luvthe9
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Delta's SEA operation shrinking
- Thread starter luvthe9
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WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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Given that SEA is a pretty seasonal market, it is very possible that DL's service levels could change by summer.
Kev3188
Veteran
WT--
"Seasonal" in relation to what? Most traffic is steady year round out of there for us (NW).
"Seasonal" in relation to what? Most traffic is steady year round out of there for us (NW).
markkus757
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180 remaining workers for 16 flights??? Unless there is MX there, I can see why they are cutting 68 jobs (it was 248 for 21 flights??).
Having said that, hope the effected employees find jobs elsewhere in or outside of DL...
Having said that, hope the effected employees find jobs elsewhere in or outside of DL...
Kev3188
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They might be working other carriers as well (in PDX, the do the ground work for HA, eg.).
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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Kev,
if your flights have the same load factor year around and you do not increase capacity, then there is no seasonality in your traffic. If fares are the same year around, then you have no seasonality in your yields. There are very few markets anywhere in the world that do not have some sort of seasonality in either yields or traffic. You may think there is no seasonality to NW's SEA operation but that would be contrary to the SEA market as a whole.
if your flights have the same load factor year around and you do not increase capacity, then there is no seasonality in your traffic. If fares are the same year around, then you have no seasonality in your yields. There are very few markets anywhere in the world that do not have some sort of seasonality in either yields or traffic. You may think there is no seasonality to NW's SEA operation but that would be contrary to the SEA market as a whole.
Kev3188
Veteran
Fair enough.
I know we're talking about DL here, but NW's sched. more or less stays the same all year. I don't know about the fares/yields. Does DL's not do the same?
I guess when I hear "seasonal," I think of places like Florida.
I know we're talking about DL here, but NW's sched. more or less stays the same all year. I don't know about the fares/yields. Does DL's not do the same?
I guess when I hear "seasonal," I think of places like Florida.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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I don't know DL's SEA schedule off the top of my head but I do know they historically use more widebodies east-west in the summer (esp to the Pacific NW) vs North-South in the summer. As DL pulls widebodies for int'l service, the seasonal changes may be less pronounced but there could be changes between the narrowbody fleets and there will still be some domestic widebodies. Carriers such as AA, NW, and CO that have relatively few domestic widebodies may not alter their schedule as much but UA also has a number of widebodies that operate on their domestic system and I'm pretty sure UA has had differences in their SEA schedule from summer to winter.
DOT information is available on fares and boardings. If you're really interested, I will dig into it for you.
DOT information is available on fares and boardings. If you're really interested, I will dig into it for you.
Kev3188
Veteran
sea is indeed a very seasonal market for all carrier. us is a good example of this. during the 2005 summer, the flew the following:
700am PHL
1100am PHL
1225pm CLT
1000pm PHL
1045pm CLT
1105pm PIT
all flights were airbus. the pit flight was dropped in august, with the early CLT flt and the PHL redeye dropped in september and october respectively.
this month, us is flying:
700am PHL
1100am PHL
1050pm CLT noop tuesday/saturday
the flights drop off to about a 30% load factor..SEA is a ghost town during the winter months.
700am PHL
1100am PHL
1225pm CLT
1000pm PHL
1045pm CLT
1105pm PIT
all flights were airbus. the pit flight was dropped in august, with the early CLT flt and the PHL redeye dropped in september and october respectively.
this month, us is flying:
700am PHL
1100am PHL
1050pm CLT noop tuesday/saturday
the flights drop off to about a 30% load factor..SEA is a ghost town during the winter months.
jimntx
Veteran
FWIW, as near as I can tell, AA runs the same number of flights with the same equipment year-round. I know that every flight I have ever worked to/from SEA has been full. Most were oversold.
jimntx --
You're basically right! However, until DL pulled out of DFW and the TW merger, AA did vary its SEA-DFW schedule by 2 flights per day (added during the summer). Back in the early 90's, they ran all MD-80's during the winter and added a couple of DC-10/757's to the mix in the summer.
We always wondered why scheduling didn't add a couple additional flights to SEA -- or upgrade ALL the flights to 757's during the summers.
jimntx
Veteran
Most of that extra Summer traffic is/was cruise business. I know the President of Princess Cruises. He told me that the cruise lines make sure that they spread that business around among all the airlines. Partly to avoid a whole ship's worth of passengers "missing the boat" if an airline was struck.
Most (or all) of the Alaska cruises sail from Vancouver now. Very few sail from Seattle. They tried, for awhile, to fly passengers into Seattle and then bus them to Vancouver, but passengers didn't like the ride--gorgeous though that trip is.
B
B.O.B.
Guest
At AA the JFK-SEA and SEA-JFK are always stuffed full. I flew it all month in December and we always had jumpseaters commuting to/from work. We rarely had an open seat. That 757 was a killer!
I wonder if the fares are generally high on the SEA-JFK. Were many of the passengers connecting to int'l flights? Or does AA end up matching Song and JetBlue fares?
