Another Mainline Station Gone...

[wings396]

Well it is all over now, Mainline service is gone at ABE after being the #1 Carrier there since 1967. Southest, a charter Airline has taken over as King of the Hill with their MD-80's. Fear not, as :down: we are going to show them up with our ERJ's!!!! Boardings were once in the 20k area, now 6k is a big month. Local newspaper artice link below.

http://www.mcall.com/business/local/all-re...sinesslocal-hed

 

[OldGuyinPA]

SWA ....another opening to steal away our PHL customers.

Way to go ...David

 

[wench]

I keep telling everyone, this is becoming a PART TIME Regi0nal airline..

Wonder if Daveyboy would like to rob Peter to pay Paul? :down: <_< :angry:

 

[geo1004]

CLT is under 500 miles. PIT and PHL are much closer. With its cost structure, US can not affort mainline service to ABE. The loads and fares simply do not warrant it. This is perfect express country IMO.

 

[wings396]

CLT is under 500 miles. PIT and PHL are much closer. With its cost structure, US can not affort mainline service to ABE. The loads and fares simply do not warrant it. This is perfect express country IMO.

==PORTION DELETED BY MODERATOR== The CLT service did very well with loads in excess of 100 psgrs. We have destroyed PIT, and can't even fill a friggen RJ to there, PHL is the place that nobody wants to use. CLT was the best market with the Island traffic as well as other southeast destinations. The first day with a lovely Mesa RJ, there were 12 oversales and 20 bags removed to make the trip....Way to go. Old Guy, you are correct that SWA will soon be there and kick out butts by draining passengers away from Nightmare PHL.

 

[geo1004]

Don't infer. Read what I said. ABE is perfect RJ country. I never said US was running the right schedules and frequencies to appropriately match demand. There's a huge difference.

 

[dfw79]

Southeast may be king of the hill, but I'm not sure how this new public charter fad is workng there - here in Toledo there is little to no effect on the scheduled carriers. TransMeridian is runnings 727s to SFB and 757s out to LAS as dirt cheap rates (running 70% loads)...but isn't effecting the other airlines whatsoever. The fares and scheduled aren't published in any major travel system that the general public would use, so the established carriers have no incentive to match fares. Essentially they are developing a market of their own.

Of course you have to watch out for nightmares like what Lansing is having with Allegiant - where passengers have been stranded for days when planes break.

 

[wings396]

At ABE, Southeast is about the only one operating a REAL A/C. NW still has one DC-9 a day to DTW and that is it. We used to haul the bulk of the ABE passengers to PIT, CLT and even MCO at one time. PIT may be ideal for the RJ's since there are not many connections left, but CLT can still support Mainline service. We have handed most of our soutbound traffic over to DL thru ATL, since we only had 1 flight a day to CLT. Rest assured that the Mainline will someday return now that the employees have been Expressed. :angry: Airtran and Southwest will show up at ABE in the future and we will never be able to regain our lost business.

 

[PHL]

Boardings were once in the 20k area, now 6k is a big month.

Let me understand this - boardings have dropped by 14,000 pax per month and they should keep 100+ seat airplanes flying out of there? This isn't rocket science. I don't care how much you fiddle with the schedules and frequencies and cities served.

What airlines embraced the RJ concept in the early/mid 90's? DL (with Comair) and CO (with Express). Guess what airlines have also managed to build up good enough reserves to keep them out of BK over the last 3 years? Yup - DL and CO.

US management and the unions should have been more proactive on the RJ issue years ago. Rakesh presented it nicely in Aug. 2001 on how the 'others' have taken the RJ concept and ran with it.

I'm not saying one side was more right or wrong in handling this whole RJ thing over the years, but in hindsight it may have staved off some of the furloughs.

