PHLfa88
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When was MUC announced as a New flight from CLT?
Clt-Gig Poor Loads
- Thread starter Lloyds5
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When was MUC announced as a New flight from CLT?
SegmentKing
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Been there, done that.
75% of the flights were ALWAYS late... customers were waiting in line at customs for over 3 hours on some days.... which meant they missed their FLL-BWI/EWR/BDL/LGA/PHL/CLT/BOS flights.
Was nice for non-revs... we'd see the flights with maybe 10 open seats, get to the gate, and find the plane only 1/2 full.
You learned QUICKLY to never try to fly the last flt to CLT & PHL when we had our US FLL "mini hub"
USAirways was used my a one time executive as a proving ground for interstructure and loads
FutureUScapt
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The flight performed well through the end of February. You can't expect a new international route (in an entirely new region where US has no brand awareness at that) to be a home run right off the bat, particularly in the low-season and in a time when air travel is still digging itself out of a slump. If bookings in June and July look dismal then there might be cause for concern, but March-May will certainly have LDFs indicative of a low/shoulder season.
The flight performed well in December , January and into Feb due to the Christmas Hoilday as well as Carnival. Forward bookings are dismal. Your comment about a new flight in a new region wont perform well is incorrect look at Tel Aviv, the flight had strong forward bookings before launch and continues to be booked solidly. US being a total unknown in the middle east, word is Tempe is considering a second Tlv flight. The flight is sold out on many days in March . Who knows maybe US may launch the second Tlv flight from charlotte
sbtinme
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How on earth is February in GIG 'LOW SEASON'??? If anything, it's their HIGHEST season of the year. Hotels booked full for 12 months in advance, no available rentals near the city, restaurants booked for months, etc, etc, etc.
I think one needs to take Feb completely out of the mix when analyzing US's success here. I had colleagues who fly CO exclusively and wanted to be in Rio for Carnaval, but were unable to secure award seats on CO. But, since CO had just joined *Alliance, they were able to score Biz Class seats on US using their CO miles.
The real measure of success here won't be February, but April, May, June and beyond.
SS255
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Passover begins at sundown on Monday, March 29, and ends at sundown on Tuesday, April 6. I suspect that loads on the days leading up to Passover, up until Saturday, March 27, would be very high. The schools in Israel close for about 2 weeks during Passover, and a lot of U.S. students studying in Israel go home for all or part of the break (or they party in Turkey and Greece
). In addition, LY will not be operating flights during the "holy days" of Passover (first two days and last two days), so that would translate to higher loads for U.S.flights are sold out in one or both directions over the next couple of days - so I dont hink it is reflective of passover. Loads have been very heavy on this flight since its launch.Passover begins at sundown on Monday, March 29, and ends at sundown on Tuesday, April 6. I suspect that loads on the days leading up to Passover, up until Saturday, March 27, would be very high. The schools in Israel close for about 2 weeks during Passover, and a lot of U.S. students studying in Israel go home for all or part of the break (or they party in Turkey and Greece
I think the important thing to note is that TLV and GIG are very different markets. Israel has limited service to the US. Right now the only American carriers operating to TLV are CO, DL and US. Off hand I believe there are only about six flights a day on American carriers to TLV.
Brazil has a broad spectrum of American carriers offering service. There is UA, DL, CO, AA and US. I don't pretend to know how many flights a day to Brazil there are from the US but I would have to say there are probably a lot more than six.
"Generally speaking, most airlines consider LOW SEASON travel to Brazil to be the period from March 1st to May 31st and August 16th to November 30th. ALL OTHER times of the year are considered HIGH SEASON."
I'm willing to bet that we would find bookings to Brazil in general would follow this statement.
I would be more concerned if we were to find bookings in the high season to be low. It should also be mentioned that a new market with little to no awareness of US would probably take a while to show good booking trends. That could change though if TAM and US begin code sharing after TAM joins Star Alliance.
FutureUScapt
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Reread what I wrote. I never said February was the low season; I said the flight performed well through the end of February.
The flight performed well in January too though, outside of the X-mas holiday and Carnaval but still in the general high season. TLV was forecast by management to be one a great success from the beginning - it was one of a handful of routes estimated to be profitable even if fuel rose well over $100 again. The same can not be said about every new international-add, nor can you can expect every international route to be assured of that success. Tempe took more of a risk with GIG-I think they can make it work, but it won't be the homerun that TLV was right out of the gate. For starters, PHL-TLV has a significant amount of O&D so they don't have to rely on connecting traffic as much as CLT-GIG does (that's not to say that it won't work, but it is more challenging). BTW, April bookings are still picking up, so I wouldn't be so quick to write that month off just yet.
To be fair though, I wouldn't group lump "Brazil-USA" as one market the way that you can for Israel-USA. You are right that there are plenty of Brazil-USA flights but that vast majority of these are going to GRU. At present I believe there are only flights from GIG to 5 US destinations: AA/TM to MIA, DL to ATL, CO to GIG, TM to JFK, and US to CLT (UA flies to IAD 3 weeks a year also). Based on DOT data, the flights to GIG routinely have among the highest LDFs of any Brazil-US flights, so the demand is there for more service - the question is if US can sneak into a market that is used to seeing just 2-3 dominant carriers. I guess time will tell.
I am headed to Buenos Aires, do I need to buy a Visa to transit Rio? Where can I find this info.
I am not sure if you have to pay the fee if you are just changing flights in the airport but if you are flying to Buenos Aires, they just began charging U.S. citizens a $131.00 entry fee.
Looking further out into april loads look poor lowest days being 25% best days around 45%. Lots of red ink on this route, does anybody know what the projections on this flight were? I doubt if the projections were like the current loads they woule have launched it.
