Brian,

Looking at the how is Porter doing document makes me chuckle again at how you present information and ignore Business 101. My first comment is it would have been relavent if the RPM in Graph 1 reflected all of the months of 2009.

That being said, you as always ignore the fact that all businesses have seasonality (i.e. different traffic patterns at different times of year). If you compare the traffic of 2009 to 2010 you will see that the graph shows a similar pattern up traffic going up or down in comparisson to the previous years comparable month. If you compare Sept to December of 2009 to 2010 you will notice that there are (assuming your graph is accurate)that traffic in October increased over september and then declined in November and then increased n December. In short they are following the same pattern. I have not ran the numbers but I am sure if you put up 2009, you will see a similar pattern as well. Additionally, if you were to take the time to map Air Canada and Westjet, I would bet that you would find something similar.

You keep commenting on the 30% discounts that Porter is running and claim that this is a sign of desparation. However, if you were to look at the rate that Air Canada and Westjet are charging for the same route, you will find that the rates are comparable. In other words Porter is charging market pricing for their routes and the carrot that they are providing to their customers is a 30% discount. (Marketing 101 how do you get your customer's attention.)

You compare the load factor of Westjet and Air Canada to Porter, once again saying there is a problem. They are running a different busines model than the other two airlines and have a different cost structure(Business Strategy 101. Air Canada runs with a 78.8% load rate and had a small loss, while Westjet is possible with a load rate of 79.9%. Porter is bear breakeven with a load rate of about 50% (which is what Porter was saying was true all along). Now an additional factor to Porter is that they have abnormal costs due to their start up (new staff, training, equipment, inefficiencies) and they are near breakeven that is a good business task. How long has Air Canada tried to stay consistently profitable. They recently had to sell assets to lease back to raise money (Porer has this option if needed), they have taken loans from suppliers (i.e. Aeroplan) and are currently in the process of refinancing their operations.

Brian, an interesting note about Porter's competitiveness, it has about a 30% market share for flights to Montreal, which is a head of Westjet, which implies they are doing somethings right.

Brian, maybe it is time to move on from trying to predict the death of an employer, why don't you put the issue back on to the airport on the island.

Rob