Mid Atlantic Taking To The Air

[TransatlanticFlyGuy]

MDA will take to the air on April 4th with flights from PIT-BOS/ATL/BNA/EWR/ALB/SYR.

 

[BoeingBoy]

MidAtlantic Airways Takes Flight From Pittsburgh In April

POSTED: 7:21 am EST February 18, 2004
UPDATED: 4:52 pm EST February 18, 2004
PITTSBURGH -- Express carrier MidAtlantic Airways will begin offering service from Pittsburgh International Airport on April 4.

MidAtlantic's parent company, US Airways, said MidAtlantic will fly from Pittsburgh to Albany, N.Y.; Atlanta; Boston; Nashville, Tenn.; Newark, N.J.; and Syracuse, N.Y. Seven more destinations will be added by early June, the airline said.

US Airways is relying on MidAtlantic's regional jets to compete with low-cost carriers.

Jim

 

[Capecod]

Lets hope they have an airplane by then. That would help. -Cape

 

[BoeingBoy]

If the certification doesn't come thru, maybe they can use the "stealth" jet. I see it parked around the system occasionally - when the sign at the podium says 20 minutes to departure and you can't see the airplane at the gate.

Seriously, though, I thought it was interesting that none of the initial cities match WN PHL flights - hasn't someone said that MDA was going to be our WN buster?

Jim

 

[28yearsnojob]

Who is going to ground handle and give customer service to all these cities that
MDA is going to fly to. Especially if the city is contracted out , i think the IAM will get those jobs back.AT least I hope so.

 

[Hope777]

Well in our City-EWR, it will be done by the current staff. MDA will be REPLACING Mainline Flights, thank God we will still have CLT service as well so we do not become Mainline Express.

 

[28yearsnojob]

Idont believe you will become mainline express I think you will come under the MDA agreement under the modifed IAM term sheet in dec of 2002.

 

[Hope777]

28yrs...you are funny.

You know the Company does not Honor any of those Letters........

 

[robbedagain]

i have heard that ewr will become an expressed mainline much like abe and avp and cle etc etc... i hope it doesnt happen and cant even imagine that because of the population but hey with this mgmt who knows! may be abe will become the mda service to clt since we are mainline express or as i refer to expressed mainline. abe is now a back up for the proving runs for mda

 

[Art at ISP]

Managment has always cried about yields from ISP (predominantly north-south). This appears to be a golden opportunity to take a stab at Southwest---ISP-PIT on the 170, trying to get more east-west traffic from ISP. It would give some relief from PHL's buzz buckets, and make US more competitive at ISP.

One can only hope........I can't wait to see the June schedule.

My best to you all....

 

[X-U]

If the certification doesn't come thru, maybe they can use the "stealth" jet. I see it parked around the system occasionally - when the sign at the podium says 20 minutes to departure and you can't see the airplane at the gate.

Seriously, though, I thought it was interesting that none of the initial cities match WN PHL flights - hasn't someone said that MDA was going to be our WN buster?

Jim

According to their 2003 annual report, Mesa Air Group had a CASM of 12.3 cents.
WN won't be beat by the short jets.

 

[BoeingBoy]

X-U,

I'm glad you noticed that. The CASM on the RJ's is quite a bit higher than WN's. I personally think that will be the case for the E-170's, too. (assuming a honest accounting for MDA)

Jim

 

[emb170check]

São José dos Campos, February 19, 2004 – Embraer announced today it has been granted final type and production certification for the EMBRAER 170 airliner from the Brazilian Centro Técnico Aerospacial (CTA).

A letter of recommendation from the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) and issuance of a final type certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will follow shortly.

 

[airlineorphan]

XU wrote:

According to their 2003 annual report, Mesa Air Group had a CASM of 12.3 cents.
WN won't be beat by the short jets.

and BoeingBoy reiterated:

The CASM on the RJ's is quite a bit higher than WN's.

In an earlier thread regarding the fuel CASM of RJs, turboprops and large jets, ITRADE and others confirmed that the fuel CASM was indeed higher for RJ's compared to large jets.

I assume this has to do with the engineering and physics of economies of scale.

The main rationale (other than using them as an excuse to establish sweatshops in the sky) for RJs is that they allow an airline to more finely tune capacity to market demand. Unfortunately, these larger RJ's (jumbo shrimp? fresh frozen?) head in the wrong direction from that stated goal by the very fact that they are larger than the traditional 50 seaters.

Thus they combine a higher fuel CASM compared to the larger jets with a diminishing usefulness towards the end of finely tuning capacity to market demand.

So this leaves us with only one motive for them: Use of the RJ's as leverage to drive wages down (big surprise here). Other than that, they give US Airways very little advantage, and in many ways create new disadvantages in the Big Plan (what are we on now? Plan C? Plan E? I've lost track....)

In solidarity,
Airlineorphan

 

[SVQLBA]

You have to look at RASM and CASM. Yes, a 50 seater has higher CASM than a 100-seater (heck -- the 747 has very low CASM!), but if a route is only going to pull 40 pax, do you put 40 pax in an RJ or 40 pax in a 737? The RASM is much mich lower for the 737 (assuming ticket revenues are the same) becaiuse the ASMs generated are much higher. The CASM may be higher, but the total trip cost of operating the RJ is less. So for a fixed amount of revenue from a fixed amount of pax, your are better off with an RJ. The general principal is match the aircraft to the market demand.

Now, it gets more complex when you get into price stimulation through lower fares ...