Posted by Seth on February 26, 2010 under Trip Reports | 
And it sucks. Mostly because I found alternate flight options and the folks at Continental were unwilling to rebook them and then when I finally found someone who would the flights were sold out. But that’s just part of the fun.
Trying to get to Las Vegas out of anywhere in the Washington, DC – Boston area and not having much luck at all. Sure, I found options. The first couple were even codeshare partners with Continental. But the first call got disconnected after 30 minutes and the second was a rather unhelpful agent. The third got me a helpful agent but in the intervening 90 minutes all the flight options had disappeared. Not good at all.
Still trying to find other options but the well appears to have gone dry. I’m not happy about it at all.
At least I got to watch the cool snow melting machine in operation here at Newark:
UPDATE (11:07am): My original flight was reinstated and I got a better seat out of the deal. Now just delayed 4 hours. Here’s hoping it actually flies…
Posted by Seth on February 17, 2010 under News |
The “Southwest Effect” is a rather entertaining part of air traffic lore. The name was coined long ago as Southwest Airlines would show up to provide service at an airport that generally had limited legacy carrier service. Prior to Southwest showing up the fares in that market would be high and then Southwest would bring lower fares in. The legacy carriers would similarly reduce their fares and the consumers won. It has happened many, many times over the years and the effect is pretty well documented.
Southwest announced yesterday that they are going to be launching service between Boston and Philadelphia, taking on US Airways as the only two carriers to offer non-stop service on that route. The fare changes since the initial announcement have been dramatic, to say the least. Dan Webb over at the Things in the Sky blog has some of the numbers behind the expected effect that this announcement will have. Yes, just looking at the walk-up fares available on the route ($550 one-way the week before Southwest shows up, $59 one-way the week after, a roughly 90% drop!) give light to some potential issues that US Airways can expect to see. But even more damning are the numbers available from the federal government.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics collects and publishes a ton of data from air carriers. And it is all available on their website, assuming you can figure out how to generate the queries correctly. When you figure that out you get stats like these:
The important takeaway from these numbers is that, on average, US Airways brings in about $141,000 in revenue daily from passengers flying between Boston and Philly, at an average of $344.60 from each customer. This is only considering the O/D traffic between these two cities – there are plenty of connecting passengers, too – but that revenue number is very strong. With the introduction of the $59 fares it isn’t too hard to extrapolate out that the average fares are going to drop. A lot. Probably down near the $100/passenger numbers that Manchester and Providence are seeing today. Plus, Southwest is likely to pick up some of the load that US Air is getting right now, cutting the total number of passengers that US Air gets revenue from.
But even if the load numbers hold steady the drop in revenue will be a huge hit on US Air. At a $100/passenger average fare each way the annualized hit that US Airways will see in their revenue will approach $35MM. Yup, $35,000,000. That’s a lot of money to lose, especially for a carrier that hasn’t been particularly profitable lately.
There are some reasons to believe that US Airways is still going to do OK on the route. For one thing, they offer up to 15 flights on the route each day while Southwest is starting with only 5 daily trips. Customers are big fans of having choice in their travel schedules. But the five daily flights should offer sufficient options to put a dent in the US Airways numbers. And US Airways has a pretty strong collection of loyal frequent flyers in the Philadelphia area though it is not at all clear just how many of them are loyal only because they have no better option.
Is this a death knell for US Air? Hardly. They’re still pretty strong and they’ve got some options still in front of them. Of course, if they also end up backing out of the LaGuardia/Washington National slot swap as is being reported now, that will further hurt their pricing power in a number of markets. It is going to be a bumpy road for the foreseeable future.
Hat tip to Dan for the graphic with the numbers!
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Posted by Seth on January 13, 2010 under News |
Amtrak has announced that they are joining the ranks of the various other commercial transit means – namely planes and buses – and adding wifi connectivity to the Acela Express line plying routes between Washington, DC and Boston. The service is being rolled out as part of the 2010 cabin upgrades on the Acela Express fleet and is expected to be complete in March. The service will be “initially free” though there is no indication what the duration of that free service will be or what the pricing will be when that expires.
