Author: Chet

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Great time to start an airline

This post picks up on one of my favorite themes from my previous blog at chetrichards.com, namely that the US airline industry is working as hard as it can to put itself out of business, and this generates opportunities for someone else.

First, to recap, the “legacy” carriers, those who were here before deregulation in 1978, appear to have only one business strategy: wring maximum revenue out of their product, while reducing its cost wherever possible. Thus, distance between seats becomes smaller, planes are fuller (though there are fewer of them — available seat miles are down about 6% from 2000) — and hardly anything except the seat itself is included in the price.  Classic description of a commodity.

Is this the way it has to be?  Consider a few points:

  • In Europe, high speed rail is replacing air travel on city pairs where they compete.  Thousands of miles are complete for trains traveling over about 130 mph and some clip along at over 200 mph.  On city pairs where they compete, high speed trains have taken a big chunk of the airlines’ business, to the point that only people who can’t afford the train have to use airplanes.
  • In many businesses, people will pay more, sometimes considerably more, for what they see as either a better product or better service.  Will a Lexus get you downtown any faster than a Toyota?  And realistically, what does a Mac do that a PC won’t?
  • Of course, there’s always business class. Let’s compare some fares, ATL – LAX, 18 – 25 August (all on Delta) nonstops:  Coach $248; business$1,242.  International?  ATL – LHR coach $1,082; business $5,182.  This gap has always presented an attractive target, but nobody seems to have figured out how to hit it, aside from a few niche players like Virgin’s Premium Economy.

Now, I’m typing this on my MacBook, so you may be able to figure out where I’m headed.

Air Apple

Why not?  Speaking of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson leveraged his way from a record shop to an airline empire.  I’ve flown their Australian service, which is as good as it gets in the discount airline business.  But he’s still offering the same service as everybody else and is still competing on price for most of his product.  Commodity.

Key point: But Apple has already established that people will pay more for its brand.  Is there a way to transfer that willingness to pay more to the transportation business?    Here’s my guess as to what it would have to be:

  • Hassle free.  That’s how Apple conquered the music player business, recall.  In the early days, it wasn’t just the ridiculously expensive iPod, but the entire iPod / iTunes ecosystem.  Unlike their competition at the time [remember “Plays4Sure,” which didn’t?] it was easy and it worked.  Plus it was fun.  Hassle free, at least compared to the competition, and at a very premium price.  In today’s security environment, this is going to be a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity.  Southwest has taken the hassle-free concept a ways (unfortunately they haven’t been able to summon up the courage to fly to Atlanta), but I think there’s a lot more that could be done.  I just don’t know what it is.
  • Great customer service, again, though, at a price:  AppleCare for a 13″ MacBook Pro, roughly my computer today, is $249.
  • Cachet — This isn’t so true today, at least for computers, but when I first started buying Macs, they did attract attention (with about 2.5% market share).  Frankly, I think Apple is running a real risk here.  On the other hand, how many iPhone 4s have they sold?
  • Better than what’s out there today.  Fact is, for years, Macs have received the highest reliability ratings, and many reviewers continue to praise OS X as easier to use and more stable than even Windows 7 (which is quite nice, by the way).  Can this be transferred to the air travel experience?  Who would have thought it could be transferred to cell phones or retail stores?
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Update for Joe Queenan

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education recently named Ole Miss the “most appealing” college.

As the current chancellor of the university put it:

These respected authors spent years visiting colleges and universities. They cite 11 outstanding colleges and universities that are doing a good job, including MIT, Notre Dame, Arizona State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and others. But they note “we have found Ole Miss THE MOST appealing.”

The authors highlight a transformation at Ole Miss and appropriately attribute much of the progress to the leadership of Chancellor Robert Khayat. Early in his tenure as chancellor, he said that “The University of Mississippi should strive to be and be perceived as a great American public university.” In many ways, this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education fulfills that vision.

Just thought you might want to know.

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DNI Relaunches

Defense and the National Interest, the real one, not the faux site now at d-n-i.net, has relaunched courtesy of our friends at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

For the time being, it’s an archive — new content isn’t being added — and we’re still in the process of tracking down some of the original files.  Please let POGO know when you find broken links.

When DNI launched in 1999 it was unique:  The only site devoted to furthering the concepts originated by the late USAF Col John Boyd, and its original mission was to house Chuck Spinney’s commentary that applied Boyd’s strategy, and his own insightful analysis, to issues concerning national security.  Today, there are any number of sites that provide cutting edge commentary, including zenpundit, John Robb, Tom Barnett, and Fabius Maximus.  Please visit them and contribute.

POGO’s press release announcing the reposting of DNI follows after the fold.

Continue reading →

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Ben was a better man than thou

From Today’s New York Times, the wisdom of sage Joe Queenan:

Thus, I was thrilled when my son decided to attend Franklin & Marshall College, founded in 1787 with £200 ponied up by Franklin, even though the tuition nearly bankrupted me. I would not have footed the bill had he decided to attend, say, Ole Miss or Central Connecticut State or Oral Roberts. I just wouldn’t have.

So, what did your son get for this budget-busting tuition?  The ability to critique Ben Franklin as does his old man?  Joe, for example, hammers Ben Franklin for being an idiot:

Why would the wise man walk, not run, when escaping from fire, a woman or an enemy? I’d run.

