Song Alert from WSJ

[CarolA]

From today's Wall Street Journal
In today's Wall Street Journal:


Delta plans to drop nearly one-third of the flights at its low-fare Song unit from its schedule in September. The move is likely to fuel speculation that Song's future is up in the air as Delta struggles to cut its costs and avert bankruptcy-court protection filing.

The airline will suspend 41 of Song's 140 daily flights in September. Among the routes losing flights are Los Angeles to Tampa, Fla., and Los Angeles to Orlando, Fla., both being cut to one flight a day from the current two flights a day.

James Parker, an aviation analyst at Raymond James & Associates, said the suspensions are "a further admission that Song is not working."

Launched in April 2003, Song was formed to operate at lower costs while providing perks such as leather seats and in-flight television. Atlanta-based Delta spent $65 million to launch the airline-within an airline experiment. Low-fare upstarts such as JetBlue Airways have invaded Delta's turf along the East Coast, and Song once was headed for a coast-to-coast rollout.

Song's expansion was put on hold earlier this year as part of a review of Delta's operations under new chief executive Gerald Grinstein. One of Song's biggest supporters was Leo Mullin, Delta's former CEO, who left earlier this year.

Mr. Grinstein, in an April letter, congratulated Song's staff for achieving "operating costs that are 20% below those for mainline 757s." But he has said Song's continued existence is being studied.

 

[gallaj0]

Great, now I have all summer to worry, we're flying Bos to MCO in Aug, and MCO to BOS in Sept.
I noticed the flights weren't filling up the way they did last year, and the price even dropped back to 87 each way from 104.

JetBlue is starting to look better and better, And I have been a Song fan since they started.

 

[goofy4tink]

Oh no. Hopefully my Thanksgiving flights will be fine. That one is almost completely full. Not that that makes much difference to the airlines. Anyone have any insight into what we should do? Are we better off waiting for Sept to see if we're affected? I don't want to cancel my flight if they are going to keep it.

 

[gallaj0]

Hi, Tink;
if you're looking for an opinion, I'm just going to hold onto our reservations asn see what happens in Sept. If anything happens to the Song flights, Delta still runs plenty of planes from MCO to BOS, and I would think they would have to offer them to Song passengers.

I don't think they would outright cancel all the Song flights from BOS to MCO unless the whole company just folded; Delta has always had a "low cost" branch running from BOS to MCO, it was delta connections before, and the BOS to MCO run was one of the orginal Song runs because it did good business.

If it gets closer and the flights get cut, and they don't offer something comparable on Delta, you can always get you money back and try JetBlue.

 

[CarolA]

I got this from Flyertalk.com and the theory there is that the NE flights (like Boston) are pretty safe. Notice the article only talks about the West Coast.

 

[goofy4tink]

Well, talk about panic mode! Completely forgot about Delta having their own flights. Duh!!! What an idiot. I'm better now. Thanks for talking me down, so to speak.

 

[SyracuseWolvrine]

Delta is also in an alliance partnership with Northwest and Continental. If you book with Delta (or Song), the contract of carriage requires them to get you to your destination, or refund your money. If the song flight is cancelled, they'll reaccomodate pax on either DL, NW, or CO (DL first, then the other 2 as a last resort) (probably easier for them to reacommodate than to refund)

 

[alexturner74]

The Song cutbacks are just temporary, for September only. September is the slowest operational month for most airlines. It's after Labor day and everyone is going back to school, etc. For Song, it provides a good opportunity to cutback the schedule, and do some scheduled maintenance on the aircraft without disrupting passengers. The only downside is that if you are one of those who do prefer to travel in September, you may have fewer flight choices with Song.

 

[goofy4tink]

Aahhhhh. Thanks for the insights. I'm feeling much better now. That does make sense.

 

[seashoreCM]

Some past experience to extrapolate from...

I was booked on Delta Express over Thanksgiving 2001. Shortly after the big 9/11 Delta cancelled some of the MCO(-BOS) nonstop flights including one of mine. Despite the fact the flights were full according to seat maps.

Eventually they put me on an agreeable alternate flight.

They did stress on their web site that they had plenty of seats on connecting flights going through Atlanta and Cincinnati.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

A detail of minutiae...

When Delta cancelled my flight, their system "automatically" assigned me to another flight, which when I looked seemed OK. I did nothing. A few days later I was "automatically" switched to yett another flight which I did not like as much. (They explained that the last switch occurred because the first switch piled many too many people on some flights. I was explaining that I had made the ressie way back in January and could have chosen either flight and had no way of knowing which flight would still exist. They did give me something I lliked.) From various hearsay, I now conclude that what you need to do is this. If you discover a change to a different flight but the flight is still acceptable, call quickly anyway and ask for seat assignments. This "accepts" the change and IMHO reduces the chance of a second or third automatic switch that may be less desirable. (If the automatic switch is not what you liked you would have some flights that you did like in mind when you called.)

 

[cigar95]

Speaking from my selfish perspective, I just checked to find that the Los Angeles - Orlando flights that Song is keeping are the ones I am already booked on for a mid-September visit.

This surprised me a bit, as I would think it more likely that a mid-morning flight would survive than a redeye. On the return flight, I guess it makes sense that they'd keep the 7pm flight and drop the 7am one.

As long as there are non-stop redeyes from LAX to MCO, it won't make a difference to me whether the flight is run by Song or by Delta - the prices seem to be about the same, and I do my best to be asleep as much as possible.

 

[seashoreCM]

A little secret -- Song's flight schedule works better with overnight eastbound and evening westbound on the transcontinental runs. This is because the same plane does northeast to Florida runs or Atlanta to Florida runs during the daytime. There is just enough time to get out west and load up for the return before the Los Angeles airport closes and arrive in Orlando just in time for that airport to re-open in the morning.

With two flights a day to and from LAX, that run needs its own plane which could fly both round trips, and more planes that do the northeast routes sit idle overnight.