Kev3188 said:
The story is here. I'm concerned that the exisiting routes are being switched over to CRJ's. Were they performing that poorly? As for the new routes, anyone care to venture a guess on how they'll do (hopefully well enough to become mainline..)?
Of the new NW routes at Milwaukee:
LAS has done great year round (a big junk market)
MCO has done well most months
LAX has done well in peak months and okay in other months
BOS LGA and DCA have failed to fill even 40% of seats most months.
Of the new and expanded routes:
LGA will do better with a more competitive schedule and fewer seats (100 vs 124)
DCA is similar, although yields are crappy in this market...perhaps too crappy for the high seat-mile costs of an RJ.
BWI will lose money hand over fist. The market is small and terribly low yield because of AirTran's presence there. I believe NW is coming into this market (and bypassing many much better MKE markets) to attack AirTran.
MCI and STL don't stand much of a chance in my opinion. Both are small and NW will be flying *once per day* with RJs. I believe NW is doing this to expand their roster of Milwaukee cities to qualify for Wisconsin's tax exemption for those airlines which "hub" in the state. MKE-STL in particular is a short, small route, and with only 1 flight per day many who might want to use NW will find they have to make out-of-the-way connections in DTW or MSP. I think these two routes are only posturing and nothing more.