Well, Joe, perhaps as this Ole Miss graduate can explain to you, you might walk, rather than run, for several reasons:

  • So you don’t trip or knock into people, particularly those who are trying to deal with the problem
  • So you don’t give aid and comfort to the enemy by running away
  • So you don’t panic everybody around you
  • So you maintain your options and agility — easier to make an abrupt shift in directions when you don’t have so much momentum
  • So you stay oriented — again easier to do if you keep your head up looking around

Yes, Joe.  Amazing what you can learn at a state land grant university, in this case one offering more than 40 accredited doctoral programs, with the active research programs that support them (compare to F&M’s … zero).  And you didn’t want to write a check to Ole Miss because …

[John Boyd, the person whose work inspired my short list, had degrees from  the University of Iowa and Georgia Tech, both state-supported schools that would not have “nearly bankrupted” Queenan.  Guess that he wouldn’t have written a check to them, either.]

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Are India’s Maoist rebels winning the war?

Title of an article in today’s BBC News online by Soutik Biswas.

The fact that the question can even be asked tells you the answer.

As the article notes, the Naxelite insurgency follows the classical pattern identified by Boyd:

They feel ignored and deprived by the Communist government [CR note:  “Communist government” !!!?] which has been ruling the state since 1977. Most live in abject poverty. The only visible signs of “development” I spotted during a trip to the area some years ago were cheap liquor shops.

Continue reading →

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People thoughts, etc., etc.

I don’t want to bore you all, but it’s hard to think of a more important topic in this day and time.  So far, I’ve mentioned the Naxelites in India and Jamaican drug gangs.  But the gold standard for swimming in the sea of the people nowadays is probably Hezbollah:

Ten years on since the withdrawal, the UN together with the Lebanese army patrol the border area. But flapping in the breeze along the fence are yellow and green flags of Hezbollah. Waving next to them is the flag of the group’s biggest foreign backer – Iran.

It is Hezbollah that has real control over what happens in southern Lebanon and many villagers say they like the arrangement.

“It’s the resistance, its weapons and [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah who make us feel safe here,” says Fawwaz Mohammed. “Without the resistance we could never be free.”

Update on Jamaica — reports that “thousands” of troops have assaulted Dudus’s stronghold.  The fact that, two days later, they’re still assaulting it tells you something.  Whether they eventually capture Christoper “Dudus” Cook, this cannot turn out well for Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding.  For one thing, Dudus’s gang, the “Shower Posse,” is (was?) closely affiliated with Golding’s ruling Labor Party.  And by launching the assault after initially resisting the US demand for Dudus’s extradition, Golding paints himself as more attuned to American interests than those of his constituents and countrymen.

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We didn’t expect to be treated like this

Not from Toyota:

Five months before the new 2002 Lexus ES hit showroom floors, the company’s U.S. engineers sent a test report to Toyota City in Japan: The luxury sedan shifted gears so roughly that it was “not acceptable for production.”

The warning was sent to Toyota Executive Vice President Katsuaki Watanabe on May 16, 2001. Days later, another Japanese executive sent an e-mail to top managers saying that despite misgivings among U.S. officials, the 2002 Lexus was “marginally acceptable for production.” The new ES went on sale across the nation on Oct. 1, 2001.

From “Toyota took cost-cutting approach on lurching Lexus models, records show,” Ken Binsinger, LA Times, 23 May 2010.

You can practice the Toyota Production System all you want, but by treating your customers — Lexus customer, no less — with such contempt, it all goes for nought.  The moral level trumps the mental and the physical, in business as in war.

Here’s a thought:

Moral isolation

occurs when we fail to abide by codes of conduct or standards of behavior in a manner deemed acceptable or essential by others outside ourselves.

From Strategic Game of ? and ?, J. R. Boyd, June 1987.  As Boyd notes  few charts later, your competitors cannot morally isolate you — that’s something you have to do to yourself (although competitors can make sure you get full credit for your actions).

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People thoughts must become guerrilla thoughts

Latest in a series.

For an example of how it’s done, read the Guardian’s series on Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a gang lord from Jamaica:

Coke is described as one of the world’s most dangerous druglords by the US justice department.

…

To the residents of Tivoli Gardens, the poor west side of Kingston where his gang has immense support, he is the benefactor who provides them with food, acts as mediator in disputes and even sends their children to school. They call him Presi, Bossy, Shortman or, most commonly, Dudus.

Residents, not affiliated with the gang, have erected their own barricades:

In the centre of Kingston today, residents could be seen standing behind roadblocks on street corners. Several barricades appeared to have been erected not by gunmen or gang members, but by ordinary residents seeking to protect themselves, or to obstruct the police, who often have a poor reputation for corruption and brutality.

A similar situation erupted in Brazil in 2006, when a gang called the First Command of the Capital shut down Sao Paulo for several days.

What could happen in Jamaica is that the government takes such losses in combating the gangs that its police and security forces refuse to engage.  At this point, the state has failed, and it will probably require massive and expensive intervention by the US to prop up some semblance of a government.  The alternative, that Jamaica, like India, works out a modus vivendi with the mini-state in its midst, was foreclosed when the US decided to force Jamaica to honor the American request to extradite Dudus to New York.  We should be careful what we wish for.