ATL-CCS now 757?

[737823]

Shocked this flight was downgauged from the 764/76W that has been operating for many years. In this market DL blew AA out of the water, it was treated as a long haul flight and had full BE dinner service. Now it operates with a 75X with standard seats and no indication of reverting back. I took DL to Venezuela for this reason, but not this time. What gives? Loads are always near 100% and strong fares to boot for a four hour flight, and have seen large amounts of cargo being loaded.

Josh

 

[BABABOOY]

LoL wow, I use to work this flight when it was a 738.

 

[700UW]

Since you are a know it all with the airlines and how they work, you should tell them to put an A380 on the route and go out and by one just cause you said so.

 

[737823]

Enlighten me on what your beloved US flies there...oh wait they don't.

Josh

 

[BABABOOY]

Interesting article concerning Venezuela
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/24/us-venezuela-flights-idUSBRE98N0TW20130924


"Flights are booked solid months in advance, not from a new interest in exotic destinations but because locals are profiting from a play on the nation's tightly controlled currency market.
The airline scramble has added to shortages, power cuts and runaway prices as another symbol of the Byzantine economic challenges facing the new government of President Nicolas Maduro in the South American OPEC nation."

 

[Kev3188]

Today it shows being run w/ 753... Sitting in the back of that is not a fun way to spend 4ish hours...

 

[WorldTraveler]

The president of Gillette used to tell his employees that they could not fly FC because the back of the airplane gets to the gate at the same time as the front. That is true even with the 753, DL's 21st century version of the equally long DC8.

Josh,
flights are indeed booked full... probably part of the reason DL pulled the BE equipped 757 is because it is a lot easier to sell the extra 10 seats at standard fares than to wait for higher fare revenue.

The benefit of the 753 is that it has cockpit commonality with the 752 so I suppose DL can sub 757 types whenever they can find one available. I would imagine if this demand persists, they'll do this on a regular basis. It is also possible that they couldn't get a widebody gate at CCS but they can for a 757... dunno.

 

[700UW]

Guess you didnt read his post, it was the removal of the 767 that he is talking about.

Did you not see it in his post?

And the 757/767 are common rating for pilots, they can fly both a/c type.

Joshie wrote this:

Shocked this flight was downgauged from the 764/76W that has been operating for many years.

 

[WorldTraveler]

The 767 has not been the primary aircraft for DL in CCS. They have used it there but CCS is primarily a narrowbody market for DL. The same is true for BOG and at times UIO.

Just because DL got a widebody gate at CCS or any other airport in the past doesn't mean that they could get one for a last minute upgrade now. I don't know the CCS airport and it is possible there are plenty of gates but it isn't a given.

And yes the 763 and 757 have common type ratings but the 764 does not for DL. The 753 serves the purpose at a lower cost... demand is high and there is no opportunity to increase flights so any competitor can use the most cost-effective option.

It appears that the domestic 752 is still the planned aircraft DL has for the route which means they will upgrade when they can.

Also, DL is pushing the 330s and the rest of the 763ERs thru cabin mods so they probably don't have much if any slack in those fleets anyway.

It is precisely because of the Venezuelan gov't's attempts to control the economy and block additional flights that the market is a money maker for the very US companies that the Venezuelan gov't dislikes. It also is why US will likely not serve CCS w/o the merger.

 

[700UW]

Yet you dance around that you obviously didnt read his post as you talked about the 757 being pulled and it wasnt, it was the 767.

 

[jimntx]

And, you choose to ignore the fact that WT tried to point out to Joshie (your pet name, not mine) that the 767 was NEVER the regular airplane for that route which Joshie's post implied. Joshie wanted to know why they had "downgraded" from the 76 to the 75 when in fact a 76 on that route was a one-off upgrade.

If LCC ran an A332 CLT-PHX one day because the A321 was sick that day, would you consider all future 321 flights on that route to be downgrades from the 332?

 

[WorldTraveler]

ok... historical schedule information is available.....

I went thru the last 3 years of schedules for ATL-CCS and DL has used the 763 or -4 for one month intervals at most and sometimes as little as two weeks and possibly only on the weekends, typically around Christmas and Easter; they have not used it outside of those periods. They have not used the 767 consistently even from year to year.

The 757 and 738 have been the staple of DL's ATL-CCS schedules for at least 300 days per year.

DL has followed the same pattern of adding capacity at peak holiday times - just as they do with other markets in the northern part of S. America.

The 753 that Kev observed today appears to be a one-off that wouldn't be picked up by historical schedules.

 

[robbedagain]

i thought the pilot common rating for 75 and 76 is for the aircraft variables such as the 752 753 and the 762 763 and 764 arent the cockpits almost identical... at us the pilots are common on the 75 n 76 and then the a-319, a 320 and 321 not sure about the 330 though i would imagine maybe a few difference but could it work

 

[WorldTraveler]

DL doesn't have a common rating between the 764 and other 757/767s... I think they could have had the option to have had a common rating with the 777 but they didn't do that either.
I'm sure it will come as a shock to some for me to say but it wasn't one of DL's finer decisions, IMHO.

Still, DL's fleet of 21 764s is larger than its fleet of 18 777s or 16 744s.

BTW, DL also adds widebodies into some otherwise narrowbody cities in Latin America around Valentine's Day and Mother's Day because of the cargo opportunities with flower shipments.

 

[WorldTraveler]

and then appears a timely article on the subject.....

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-25/a-new-twist-on-capital-flight-venezuelas-absurd-airfares?campaign_id=yhoo

"Flights are sold out for months in advance because of a quirk in travel rules allowing anyone with a valid airline ticket to exchange up to $3,000. The maneuver is known as el raspadito, or the scrape....

"But only if you can secure a seat. The scrape has sent airfares soaring, with the lowest advance-purchase price next month for a return flight from New York currently priced at $2,550 on Aeroméxico. United’s (UAL) nonstop flight from Houston is selling for nearly $4,600 in October, while American Airlines flights from Miami can’t be booked for less than $3,000. Fares on Delta (DAL) from Atlanta in November also top $3,000. As a result of the high level of unused seats, some airlines are beginning to overbook at much higher rates than usual and might add extra flights."

thanks for teeing up the topic, Josh. Turned out to be an education for a lot of us.