Monthly Archive for June, 2010Page 2 of 3

Frontier Falls in Love with E-Jets (Again)

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 15, 2010
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

The E-Jets have been an important part of the Republic operation for years. The carrier is the largest operator of the type in the world, and operates them for US Airways, Delta, and United as part of its fixed-fee business. But the aircraft type has served as an important part of the growth of the branded operation. The E-170s and E-190s have served as 717 replacements in Milwaukee, but are also being used out of Denver to add new routes and also begin replacing Lynx operations.

It appears that Frontier wants to continue utilizing the type even further, as Republic and Frontier have jointly filed to send E-190s down to Mexico from Denver and Kansas City. They are considering sending the E-190s on some existing routes – Denver to Cabo, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta, and Kansas City to Puerto Vallarta.

I see some good potential there – a lot of these markets are non-daily with Airbus service. So having a smaller E-190 on the route could justify additional frequencies. Take Kansas City-Puerto Vallarta. That’s Saturday-only this winter. Maybe they can pick up an extra flight or two. Or, if a Airbus route is not performing well, Frontier now has the option to downgauge the route, whereas its only option beforehand was to cut and run.

Frontier’s also looking at the E-190 for Denver-Ixtapa and Kansas City-Cabo. These were both routes that went away when Frontier was in trouble back in 2008. One would guess they were among the weaker Airbus routes so maybe they can work with the smaller aircraft.

Anyway, Frontier’s not looking at starting this up until the Winter so there isn’t much detail at this point schedule-wise. I’d be interested to see if the E-190s outright replace some Airbus flying or if the two aircraft types can work side by side.

You can catch all of the juicy details in the original filing here.

Continental Announces Second 787 Route

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 15, 2010
in Continental
. 4 Comments

Just on the heels of its first 787 route announcement, Houston to Auckland, Continental announced yesterday its second route with the new aircraft – Houston to Lagos, Nigeria. Sounds like an oil route to me! :D

My cynical side makes me look at this one from a political perspective. Like the Houston – Auckland route announcement, this one is well-timed for some government hearings. Tomorrow, the U.S. House Aviation Subcommittee will have a hearing on the proposed merger between United and Continental. So Continental probably thinks that displaying a commitment to international route growth and the Houston hub will make the merger look better to the politicians.

I also feel this announcement is pretty aggressive from a fleet perspective. Continental is currently slated to receive three 787s in 2011, and they will need all of them, with the Lagos route starting on November 10, and nonstop service coming to Auckland only a few days later. From my quick analysis, Continental can do it with three aircraft, but with very high utilization. And it’s also contingent on Boeing delivering all three 787s on time. And while the manufacturer has worked out many issues with the 787, the fact that the aircraft has been delayed a few times doesn’t make me feel 100% confident the company will adhere to its current delivery schedule. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but it’s something to consider.

Edit: So Continental is actually getting six 787s in 2011, four of which are coming in the third quarter. So Continental shouldn’t have any major issues running the routes if everything is on time. Of course, as I have written earlier, let’s hope they get those birds on time. Also, we’ll have to see if Continental announces any more 787 routes. for a late 2011 launch.

But for the Lagos flying, it seems that Continental has some insurance here if there are issues, at least in my view. Based on the slightly-longer Tokyo nonstop, I would be willing to wager that Continental could fly nonstop to Lagos from Houston with a 777-200ER with no major issues, if something came up with the 787 fleet. And plus since these route announcements are so far out, there is still ample time to play with the schedule if need be.

Speaking of Lagos flying – let’s talk abut United for a second.The airline had announced in November that it would launch service to Accra, Ghana, that would continue on to Lagos on May 2. The launch of Accra service has since been pushed back to June 20, and the flight won’t be continuing to Lagos has been delayed due to some unspecified regulatory issues with the Nigerian government. It’s not the first time that an American carrier and the powers that be in the African country have conflicted.

It will be interesting to see what Nigerian officials think of Continental’s new flight. Meanwhile, Nigerian long-haul carrier Arik Air still has plans to fly to Houston, though no specific details have been announced.

Those are my thoughts, at least. Please leave yours in the comments!

Looking at Midwest/Frontier and AirTran in Milwaukee

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 14, 2010
in Frontier, Midwest and Republic
. 1 Comment

So last night, I decided to play around with the DOT O&D data to take a look at Milwaukee – specifically those flying on nonstops departing from the airport. Republic has said for awhile that they (Midwest) have had a revenue advantage over AirTran when it comes to Milwaukee.