Nice to see that Amtrak is signing on for such an endeavor, though the lack of details makes the value of this offering a bit uncertain right now. Then again, paying for a day’s worth of access for the trip on Acela almost certainly means getting more time online for your money than a similar charge on a flight or in an airport. It will be interesting to see if Acela can team with the providers in the major stations along the route which also offer internet service to put together a package deal for customers or if it will still be a la carte throughout the journey.
Posted by Seth on January 8, 2010 under points |
Amtrak is pretty good at keeping promos alive for their Guest Rewards program. They expire every few months but there is always another promo right behind it. This winter is no exception and there are two promos out there now for folks who ride in the northeast corridor (Washington, DC – Boston).
Promo number 1 is for Acela riders, a/k/a folks on expense accounts who don’t mind paying double to save minimal amounts of time. And, yes, I’ve done it, too. The promo is for one free round-trip Acela ride for three paid trips (or six paid one-ways). Not too terrible a deal as you also earn the regular AGR points on the rides. The freebie will be valid from June 1 – August 31, 2010 and is not valid for peak weekday trains. A minimum spend of $85 each way applies, a maximum of two one-ways can be credited per day and a maximum of 8 reward can be earned so there isn’t a huge arbitrage opportunity here, but for folks who are regularly riding on Acela the deal is pretty decent. Registration is here.
Promo number 2 is for non-Acela riders in the northeast corridor. The details are reasonably similar though the spend minimum is lower. Thanks to Gary for sharing the details on that one.
I do find it somewhat interesting that I got the Acela promo rather than the regional trains one. I guess they are mining their data pretty well to figure out who does what more often. I appreciate that.
Posted by Seth on December 23, 2009 under Flying, News |
The weather last weekend from Washington, DC to Boston was pretty miserable for folks looking to fly. I had a blast watching the almost foot of snow pile up on the back deck and then wandering through Manhattan the following morning but I know that the airports, airlines and passengers didn’t fare so well. Just how badly they fared, however, is interesting to look at.
In Washington, DC, both United and Delta cancelled all of their flights in and out for the duration of the storm. They didn’t have much choice as the airports were shut down for several hours. United got back up and running pretty quickly while Delta was a bit slower to get started. It makes sense as Dulles is a major hub for United. Plus, Delta did send in a few extra planes late on Sunday to help move passengers around.
In New York City there were also a large number of flights canceled. Delta, United, jetBlue and Continental all had to cancel a number of flights. jetBlue seemed to keep operating the longest, running flights into JFK well after the others had stopped on Saturday night. Yes, it was still snowing, but the airport had their ground operations crews working hard to make sure that the runways were safe and jetBlue had just a few extra planeloads of passengers that they didn’t end up stranding. Again, it is a hub operation so it makes sense that they were focused on keeping things operating as much as possible.
JFK is also a hub for Delta, however, and they didn’t come out of the snow too well there. They canceled the vast majority of their transcontinental flights out of JFK on Sunday (only 2/11 flew) while the other carriers operated about 80% of their transcon routes. Delta didn’t send one single plane from JFK to Florida on Sunday. After the snow had stopped. They should have had crew available since those folks didn’t fly on Saturday. Ditto for aircraft. Yet they didn’t. Why not?
The icing on the cake for Delta, of course, is that with all the cancelations and the increased load factors in play right now – a function of the holiday travel season and significant capacity cuts in the industry – they aren’t able to get passengers rebooked very easily. This came to a head yesterday when police were called to handle passengers delayed 3 days trying to get back to Haiti. When the folks think that Haiti is better than the service and facilities you’re providing you know there are some serious issues. At least Delta finally stepped up and added a special flight for today to get those folks home.
Continental seemed to come out of the mess relatively unscathed. Sure, they canceled a bunch of flights just like everyone else, but they didn’t seem to have too many crises come out of the efforts. And they were able to get up and running on Sunday morning with a pretty full schedule operating.
