Qatar to start PHL, One World Alliance airlines starting flights

[700UW]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2013/05/06/qatar-airways-to-make-philadelphia-its-5th-us-city/2138275/

Qatar Airways will make Philadelphia its newest U.S. gateway, the airline announced via its Twitter account this morning.

The carrier gave few details in its morning tweet, saying only that it planned to begin nonstop flights to Philadelphia on Boeing 777 aircraft.

Qatar Airways' CEO Akbar al-Baker gave more details while speaking at the opening day of a regional travel exhibition in Dubai, saying the route to Philadelphia would begin in March.

 

[PullUp]

Looks like PHL isn't going to downsize.
Cheers.

 

[zethya]

Hopefully, this will finally stick a fork in the (original) AA Fan Boys - PHL Bashers - particularly on ANET. Most of who have been dead wrong about both the merger ever happening and who would be the figurative acquirer/merger leaders. It's most interesting that Qatar will be using a 777-300ER on this route rather than a 787 - if that will actually be the case. Like some have speculated, even though the formal AA-US merger process cannot formally start until regulatory approval, there are probably significant related actions already underway. You can bet that Qatar would be unlikely to start PHL-DOH without some commitment of OW feed at PHL Looks like Parker may pull off making the new AA a true global airline.

 

[cltrat]

who would work on the ground for that flight contract labor or does AA have an agreement with them?

 

[700UW]

More than likely it would be a vendor, just like in CLT LH is handled by a ATSG and not US.

For some stupid reason US doesnt like to do third party work, AA does/did a lot of third party handling, not sure about now with the bankruptcy.

I remember PI use to do a lot of third party ground work. I even remember when BA diverted a 777 into CLT from ATL we did the ground work and not the a vendor.

 

[cltrat]

More than likely it would be a vendor, just like in CLT LH is handled by a ATSG and not US.

For some stupid reason US doesnt like to do third party work, AA does/did a lot of third party handling, not sure about now with the bankruptcy.

I remember PI use to do a lot of third party ground work. I even remember when BA diverted a 777 into CLT from ATL we did the ground work and not the a vendor.

I worked a BA 777 that got diverted to CLT last summer, I had heard that AA still has an agreement with BA to do each others flts but no ideal if that is correct.

 

[700UW]

I am pretty sure BA has their own staff at JFK, I know District 142 represents BA workers at JFK and a few other places.

 

[USFlyer]

Doesn't US already have a codeshare + frequent flyer relationship with Qatar?

 

[700UW]

Yep they do.

Here is a complete list of codeshare partners:

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/aboutus/alliances/codeshare.html

 

[tadjr]

BA is contracted out in TPA and not to AA. Also asking as a favor if anyone in Tempe ( or Dallas) is reading this, PLEASE do not schedule 50 minute connections to this flight. I don't think we made the LH connections most of last week and I can only imagine trying to find new beyond connections if this misconnects. Remember you said new policies were going to be customer driven? Minimum connecting times need to be addressed in several cities.

 

[john john]

BA is contracted out in TPA and not to AA. Also asking as a favor if anyone in Tempe ( or Dallas) is reading this, PLEASE do not schedule 50 minute connections to this flight. I don't think we made the LH connections most of last week and I can only imagine trying to find new beyond connections if this misconnects. Remember you said new policies were going to be customer driven? Minimum connecting times need to be addressed in several cities.

Can’t change pax to early flight because you get ping. Management will not allow if question

 

[JFK Fleet Service]

who would work on the ground for that flight contract labor or does AA have an agreement with them?

Management let them bring Swissport onto the property at JFK,union fought it hard but lost out.

We used to do a lot of ground handling but over the years it has dwindled to Finnair and Air Berlin and at LGA we haven't done any contract handling since the CP days.Hell, we don't have adequate staffing to cover our own flights much less a contract carrier.

 

[jimntx]

BA is contracted out in TPA and not to AA. Also asking as a favor if anyone in Tempe ( or Dallas) is reading this, PLEASE do not schedule 50 minute connections to this flight. I don't think we made the LH connections most of last week and I can only imagine trying to find new beyond connections if this misconnects. Remember you said new policies were going to be customer driven? Minimum connecting times need to be addressed in several cities.

Passengers are misconnecting due to inadequate connection times? Well, we must be paying the employees too much. (AMR's standard answer when any of their grand schemes/ideas--developed with no input from the people who do the work--fail to execute perfectly.)

 

[Harry Callahan]

More than likely it would be a vendor, just like in CLT LH is handled by a ATSG and not US.

For some stupid reason US doesnt like to do third party work, AA does/did a lot of third party handling, not sure about now with the bankruptcy.

I remember PI use to do a lot of third party ground work. I even remember when BA diverted a 777 into CLT from ATL we did the ground work and not the a vendor.

When lh first started they wanted us to handle, but they said they didn't,t have enough help. If I remember correctly that was true.

 

[700UW]

At the arrival time of LH the only planes on the ground would have been FRA and LGW and they came in around 3pm, so they would be off loaded by then.

We put a bid on it for utility for the cleaning, but LH wanted all or none, not just partial work.