After playing around with the data a bit, I felt it would be best to take a look at the largest high-yield markets. My own definition of large in this case is a market with over 10,000 O&D passengers in one quarter. I also only looked at nonstop flights originating from Milwaukee.

One can see that Frontier/Midwest indeed has maintained a revenue advantage in some of the large business markets like Washington, New York, and Boston. Though if we look at some other markets, like the Florida routes and Vegas, the two carriers are very close. So I’d suggest that Republic has held on to some brand loyalty for now, at least for business travelers. I’m not really surprised that the Florida and Vegas routes are pretty close – these are probably travelers who are more price-sensitive.

But it does seem that Republic still has a revenue premium. The question is how long they can hold on to that.

Thinking About Sharklets

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 11, 2010
in Airbus
. 2 Comments

Yesterday, Finnair became the second customer (that we know of) for Airbus’ A320 family aircraft equipped with sharklets. Its also the first airline to order the A321 equipped with the wingtip devices. The A321s will be used to replace the carrier’s 757s that are used on leisure routes.

I’m starting to wonder about potential orders from US carriers. Winglets from Aviation Partners Boeing have been very popular with Boeing operators using 737, 757, and 767 aircraft. If you look at the major US carriers, nearly every 737NG either has or will receive blended winglet installations. And Continental and Southwest has used them to improve the fuel performance of their 737 Classic fleets. Winglets have also helped the 757-200 find new life as a transatlantic airliner.

Right now Airbus operators (Delta, JetBlue, Spirit, United, US Airways) haven’t been able to join the party, and I’m guessing they’d sure like to considering it reduced fuel burn by a few percentage points. That decreases cost on existing routes but also makes longer stage lengths feasible. For example, reducing fuel burn can increase reliability on routes that now could sometimes require a technical stop to refuel.

So airlines that are currently expanding their fleets in the near-tearm – like JetBlue, Spirit, and US Airways, are all possible customers here.

But there are a couple of issues. First of all, there’s still no retrofit option. These are only available for new aircraft. There has been work done in this area but there is still yet to be any official offering from Airbus. Second, I think there’s some understandable hesitation among carriers right now in the narrowbody department. I’m guessing some airlines would like to see Airbus (and Boeing) make some kind of final decision on re-engining current models and/or a clean sheet design, and when it would be available.

So, just some of my random thoughts. Winglets on the A320-family are way awesome, but I feel a retrofit option is necessary for some success here.

Hawaiian to Launch Vegas-Maui

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 10, 2010
in Hawaiian
. 2 Comments

Hawaiian Airlines announced yesterday that it will start flying Maui-Vegas service twice-weekly in October. When one looks at the route its not a whole lot different from other Hawaiian routes that we’ve seen in the past couple of years or so. Many of the routes where Alaska has grown are ex-ATA and ex-Aloha routes, in the case of Maui-Vegas, ATA flew the route from 2007 until its demise in April 2008. US Airways also started flying the route in March 2006 but dropped it later in 2007. And while it wasn’t nonstop service, Aloha did provide one-stop flights to Maui by way of Oakland.

Photo Credit: Flickr User Ack Ock

The new flight, operated with 767-300 aircraft, will depart Vegas on Sundays and Wednesdays, and the return from Maui to Vegas leaves on Mondays and Thursdays. While the schedule has yet to be posted I’d think that those aircraft will then fly off to Honolulu, but I’m not too sure about that. Right now Hawaiian has three Vegas departures to Honolulu, with two of those being daily.

Anyway, I think this is a smart move. It doesn’t seem like US Airways and ATA had trouble filing seats, with the two carriers averaging an 86% load factor in all of 2007, so I’m guessing yields weren’t too hot. Hawaiian is showing some capacity restraint here with two flights per week, and passengers can still access Maui the other five days of the week via connections in Honolulu. So we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I’m interested in seeing what Hawaiian does as they get more A330s, which give them more range

US Airways and Delta Get More Time to Mull Slot Swap

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 9, 2010
in Delta and US Airways
. 0 Comments

According to a recent government filing, US Airways and Delta have asked for extension on the deadline to make a decision on the slot swap deal, and the FAA gave it to them. The airlines now have until July 2nd to make a decision.