US Airways proved true to form from a customer service perspective. They were boarding and upgrading non-revenue passengers rather than paying customers. They told standby passengers that flights were full and then sent the flights out with empty seats. Bad form.
And lest anyone think the troubles were isolated to the United States, folks over in Europe didn’t fare much better. Combining two package tour companies going out of business in the past week and some storms there and things are not good. Brussels was closed for several hours as were the London airports. Fortunately British Airways had some spare wide-body aircraft around to help cover for the cancellations but things aren’t pretty there either.
With predictions of a White Christmas in NYC this year we could be looking at a repeat performance again this weekend. I’m glad to be flying out on Thursday evening before the fun really starts.
Posted by Seth on December 2, 2009 under News |
Apparently increasing service from Boston by 30% next summer just wasn’t enough for jetBlue. They announced today even more flights from Logan, further increasing their role as the dominant carrier there. The flights announced today focus on the Caribbean markets, a region that jetBlue has been focusing heavily on as it seems to have much higher yields than the transcon markets that many of their competitors are fighting over.
The destinations and frequencies being increased include:
- Three additional weekly flights to Aruba (for a total of five)
- Two additional weekly flights to Cancun (for a total of three)
- One additional weekly flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico (for a total of 11)
- One additional weekly flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica (for a total of two) (a)
- Daily flights to Bermuda (total of 7 weekly)
- Daily flights to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (total of 7 weekly)
The new service will start May 3, 2010 and all routes will be served year-round. That’s a lot of frequencies to be adding without acquiring any new planes. It will be interesting to hear what routes or frequencies are being cut to facilitate this.
Happy jetting, Boston!
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Posted by Seth on October 29, 2009 under News |
jetBlue, already the largest carrier at Boston’s Logan airport, announced today that they are looking to expand that lead in a big way. The New York City-based carrier is adding about 20 flights to their schedule in Boston, expecting a total of 78 daily flights to be operating by summer 2010. Only one new destination in the mix – a once-weekly flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica – but a whole slew of cities will be seeing additional frequencies. Among them:
- Two additional daily flights to Chicago/O’Hare (for a total of three)
- Two additional daily flights to Raleigh/Durham (for a total of three)
- One additional daily flight to Baltimore/Washington (for a total of five)
- One additional daily flight to Charlotte (for a total of three)
- One additional daily flight to Denver (for a total of two)
- One additional daily flight to Fort Lauderdale (for a total of four)
- One additional daily flight to San Diego (for a total of two)
- One additional daily flight to San Francisco (for a total of two)
- One additional daily flight to Washington/Dulles (for a total of seven)
- Four additional weekly flights to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (for a total of one daily)
- One weekly flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica (for a total of one weekly) (a)
- And more to come!
All this expansion comes in the face of some competition showing up at Logan, specifically in the form of Southwest. Actually they seem do be doing it in order to directly challenge the folks from Dallas. Noted Robin Hayes, Chief Commercial Officer for JetBlue, “JetBlue has a great fare and 78 great flights for you in Boston — that’s no small peanuts!” The “peanuts” reference seems to be a repeated reference at Southwest, with jetBlue differentiating themselves by providing up to 6 snack choices on flights, not just peanuts. A similar comment was made when jetBlue joined the Boston – Baltimore fray just a couple months ago.
It is worth noting that jetBlue has no additional aircraft deliveries scheduled for at least the next 15 months. That means that all these additions will have to come from a combination of increased utilization and cuts from existing routes. No real idea yet on which flights are potential losers, but it seems likely that a few frequencies will disappear elsewhere on the schedule to accommodate this.
Between New York and Boston jetBlue has done a pretty impressive job of establishing their presence in the markets. Combine that with the fact that they are actually making money these days and things are looking might fine for them right now.
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Posted by Seth on October 28, 2009 under News |
Calling it a “Strategic Plan to Strengthen Core Network,” US Airways announced a series of cuts today that will significantly change the way the airline operates. They are dropping several destinations and closing a few crew bases. As part of these changes they expect to remove about 1,000 employee positions.