 

[wings396]

Boardings have dropped due to the schedule that we offer. At one time there was an MCO flight that carried 3-4k per month. There were also 4 mainline flights to PIT that did very well. With PIT being dismantled, there were less connections to offer and as a result boardings dwindled. The numbers posted above were with one mainline flight a day to CLT. My point here is that we have given up and lost these passengers to OA. Delta has been prospering due to our blunders. Our old PIT passengers take DL to CVG, and all of the Southbound traffic goes thru ATL. We gave up the MCO service and now Southeast has all of it. The passengers are still there, but they no longer fly with us.

 

[rvolkcpa]

It looks like the new inbound express flight from CLT to ABE (2812) is off to a poor start . The flight status system indicates that it was cancelled on 9/7 due to maintenance and it arrived 55 minutes late last night (9/8) with no explanation. This will encourage even more passengers to switch to other airlines. The ABE to CLT flight (2795) operates an hour earlier than its predecessor, which results in a 2 hour layover in CLT for most connections. ABE passengers are now getting second rate service.

Until recently I hoped that Airtran and Southwest would stay out of ABE so that US would thrive. Now I hope that one or both of them begin service at ABE so that passengers have an alternative with reasonable service.

 

[OldGuyinPA]

I'm hearing SWA...way to go David

 

[wings396]

Flight 2812 operated by Mesa is off to a poor start to say the least. The outbound from what I was told could not even take all of the bags with a full flight. As a result 20 bags were left behind along with 12 oversales. Lets see, less seats to sell,passengers and bags left behind....sounds like another money maker to me. I wonder what the delivery charges added up to? With the great track record that Mesa has, look for more lost passengers. The PIT market has been killed, I guess CLT is next. This will only leave the "Crown Jewel" of PHL to use. I can see a lot of poeple driving to EWR to fly CO. Of course our Management still thinks that our loyals will drive to PHL if the ABE schedule does not suit their needs....WRONG they are.

 

[sfb]

I think it could be argued that SYR (or ROC or ALB or MHT or PVD) is also perfect RJ territory; the company faces some very difficult choices. One one hand, cities like ABE, AVP, MDT, DAY, etc. struggle to draw the number of passengers US Airways needs to be profitable, given the fares charged and the company's costs. The RJ's increase average fare level with lower trip costs, but also have much higher ASM costs. The big problem with this strategy is that the company ends up being less competitive long term in the markets that are shifted from mainline to RJ service. As others have said, DL, NW, and CO then offer equivalent or better products/schedules, which makes it difficult for US to retain passengers. And if one of the discounters like WN or FL enters the market, the RJ strategy really gets blown out of the water, since you simply cannot compete on costs by flying RJ's to the hubs.

I feel that one of the dangers in the RJ strategy pursued by the majors these days is that they are using them to replace former mainline service, rather than to improve feed to their hubs. I believe that improved hub feed was one of the cornerstones of DL's success with RJ's at CVG and CO's success at IAH and EWR. And to a large degree, US Airways was a major contributor to DL's and CO's RJ success story, since both were able to steal passengers away from relatively unattractive turboprop service, with US Airways having been hobbled by restrictive scope clauses. While RJ service should replace mainline flights in certain cases where loads are poor, even with reasonable fare levels, relying on lots of high-cost RJ feed to the hubs makes it more difficult to compete with LCC's who may enter the market.

I have to believe that WN entering ABE (as has been rumored in the past) would be troublesome for US. They have the potential to draw travelers from the Philly suburbs looking for a break from walk-up fares on US. Then again, it's possible that ATA and AirTran are already doing a significant amount of damage at PHL as it is.

 

[wings396]

Bob, I can tell you that the Airport would do Anything possible to accomidate SWA.
ABE did just fine with a profitable mainline operation for many years. Many passengers were loyal to us since we had been there since 1967, and because we
WERE a PA based company. Several OA came and left while we held our ground.
A few that come to mind are AA, PA, Midway, TWA, and the old Air Tran. The orig. PIT flight had 100+ on it 5 days a week as did CLT. The MCO flight was always full, but we couldn't make a profit as if this is a surprise. To sum it all up, US Airways HAD the market cornered at ABE and squandered it away. SWA will show up at some point and PHL will feel the hurt.