If you recall, last month the DOT did not approve of the proposed compromise, with US Airways giving DCA slots to JetBlue, and Delta giving LaGuardia slots to Spirit, WestJet, and AirTran. The agency instead stuck with its original decision that 14 of the 42 slot pairs at DCA and 20 of the 125 slot pairs at LGA be given to new entrants at the airports.

The decision to ask for an extension is an interesting one. When DOT made this announcement in May, the airlines responded that they would take this case to the appeals court. With this new extension granted, I am beginning to doubt that it will even get this far. As I see it the option to go to the courts isn’t all that desirable. First, it will probably take a long time for a decision to be made, and the airlines can’t predict the court’s ruling. The government’s proposed compromise, while not exactly desirable for either carrier, is at least a known entity. Plus, the airlines will at least get some cash out of the auction for the slots. Yeah, not great, but it’s better than pouring cash into legal fees during a court case.

Meanwhile it would be interesting to see what happens here. I’m starting to lean towards US Airways and Delta just accepting the proposed deal by the government. Then it would be interesting to see what carriers pick up the slots. Southwest has certainly expressed an interested in increasing its operations at LaGuardia and establishing an operation at DCA. It’ll also be interesting to see what the route maps of the airports would look like if the deal were proposed. Any LCCs will most likely be operating on already-served routes, and it is quite possible that some smaller markets could see service reductions.

Trip Report: First Flights on American

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 8, 2010
in American
. 2 Comments

Despite the fact that I’m a total airline dork, there are a bunch of airlines that I have yet to fly, including American, Continental, and United. And the last time I flew Delta, an L-1011 was involved, so that was awhile back. A lot of that involves the fact that Providence in my primary airport. The vast majority of my flights have been on Southwest and US Airways, the two airlines that over the past 15 years or so have had the highest levels of service. And since a lot of my trips over the past few years to Florida, Southwest’s nonstops were no-brainers.

Anyway, I had to get down to Miami for the World Low Cost Airlines World Americas conference, as I was going to be helping cover it for Flightglobal. I was hoping for a nonstop, and American has the only one out of National. Both American and United have nonstops out of Dulles, but that’s a bit of a hike. There are also nonstops to Ft. Lauderdale but any savings in fare wold be eaten up in taxi costs. So American made the most sense.

American Airlines Flight 959
Depart Washington-Reagan (DCA): 3:35 PM (5 minutes late)
Arrive Miami (MIA):  6:26 PM (21 minutes late)
Aircraft: 737-800
Seat: 15A

I left the Flightglobal offices a bit after one, as I wanted to get to the airport early since I haven’t flown out of there in years and didn’t know how long security would take. So I took the 20 minute walk to the Metro stop with my rollaboard for the quick ride to the airport, and the walk from the Metro station is incredibly easy.

The fact that one can get some great views of the terminal before security at DCA really impressed me, and I snapped this picture of a Delta A320 when I arrived.

Then I headed off to find an American kiosk to print a boarding pass, and proceeded to the security checkpoint. I was at my gate fifteen minutes later – awesome! And that was even after being selected for a random screening.

So I had some time to kill. Fortunately there was a Potbelly in the terminal (yum!), and I also had a good view of the arrivals. Watching the River Visual approach does not get old.

Soon enough our aircraft arrived and began deboarding very quickly, and our gate agent announced boarding a couple of minutes after boarding time.

Our aircraft arrives.

I just stayed on the sidelines since I was in boarding group four, though plenty of others lined up. Boarding did not go particularly well at first, with some elite members boarding out of order. Unfortunately the gate agent’s response to this was yelling over the intercom, not exactly a good move when talking to elites.  It’s good that the order was being enforced, but it wasn’t the proper response. But what did impress me is the speed American got back to me when I contacted them about it.

Anyway, as I mentioned I was in the fourth boarding group. By the middle of the third group, the gate agent was already announcing that overhead bin space was starting to run out, and passengers could gate check bags for free. I opted not to, boarded, and settled into 15A. Since this was an old configuration 737-800, there was no inflight internet, and power was only at some rows. (I could’ve been in one of those rows but I wasn’t giving up my window for a middle seat with power.)

We ended up pushing back a few minutes late, and were off a few minutes later. Being a mainly-Southwest flier, I was happy to have some IFE. Two very good episodes of The Office and Parks and Recreation were played. I had seen them both before but they were quite funny.

Drink service started quickly, and I opted for water. But one thing I noticed was that by default American gives you the whole can if you order a soft drink – something I really appreciated. American did say there was food for purchase, but I was surprised it really wasn’t pushed onboard.