On the Domestic US service front the most significant change comes with the cuts as Las Vegas. US Air will be reducing service there to 36 daily departures in the next 3 months. As recently as April 2007 the airline operated 131 daily departures. In April 2008 that number dropped to about 100. Today they’re at 64 and in February only 36. They’ve apparently decided that there is no more money to be made in Las Vegas so they’re cutting to the bone. The Las Vegas hub used to be a cornerstone of the America West network. It has fallen mighty far mighty quickly under the US Air brand name.
On the international service front the cuts are equally dramatic. US Air never was a big player in the trans-Atlantic market but they’re basically giving up completely now. They’re cutting service between Philadelphia and Birmingham, UK; London-Gatwick; Milan;Shannon, Ireland and Stockholm, Sweden. In addition they are formally returning the slots for the Philadelphia-Beijing service that the DOT awarded them and which were never actually operated.
With these cuts there are now a few wide-body aircraft sitting around with nothing to do. US Air announced just over a month ago their intention to refit their long-haul aircraft with a new premium cabin. One has to wonder now if those plans are still going forward, especially if they no longer will be operating the routes where the premium cabin can generate the revenue to justify the costs of that seating layout.
The one bit of good news coming out of the announcement is that the Shuttle service amongst New York’s LaGuardia, Boston and Washington’s National airports will remain in place. The Boston-New York route will be switching over to the Embrear E190 aircraft, as will Boston-Philadelphia service.
These cuts are huge. Just a few weeks ago there were discussions going on about how well US Air seems to have weathered the storm and how they might turn the corner back to profit. Apparently that simply isn’t in the cards and these drastic cuts are necessary. It does explain a bit why CEO Doug Parker looked so glum during the press conference yesterday announcing Continental Airlines joining Star Alliance. This sort of thing would weigh on my mind, too.
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Posted by Seth on May 19, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Delta has slashed their fares in their Shuttle markets – New York City to Boston or Washington, DC – by 50-60% for walk-up purchases. The tickets come out of a limited inventory bucket – Q – but they are way cheaper than they used to be and shouldn’t be too hard to find unless the plane is already sold out. This appears to be a direct response to Delta’s shrinking traffic loads on their shuttle flights, once a cash cow for the carrier, and competition from Amtrak and the various bus services now plying the routes for $30 or less.
Delta began downgrading the Shuttle service last December when they removed the dedicated fleet (goodbye comfortable 34” legroom) and switched most of the NY-DC operations over to regional jet service (albeit nice RJs). That move, and the associated cut in capacity wasn’t enough to keep the planes flying full, however, and apparently the next step is to cut the prices in half to match the cut in plane size.
The NYC – Washington, DC fare is now $169+tax and the Boston fare is $129+tax, a sharp drop from the $329+ walkup fares that used to be common on the routes. No word yet on a competitive response from US Airways or Continental (from Newark) but price cuts are likely in their immediate future, too.
Advance purchase tickets are still even cheaper – as low as $100 with limited availability – but the new walkup cuts are still quite significant in their own right.
Posted by Seth on April 21, 2009 under Uncategorized |
The dream of high-speed rail transit in the USA has been unrealized for years. Even with the Acela service in the north-east there just isn’t anything comparable to a true high-speed service available. And that is truly unfortunate as there are regions that could benefit from such service. It almost certainly would not work nation-wide – the United States is just too large – but there are areas where it could make sense. It looks like the US government is going to tease us a bit more on this front with the latest version of the economic stimulus bill that has been proposed. It includes $5 billion for infrastructure development and maybe $8 billion more of additional rail developments.
So why am I calling it a tease? Well…
First up, there are ten different routes/regions being defined:
- A California line from the San Francisco Bay Area south to San Diego via Sacramento and Los Angeles.
- A corridor linking Eugene and Portland, Ore., with Tacoma, Seattle and Vancouver.
- A South Central network linking Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Little Rock.
