? What does upguaging and densification do to yield/revenue/CASM? The densification happens in cattle class. This drives down the yield/seat mile of the entire aircraft because the percentage of cheap seats increases. This creates a situation of decreasing yield/seat but an overall increase in revenue. Upguaging and densification also drive CASM down. So although yield/seat is dropping, revenue/flight is climbing and CASM dropping. So long as CASM drops faster than RASM all is good. This isn't Majic. AC is simply following the lead of the America legacy carriers, albeit 10 years behind.

Why do I care? Our WS stock price, which is now only rising after a year of decline. Why did that happen? The street became concerned in 2014 that our competitor is engaging in destructive completion for marketshare. (Our stock started its decline prior to the Alberta economic concerns) Does ESPP align the interests of the employee with the interests of the company? YES!!!!!!

Your competitor is not behaving in a destructive manor. They are evolving into a better competitor. Slowly moving away from one business model in the direction of another. That won't change. I admit there has been a lot of misunderstanding about how and why AC is transitioning from one business model to another. However if you understand it, you quickly realize why it makes sence. The model in simple terms is to gauge match or out gauge your competitor.

The small jet purchase was probably one of the biggest gaffs in AC history. Notice how I can be critical yet at the same time supportive of the company I work for. They made a large error. WJ has benefited from that error. As the error gets corrected competition will increase.

WJ is also evolving. I suspect they too will start to follow suit with larger aircraft. That's what competitors do. You have already started with dumping some 600's in favor of 800's. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see an increase of widebody transcon. I don't believe WJ might make a widebody order soon. I believe they have no choice but to make one. I suspect those Max-7's might become -8/9's as well.

Cheers.

[Airbrake]

"WJ is also evolving. I suspect they too will start to follow suit with larger aircraft. That's what competitors do. You have already started with dumping some 600's in favor of 800's. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see an increase of widebody transcon. I don't believe WJ might make a widebody order soon. I believe they have no choice but to make one. I suspect those Max-7's might become -8/9's as well."


WestJet has not offloaded any -600's yet. Attempted but found no takers.

[Fanblade]

I thought Southwest took a half dozen 600's?

Not that it makes much difference. There is no difference between actually of loading, and attempted offloading, when both speak to the lack of desirability of a smaller narrow body.

[mikeecho]

CEO's, brilliant CEO's I might add, care not what you deem "irrational".

I'd suggest that the opposite it likely true based on his resume.

[Realitychex]

Transat's comments after their "winter best forgotten".

"As far as summer is concerned, the steep 15 per cent increase in capacity on the transatlantic market is affecting prices and load factors … We expect to report results inferior to those of the record summer seasons we have seen in recent years.”

"Summer 2016 – The transatlantic market outbound from Canada and Europe accounts for a substantial portion of Transat's business during the summer season. For the period May to October 2016, total industry capacity is higher by 15%, while that of the Corporation is higher by 7%. To date, Transat's load factors on that market are lower by 3.3% than those of summer 2015, 62% of the capacity has been sold, and selling prices of bookings taken are lower by 6.3% than those recorded at the same date in 2015."

No one should be surprised by this.

There is ample evidence out the ying yang that Transat is not the only carrier seeing this situation. YOY fares to London are down somewhere around 14-17% and loads can't get much better than they were in the spring / summer of 2015 to make up for it because they were already full.

Besides, we've all seen the results of the " lose a little on every seat but make it up on volume" strategy

Lest there are any concerns that WS is flying empty iron across the Atlantic, try to book a non-stop seat across the Atlantic from YYZ or YYC this evening. Both are sold out. Again.

One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the precipitous decline in yields, all yields, will do to route profitability.

This pattern has been going on for 20 years. The most recent example is Toronto to Nashville. After a week in the market, try buying a seat on next Monday's BNA - YYZ flight.

Next up will be the claims that certain airlines are immune to yield erosion for reasons unknown, just like they've been immune to LCC competition in every other market they've ever contested over the past 20 years. But London is, um, er, "different".

[ckl]

''A terrible experience all around"
Kelly Freer (Canada) 9th June 2016

'' Verified Review | A terrible experience all around with Westjet to Gatwick, and will fly Air Canada next time as it provides more gratis services and more reliable entertainment that works for the whole flight. For our flight there we had no entertainment and the flight home it was off and on. As far as food goes we each paid 15$ for a pre-order meal, and in comparison there are free ones on Air Canada or Lufthansa. It also came to us 4 hrs into our overnight flight, when at that point we just wanted to sleep. The overhead lights were off for maybe an hour, so sleeping on the overnight flight was practically impossible anyway. Flight attendants barely came around with water on the flight there and everybody was so parched people were asking for two glasses unsure of when the next time they would come by. You have to pay for your first checked bag even though it is an international flight which makes boarding a nightmare for all of the oversized carry ons. The booze is not free on this international flight so don't even think you'll get relief from that." . . ....... With reviews like that I guess WestJet does not care about repeat business.

[Realitychex]

''A terrible experience all around"
Kelly Freer (Canada) 9th June 2016

'' Verified Review | A terrible experience all around with Westjet to Gatwick, and will fly Air Canada next time as it provides more gratis services and more reliable entertainment that works for the whole flight. For our flight there we had no entertainment and the flight home it was off and on. As far as food goes we each paid 15$ for a pre-order meal, and in comparison there are free ones on Air Canada or Lufthansa. It also came to us 4 hrs into our overnight flight, when at that point we just wanted to sleep. The overhead lights were off for maybe an hour, so sleeping on the overnight flight was practically impossible anyway. Flight attendants barely came around with water on the flight there and everybody was so parched people were asking for two glasses unsure of when the next time they would come by. You have to pay for your first checked bag even though it is an international flight which makes boarding a nightmare for all of the oversized carry ons. The booze is not free on this international flight so don't even think you'll get relief from that." . . ....... With reviews like that I guess WestJet does not care about repeat business.

Really? You want to go there?

Jesper Andersson (Denmark) 26th May 2016

Verified Review | I flew with Air Canada Rouge from Lima to Toronto . All in all a really bad experience and if you can avoid them do it! For a 7,5 hour long flight there wasn't an IFE screen at the seats. The seats were cramped and uncomfortable. The food was not that good and the only option there was, was egg as they ran out of the other option which was chicken.

Did anyone else happen to look at AA and UAL' s May traffic release? TATL numbers? Combined with YOY prasm declines?

Lookin' good eh?

What me worry?

[ckl]

"There wasn't an IFE screen at the seats"? Wireless streaming of movies and more, direct to your personal electronic device is the standard on all Rouge aircraft which I suspect is the standard on a WestJet 767-300 also.

[Old fella]

Reading those posted "reviews" it clear people demand 5 star service from their " taxi cab" airfares. If WJ/Rouge doesn't appeal or reviews are uncertain,the options are J class from AC or equivalent from another major carrier.