Soon enough we were descending into Miami, where there were some very interesting clouds. From my window it looked like we had ended up being vectored over the Everglades, and then turned back to land on runway 9.

After arriving near our gate, the engines were shutdown, and we had to wait to be pulled into the gate since our gate was behind a bag room, and obviously jetwash would be a bit dangerous.

A bit later I was off in a taxi to my hotel in Coral Gables.

American Airlines Flight 820
Depart Miami (MIA): 7:22 PM (17 minutes late)
Arrive Washington-Reagan (DCA):  9:45 PM (5 minutes late)
Aircraft: 737-800
Seat: 26A

When I arrived at the airport, it was a few hours early (I wasn’t sure how long I’d be at the conference). There was an earlier flight that I could’ve been able to make, but franky I didn’t want to pay the $50 to have that privilege. I instead decided to explore the airport. My flight left from the D concourse, so first I walked around there but then made my way to E, which is in great need of a face lift. The satellite E is a bit nicer with some larger windows, but both need some work. But, I was glad I took the little sidetrip since I caught the American 767-300 in oneworld colors.

I headed back to my terminal to get a quick dinner and head to the gate. I was very happy sitting in the back of the plane, simply because that meant I was in the first general boarding group. But here’s where I get back to the boarding order thing. I ended up boarding last in the group because there were so many other passengers from other groups lining up. Lesson: I shoudn’t wait until my group is called to line up. Except that would already make the line/crowd, already extending into the concourse, even bigger. I’d have to think there’s a way to fix this.

Anyway I stepped onboard to another old-configuration -800. Taxi was fun since it was raining – which made watching takeoffs (especially that of a LAN 767-300) even more fun to watch! Soon we were off, and with the day slowly turning to dusk and the storm clouds clearing, there really were some great photo opportunities.

Like the flight down, NBC programming was played, but this time it was 30 Rock and Community. (Also both good episodes that I had already seen.) Once that programing had ended we were already near DC. Friends have told me I should sit on the left when arriving at DCA, and they were right. The River Visual approach for runway 19 offers some stunning views of the National Mall, especially at night. Seeing the the lit monuments whizz by in my window was just beatiful.

Anyway, we were at the gate within a few minutes and I got a cab to head back home.

Thoughts on American

Overall, I liked my flights on American. It’s a solid product. I’ve been told their seating on the newer 737-800s is nicer, and would like to try that. I guess my main thought is that while my flights were enjoyable, I don’t think I had that moment when I thought, “Wow! I should fly these guys again.” After thinking for awhile, I’m trying to think about what American has that’s unique. Virgin has an awesome IFE system, United has Channel 9 and Economy Plus, etc. Either way it’s a moot point since I probably won’t be flying American again as they no longer serve my home airport, Providence. But for a flight from my home for the summer, they worked out just fine.

Gravelly Point: Plane Dork Heaven

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 7, 2010
in Photos
. 3 Comments

Ever since I found out I would be spending the summer in DC, Gravelly Point was in my plans. Why? Because the park offers awesome spotting. Below you’ll find some of the better shots, you can see the entire album here.

Highlights for me included a new Frontier A320, an old colors US Airways Express (Piedmont) Dash-8, and the American Airlines 737-800 in the Astrojet livery.

Geek Test: The Answer

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 7, 2010
in US Airways
. 3 Comments

Well, the geek test posts have proved very popular. I promise starting tomorrow I’ll start having some (gasp) real content! Anyway – I had asked what was wrong with this US Airways model in Boston:

There are a few things. Some commenters did point out that the colors were wrong, as the livery was outdated. Not something I was considering, but true.

But here’s the big thing – it’s an A320, while the Shuttle has been using A319 aircraft (Note: As a guest commeter pointed out, the A320 has historically been used on the Shuttle. Shame on me for not remembering). We can tell this in two ways. First, there are two overwing exits. Second, there are no wingtips, making this an A320-100. Only 21 of these aircraft were in commercial service, and were only with British Airways (all retired) and Air France (in the process of being retired). So, the the model isn’t really a accurate representation of the US Airways fleet.

Yes, I am a dork.

Geek Test: What’s Wrong with this US Airways Model?

Published
by
Dan Webb
on June 4, 2010
in US Airways
. 13 Comments

Yep, another cop-out post. At lest Flightglobal is keeping me busy! So here’s a picture from a trip where I left from Boston in January. US Airways has a few models in the terminal. What’s wrong with this one?