- A Gulf Coast line from Houston to Atlanta via New Orleans, Mobile and Birmingham.
- A Midwest network based at Chicago with high-speed lines to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Louisville.
- Florida Corridor service linking Orlando, Tampa and Miami.
- A Southeast Corridor from Washington D.C. to Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia, Atlanta, Macon, Savannah and Jacksonville.
- A Pennsylvania line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh via Harrisburg.
- New York State high-speed rail connecting New York City to Albany and Buffalo.
- A New England project linking Boston, Montreal, Portland, Springfield, New Haven and Albany.
Of these ten, only a couple rally seem viable to me. I think that the California line, the Chicago hub and maybe the New England and South Florida lines could work. The others are pipe dreams at best. But if you want to actually get funding for a project in the US government you have to include spending in states where it will not actually work, just to secure the money for the places that actually have a chance to succeed. That’s why Amtrak is still operating in forty-something states.
And, for reasons that are beyond comprehension to me, the most likely viable corridor for success is missing. There is nothing listed there for the Boston – New York City – Washington, DC corridor. Sure, there is already Acela on that route, but that can hardly be considered high-speed rail. It operates on shared track with the rest of the train traffic in the region meaning that it runs at the slow speeds in areas where commuter rail is operating. That is an impossible solution for true high-speed rail. If they are thinking that Acela is successful enough that we don’t need to improve it then the rest of the projects are doomed to failure as the benchmark is being set way too low.
Finally, the money involved in the proposals – $13 billion – really isn’t enough to make anything happen. Yeah, it is a big number. There are a whole lot of zeros involved. But capital infrastructure projects are ridiculously expensive, especially for something like high speed rail. The most recent major project to be near completion is the Beijing – Shanghai line in China. It is ~1,400 kilometers (~870 miles) of track and the capital cost is about the same as what has been proposed in the United States for a vastly greater scoped project. The island nation of Taiwan invested more in their high-speed network to cover an area smaller than Maryland and Delaware combined. Just acquiring right-of-ways to build track is going to be obscenely expensive in the USA.
I love the idea of investing in infrastructure, especially in mass transit infrastructure. But if we’re going to do it we should actually invest enough money to accomplish something and focus the efforts in a place where it can succeed. But the United States government doesn’t do that sort of thing, so I guess we’re stuck with what we’ve got.
Posted by Seth on February 19, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Southwest has had service to the “Boston area” for a dozen years now through their operations at Providence, RI and Manchester, NH. Later this year they are going to dive in to the heart of Beantown, opening up service to Boston’s Logan airport. The initial service will be reasonably small – only two gates – but they are going in with what appear to be reasonably grand ambitions.
I applaud Southwest for going after the bigger, central airports. There really aren’t many more secondary airports left and they want to continue to grow their operations. As pointed out over on the Hudson Crossing blog, service in San Francisco and Denver has been pretty solid, and they basically eviscerated US Airways’s service in Philadelphia. But in the latter two of those they didn’t really have much of an operation in the area. In the case of Boston they do. Big time. They operate 60 flights a day between PVD and MHT. And while they probably won’t get many more than 10-15 initially with their two gates at BOS, I cannot help but wonder if this action is going to be killing the goose that lays the golden egg for them in that region.
Interestingly enough, it seems that jetBlue might be the competitor that suffers the most from this. They are the largest single carrier in Boston (though the combined Northwelta will surpass them when the stats are combined).
No firm details on destinations (assume typical focus cities until something surprising gets announced) or schedules yet. They did acknowledge that they plan to do it without bringing more planes online:
The Logan service will be made possible by the airline optimizing its current flight schedule and repositioning aircraft. Southwest has not changed its previously announced plan to reduce the Company’s available seat miles by approximately four percent in 2009 compared to 2008.
So that tidbit is interesting. Seems like there is potential to see more leisure routes sacrificed in the name of the business routes. Besides, with other carriers destroying their frequent flier programs, there doesn’t seem to be much preventing folks from taking advantage of the Rapid Rewards program at this point.
