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Comment by mhb | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it's marketing genius, but I don't understand some of his reasoning.

Obviously all the airlines don't want anyone carrying bags on the plane. Why is having a consistent load factor an enabler for Southwest to fly checked bags for free? Why does it matter that the bags are being moved between the same types of aircraft?

You could equally well imagine the argument that it makes sense to use an "agile" strategy in which aircraft with different load factors are deployed based on the type of travel expected.

I'm sure having only one aircraft and picking routes for which that aircraft is suitable has tons of benefits for Southwest, but his blog doesn't explain why that is an enabler for the free checked bag policy (other than creating efficiencies which generate enough profit to offer any perks). Would it be "marketing genius" to offer free meals on planes?

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The airport charges the airlines for handling bags, only a couple of $ but the cash strapped airlines want to get that back from you and by the time they have collected the money and processed the fee it ends up costing them $10-15 so they charge you $20-25 - this makes their little MBAs heart's sing .

What they don't realize (presumably never having flown cattle class) and Southwestern do - is this means everyone carries a roll-on bag and spends 20minutes trying to fit it into the overhead and another 20mins trying to get it out - so the airlines has saved a $1 handling fee but has a plane tied up for an extra 30-40minutes at the gate, costing $50K/hour!

What actually happens on most airlines is they end up gate checking your bags anyway. This means they need more ramp staff to handle them and have an even longer delay as everybody climbs over each other on the jetbridge trying to find their identical roll on.

He explained it in the paragraph that starts with "Other airlines either don't get it, or can't" - different-sized planes accomodate different amounts of luggage per passenger, so there's a risk that they'll run out of room for all the baggage when passengers transfer to smaller planes. Identical planes eliminate this risk.

I didn't realize that when your luggage is 'lost' on a multi-stop flight, it could actually be a deliberate decision on the part of the airline due to lack of capacity. I'd actually rather they told me that.

Right.

Plus many carriers store luggage in 'cartons' - metal containers with the bags stacked inside. These are put on with a special forklift thing. Essentially offloading all of these can happen fast. If you are being super smart, you can stick connecting flight backs in these cartons, and literally just drive over to the next flight and load.

Right. But the different types of planes are going to different destinations. So you would fly your 737 to your hub and then use a plane with more cargo space for the flights expected to have scuba gear or skis. In this way a mix of planes might be more efficient.

Having a more varied fleet would be vastly more expensive for Southwest to maintain, because they've bet heavily on having fleet consistency. Their ability to handle baggage easily is only one aspect of this, and probably not the biggest one (I would guess spare parts is bigger). Other airlines that already have a varied fleet might be able to pull it off, but there's still large logistical issues.

All of Southwest's planes are interchangeable. They only need one collection of spare parts for maintenance. If one plane needs to be taken out of service, it can be replaced by any other plane in the network. They only need one type of spare plane at each airport to cover contingencies. Their pilots and crew can all be re-assigned with negligible attention to specialization, certification, or even number of crew per flight. Any place that has a SWA connection will always have the correct capabilities for any flight that goes to or through that airport. They can make logistic changes to their network without considering compatibility issues.

Compare this to an airline that dynamically re-adjusts the type of plane. You generally don't know baggage capacity until shortly before takeoff (unless you want to make everyone declare far in advance, which is itself a burden on travelers). This means that you need to either keep a bunch of spare planes of varying types at each airport, or fly empty planes around to meet demand, both of which are expensive. You also have to deal with, say, Denver having more 737s going in than out, and extra 757s piling up in Maui. In order to correct that you need to either fly empty planes, or use the wrong type of plane on some flights, probably over-large ones. Basically, airplanes are too big and expensive to realistically adopt "agility" as a business strategy. The overhead for preparing for/dealing with statistical anomalies piles up fast.

Southwest's airplanes aren't quite identical. They fly 737-300's and -700's. The 300's are a bit smaller, with a lower service ceiling and a shorter range. At present, the 300's also have older avionics. They are not completely interchangeable.

Still, maintaining only two types of airplanes that are very close to the same size and specs is a lot easier than maintaining ten types of airplanes with very different sizes and specs. The extra expense of sending a 700 on a flight that's only full enough to require a 300 (because they need a 700 on the other end) is much smaller than, say, the expense of flying a 747 for a route that only needs a 737. The extra expense of bumping one or two people (and giving them free flight vouchers) to free up a slightly larger plane for a different route is also quite small.

As you correctly note, there are a lot of efficiencies that come in to play from having a nearly-uniform fleet.

But it doesn't give them much negotiating power with Boeing.

That's why Easyjet recently bought a bunch of A320s, you can bet the next round of shopping at Boeing will be a lot more interesting.

"Why is having a consistent load factor an enabler for Southwest to fly checked bags for free? Why does it matter that the bags are being moved between the same types of aircraft?"

Having the same airframe means no surprises when loading baggage. This is huge when transferring planes: if both are the same type then every bag will make the transfer, if not, some will and some won't. This enables SWA to encourage checked baggage since they can pretty much guarantee that your bag will make the trip without having to spend additional time at the gate to offload passengers who carry-on all of their bags.

Having a consistent load factor reduces risk.

One risk is not being able to transfer luggage from one flight to the next, and if this happens then the airline loses money by having to fix the problem.

One of the biggest costs for an airline is fuel. By reducing uncertainty in load, this makes planning less risky and the company can make better decisions.

This reduces the cost of checked luggage, which they can then turn into a competitive advantage. Customers can check in their baggage without additional costs. Checked bagged is more efficient to load, hence the planes can be loaded and unloaded more efficiently, so more flights can be made.

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