LAS being downsized?

[Jimmy Neutron]

http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/2008/03/14/tourgame.html

Another spin on the LAS situation.....It's too bad, Doug keeps preaching about US doing its part in cutting domestic capacity...Why is it US is the only one ever cutting, while someone else just happens to be waiting in the wings to pick up the slack.

 

[deltawatch]

The info was a managers opinion based on what she's hearing.

Say a typical mid sized East city today has:

8 RJ's to CLT
6 RJ's to LGA
5 RJ's to PHL
5 RJ's DCA

could look like this ....

5 190 or larger to CLT
2 190 or larger to LGA
3 190 or larger to PHL
2 175 DCA

 

[BoeingBoy]

Sounds a lot like GSO......

BTW, the 175 isn't mainline so 24 Express RJ's goes to 10 mainline plus 2 Express.

Jim

 

[BuffaloJoe]

Also I seen in the summer PHL-DEN flight, the 8:30pm and red eye return will be on the E-190.

 

[deltawatch]

Sounds a lot like GSO......

BTW, the 175 isn't mainline so 24 Express RJ's goes to 10 mainline plus 2 Express.

Jim

I can't see them using anything larger than 175's to DCA out of cities like ORF CHS RDU ROA CHS GSO CAE etc.

This would fix ATC problems to if they did it in and out of LGA to all mid size cities.

A little off topic but look at this. This would help with ATC also if they with drew some of their over lap with us down at the same time.

Delta CEO: 'Comprehensive' Changes Ahead
Friday March 14, 4:06 pm ET
By Harry R. Weber, AP Business Writer
Delta Will Revise Business Plan to Deal With Higher Fuel

ATLANTA (AP) -- Delta Air Lines Inc. will be overhauling its business plan to deal with soaring fuel prices, the chief executive of the nation's third-largest carrier said Friday.
CEO Richard Anderson did not provide any details in a recorded message to employees, including whether the "comprehensive" plan to be announced next week will include job cuts.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080314/delta_strategy.html?.v=2

 

[BoeingBoy]

One thing for sure - it's hard to justify a lot of the 50-seat RJ's flying between medium/large markets with current oil/fuel prices, and getting harder to justify 70-seaters. Unfortunately, most carriers are in the same fix as US - most of the smaller RJ's are under contracts that can't just be dropped at a moments notice.

Jim

 

[N924PS]

One thing for sure - it's hard to justify a lot of the 50-seat RJ's flying between medium/large markets with current oil/fuel prices, and getting harder to justify 70-seaters. Unfortunately, most carriers are in the same fix as US - most of the smaller RJ's are under contracts that can't just be dropped at a moments notice.

Jim

Funny how the company honors a business contract but walks all over a labor contract.

"Don't like it?" "Grieve it!"

 

[BoeingBoy]

Ain't that the truth - maybe we (you all) need punitive damage clauses in the contract.....

Jim

 

[US1YFARE]

One thing for sure - it's hard to justify a lot of the 50-seat RJ's flying between medium/large markets with current oil/fuel prices, and getting harder to justify 70-seaters. Unfortunately, most carriers are in the same fix as US - most of the smaller RJ's are under contracts that can't just be dropped at a moments notice.

Jim

I was talking to a CO RES agent the other night on the elite desk and she started talking about RJ's and she asked at some meeting or town hall or something if they would be pulled back at all and she was told that until they got more mainline planes, there was no plans for a pulldown in that service. It wouldn't surprise me if there was because of fuel.

 

[BoeingBoy]

I'll admit it's not a simple or easy decision, especially in the markets where the smaller RJ's are the right size aircraft. CASM is climbing with every increase in the price of fuel, making profits more difficult to come by, but if a larger plane is too big, the higher segment cost is as bad as the higher CASM. Drop the route completely and you lose traffic on the flights a lot of those passengers were connecting to, so revenue drops on those. It's a real quandry in these smaller markets.

Much easier, if the bigger planes were available, is what to do in the medium to big or big to big city pairs with 6-10 RJ flights/day. But even CO, who has probably been receiving more mainline aircraft than about any other legacy lately, doesn't have the planes to just replace a slew of RJ's overnight even if they wanted to.

Jim

 

[deltawatch]

The WN business plan .... find a market that supports a 120 passenger plane and fly it, anything less is a looooser.

We have markets that fit the model and instead of using the WN model, US and DL go head to head with 15 rj's a day.

 

[FM2436]

One thing for sure - it's hard to justify a lot of the 50-seat RJ's flying between medium/large markets with current oil/fuel prices, and getting harder to justify 70-seaters. Unfortunately, most carriers are in the same fix as US - most of the smaller RJ's are under contracts that can't just be dropped at a moments notice.

Jim

I sure hope US Airways makes an announcement sometime soon about their turboprop plans for Piedmont, like maybe a mixed fleet of Q300s and Q400s. I believe high fuel prices are here to stay.

 

[tadjr]

I dont know how many seat this would have been, but for several months we didnt operate our night flight to/from LAS on Tu/We/Sa. This was on quite a few of the markets served from LAS with redeyes. That would have been 450 seats less a week one way on our flight alone. Multiplied by a couple of months (it was 3 or 4 months) and the numbers could start adding up.

 

[ClueByFour]

US didn't operate any large A/C in that market for this reason.

You don't find a 757 "large" by US standards? They flew them from PIT/PHL/LAS for years/

 

[BuffaloJoe]

You don't find a 757 "large" by US standards? They flew them from PIT/PHL/LAS for years/

I think pre BK 1 US flew nothing but 737's on the route. The 757's came on either just before BK 1 or right after.