Southeast to begin serving SWF

[LoneStarMike]

From the Times Herald Record:
Southeast gives Stewart a low-cost carrier to Fla.
08/17/2002
This sounds kind of strange to me. They're serving FLL via EWR with 110 seat DC-9's, but they're also going to have 2 daily roundtrips to RDU using specially configured all first-class 56 seat DC-9's. I wonder if the specially configured plane(s) were some of the ones that used to belong to Legend?
LoneStarMike

 

[JFK Fleet Service]

What service are they operating from JFK? We get MD-80's here on a daily basis.

 

[TWA Guy]

The article mentions that Southeast serves 12 cities. Where else do they fly?

 

[Hope777]

SWF-EWR Non-Stop! I'm sure on many days/nights it is going to be quicker to drive. Whats next, ABE-EWR?[:knockout:]

 

[iflyual]

Years ago, didn't Continental serve ABE-EWR for a while until they replaced it with bus service?

 

[RDUman]

Love service into RDU as it is my home port, but will this work?? Guess they are going after the IBM business. Guess there is no other ns on the rout. Both U and JI had service on this in the past. Wonder what kind of yields this has and I wonder why AE has not jumped on this.

 

[Hope777]

Yes, Co did run EWR-ABE with Express. They used a Brasila on the route.

 

[N464AT]

How long have they been offering scheduled service? I wonder how many aircraft and what type the operate. I have been seeing their DC-9s in alot of different places.

 

[JI Guy]

CO also ran PHL>EWR service with ATR-42s in early 90s...About the same drive time as ABE>EWR...Now they list a "flight" segment which is actually rail service from 30th St. station to EWR with a flight number and in SMALL print at the bottom it identifies service as provided by AMTRAK!! TOBAL!!!!!! (There Ought to Be a Law)

 

[CLEfan]

I wonder how or if Continental will respond to the EWR-FLL flight?

 

[tadjr]

----------------
On 8/29/2002 5:30:27 PM

...Now they list a "flight" segment which is actually rail service from 30th St. station to EWR with a flight number and in SMALL print at the bottom it identifies service as provided by AMTRAK!! TOBAL!!!!!! (There Ought to Be a Law)
----------------

DeutscheBahn has been doing this with LH flight numbers for a while. Just like a codeshare flight.

 

[RDUSWF]

I believe they would do just fine if they flew from SWF-RDU-FLL. A couple problems with what they are proposing.
1) 56 seat DC-9s (Old Legend plane) for the SWF-RDU route is going to have to get a high yield, and in this down economy it will be very tough.
2) The SWF-EWR-FLL route makes very little sense, who will fly for 15 minutes in order to only take off again? The added costs will be hard to make up in extra passengers carried.

I think that if they flew RDU to SWF, BDL, and BOS to the north and then RDU to FLL, TPA and MCO in the south that they can make it a success. As long as they use the regularly configured DC-9s, maintain FL type costs, and fare structure RDU and the rest of these cities can support this service.

 

[JI Guy]

The only thing that is missing RDUSWF is a namechange to Midway Long live JI

 

[funguy2]

Cartpusher:

Thanks for beating me to it! Changing the name on the airplanes from Midway to Southeast won't make it profitable!

But, I do think that there is great potential at SWF for a Southwest/ISP type operation. Not sure if Southeast is tapping into it the right way. Why didn't they announce SWF-FLL, SWF-PIE, SWF-SFB nonstop 1x/day each? That would have made more sence to me.

 

[lowfareair]

I'm surprised that they aren't going to add even more seats. You'd think that they would give the planes maybe 72-76 seats, which would decrease seat pitch, but comeon, who needs 46" of pitch for a 1.5 hour flight?

BTW: If they have FL's block hour cost structure on the nine's, costs are about $.17/ASM. Fares start at $125, which would give the airline $.27/RPM, so about a 66% BELF.