Yet another aviation thread.

Quote: Nareed

Last year, around March, I did do a price comparison between Interjet and Volaris for a MEX/TLC-LAS roundtrip, taking into account the luggage allowance and the transportation costs to TLC(*). Leaving frequencies aside (Volaris flies daily, Interjet only Thursdays and Sundays), Interjet was cheaper, and they have a lot more legroom.

How about tolls and parking at TLC airport as an option?

That's a very common acronym in American English (I don't know about British or Canadian English ). TLC means "Tender Loving Care", but it is usually used in very practical ways. Like your car needs some TLC if you are ever going to sell it. The TV channel used the acronym since it was so well known, but called the network "The Learning Channel".

The squeeze is always somewhere.

Generous seating, generous booze, low tickets.... so okay, tell me about offshore maintenance or something like that. Salaries? training? Redundancy? Somewhere there is a squeeze there always is.

Quote: Fleastiff

The squeeze is always somewhere.

That's why I want to see the books. I can't figure out where the squeeze is coming from. If it was just Mexican salaries, then Volaris and VivaAerobus would have more luxurious seating for passengers. Instead, they are as stingy as Allegiant and Spirit Airlines.

I swear it has occurred to me that they are smuggling drugs, hence they don't care if the passenger airline business is profitable because it's all a front. But that seems ridiculous.

Quote: Pacomartin

I swear it has occurred to me that they are smuggling drugs, hence they don't care if the passenger airline business is profitable because it's all a front. But that seems ridiculous.

Highly improbable. I mean, not for ten years. Ditto as a front for laundering money.

Maybe the owner is like Charles Foster Kane. You know, when talking about his newspaper: "I lost a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. At this rate I'll go broke... in sixty seven years."

I don't know that Interjet's profitable. Perhaps the owner barely breaks even but likes owning an airline? Maybe he loses oodles of money and uses the losses to reduce his tax burden from other businesses?

BTW, there's virtually no entertainment onboard, save for overhead screens which often don't even work. I've never seen one person request earphones, or plug their own pair into the arm rest socket. Of course I don't see every passenger, but still. I know I've never asked for earphones or plugged mine. The socket is for a double prong anyway.

Lately they've been adding ads stuck on the tray tables. But I doubt that brings in much.

Quote: Pacomartin

I swear it has occurred to me that they are smuggling drugs, hence they don't care if the passenger airline business is profitable because it's all a front. But that seems ridiculous.

I would not consider it ridiculous, particularly if the entire airline shielded only a few drug trips. Ever since the sixties there has been a premium paid for delivery pilots who were as reliable as FedEx. Many planes were overloaded many pilots were of less than average skill and often loads were lost; word got around about ultra reliable pilots who did not lose loads.

I think maintenance is rife with opportunities to cut costs. I think I've posted before about one plane owner who had nine "cheapie annual inspections" but for some reason he was forced to go to a decent mechanic and his plane was grounded for having an altimeter that had been recalled twelve years earlier. All the inspections had been relatively honest, but the cheapies take too many short cuts.

Quote: Nareed

Highly improbable. I mean, not for ten years. Ditto as a front for laundering money.

Maybe the owner is like Charles Foster Kane. You know, when talking about his newspaper: "I lost a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. At this rate I'll go broke... in sixty seven years."

While Mexican airlines are small relative to USA airlines, they are still billion dollar a year businesses. I doubt very much it is a vanity operation. I am kidding about the illegal operations, but I just can't figure out why most airlines say they would go broke doing half that stuff.

Annual Revenue
Allegiant US$1.1 billion (FY 2014)
Spirit US$1.93 billion (2014)
Volaris = Ps. 18.18 billion (FY2015)~ US$1 billion (1 USD = 18.4507 MXN)
Aeromexico ~ US$3 billion
Alaska Air Group US$5.6 billion
Southwest Airlines US$20 billion
American Airlines US$41 billion
United Airlines US$39 billion
Delta Airlines US$41 billion

Quote: Pacomartin

[..]but I just can't figure out why most airlines say they would go broke doing half that stuff.

"Everybody lies." Gregory house MD.

One reason smoking was banned on all flights, very loudly stated even before a total ban took place, was that passengers breathe recirculated air while on a plane, and increasing ventilation with bleed air would cost a lot in fuel.

Fast forward to a few years ago when the swine flu scare was in full force. airlines ran commercials on TV boasting how quickly their ventilation systems, using bleed air from the engines, completely replace the cabin's air.

So which is it?

Both. Some air recirculates, but to maintain cabin pressure you need to constantly inject air into the cabin, which is bleed air from the engines. In order to keep the cabin air from growing stale, you also vent out some air. Overall an A320 goes through a full volume of cabin air about every 15-20 minutes.

"If we can't lie, we can make the truth lie for us." Isaac Asimov PhD.


Also, surely you've heard the time-worn cliché that airline profit margins are so thin they make razor-thin margins look like the walls of a dam? This is coupled with a belief that most airlines never make any profit.

If that were true, there'd be no airlines at all anywhere, or they'd all be government-owned and operated as essential services, kind of what happened to passenger trains in America.

I won't go into specifics because I don't know them, but no company stays in business for decades, nor grows from rickety piston planes to sleek wide body jets over that period, if it isn't profitable the majority of the time.

Meanwhile the real problem with the air in the cabin is the lack of humidity.

Quote: Pacomartin

I can't figure out where the squeeze is coming from.

Not maintenance, at least not for Volaris and Interjet. Volaris has been named one of the safest low cost airlines. INterjet, as I mentioned, owns and operates and A320 family (ie A318-319-320-321) maintenance facility at TLC, which has one of those fancy quality certifications from the FAA. Or just look them up in the Aviation Herald website. There are very few incidents, all of them rather minor.

Actually Mexican civil aviation has had few fatal accidents in the jet age. I recall only two in my lifetime (there have been more, but not since the late 70s). One was an AM DC-9 that crashed mid-air with a prop plane that strayed into LAX's restricted airspace (a consequence of that accident was the development of TCAS). The other was a Mexicana plane that went down when a tire blew inside the wheel well mid flight.

I think a TAESA old 737 crashed a few years back, but I'm not sure and don't recall much about it.

A Western airlines jet landed at a runway under repair at MEX, which was full of heavy machinery parked there for the night.

I know of other two, but these did not involve airlines. One was a cargo prop plane carrying horses and some passengers. The other was a business jet a few years ago, which killed then-president Calderon's right hand man in his cabinet.

I wonder how the fatalities per passenger-miles flown compares between Mexico and the US

Quote: Nareed

I wonder how the fatalities per passenger-miles flown compares between Mexico and the US

Virtually meaningless statistic. You are better off dealing with number of incidents per Takeoff and Landing. Nothing much happens in between but reading the WSJ and some lap sitting from a stewardess.