Southwest, US Airways and the Fight for Philadelphia

[N965VJ]

Southwest, US Airways and the Fight for Philadelphia

March 27, 2009, 2:31 PM ET

Philadelphia International has long been a stronghold for US Airways. But Southwest Airlines is increasingly eating into the carrier’s clout there.

A recent research note from bond-rating agency Fitch Ratings provides some good stats for a tale of the tape on the fight for Philly. Fitch Ratings notes that US Airways is still the dominant carrier at the PHL, saying that it represented “64% of fiscal 2008 passengers.â€

That could change, however, as much of this traffic — 35% — was for passengers connecting to other flights, meaning that US Airways could potentially decide to route those PAX through other East Coast airports such as US Airways’ growing hub at Charlotte-Douglas International. “Mitigating the potential shift in connecting traffic is the much stronger base for international service at Philadelphia, which serves as US Airways’ largest international gateway,†Fitch noted.

Still, Fitch analysts say that low-cost carriers have been nibbling up shares of traffic at Philadelphia. “The entry of Southwest Airlines to the airport in 2004 furthered a trend to a more diversified marketplace, with low-cost carriers Southwest, AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines now representing 16% of total enplanements, compared to 2% in fiscal 2002, when AirTran Airways was the sole low cost carrier.â€

Linkage

 

[leadmech8]

Just be happy they do not have ETOP's 7dirty7's.

 

[PHX Flyer]

Southwest outlined, once again, plans for long-haul flights yesterday. The latest plan is to codeshare on existing flights of another airline. A few years ago SWA was eyeing ATA as a parter to operate transatlantic flights. Since ATA is no longer in business, it leaves SWA with significantly less choices. They don't fly to JFK, ORD, DFW, ATL, hence all the other majors are not good candidates for a joint venture with SWA - except for US Airways in PHL. It's possible that the SWA presence may actually proof to be beneficial for US ...

 

[PHL]

You just KNOW that WN has crunched the numbers on what kind of fares they would have to charge to fill up a 737 that could fly from the East coast to Western Europe. At that point, however, they might have also considered a new fleet type to make longer overwater trips like that and/or Hawaii.

 

[BoeingBoy]

A 737 would be too limited on seats - didn't somebody already do that with something like 50 seats, flying into NYC I think?

Early in the 787 development cycle one analyst said that it was an airplane for an airline that didn't exist yet - a low cost carrier flying trans-Atlantic/Pacific.

BOS would make a good jumping off point if WN builds it up. Both Aerlingus and Iceland Air fly into there and have connections to most of western Europe. Or maybe get one of them to come into BWI to get the WN feed.

Jim

 

[700UW]

I think LH does it or shall i say Privatair does if for them.

PrivatAir is a leading international business aviation group with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The company has been in operation for 25 years and employs over 400 people.

PrivatAir operates a Corporate Shuttle on behalf of Lufthansa on routes from various German airports to destinations in the US. For this the airline uses a fleet of Airbus A319 Long Range and Boeing Business Jets (B737-700). These aircraft are equipped with 48 business-class seats in a two-by-two configuration. This was the world's first intercontinental business-class-only scheduled airline service.

This program is a unique opportunity to see the superb service offered on this very special type of operation.

Info

 

[PHL]

With the right adjustments, the 737-700/800/900/900ER could make an East coast to Western Europe trip, similar to the 752.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/737family...rc_newyork.html

A fully loaded 700ER has a max weight range of 5375nm, which is more than enough to make such trips. It's based on the BBJ design, which was built to compete with the Gulfstreams and other long range business jets, yet give a larger cabin with a similar range.

A fully loaded 900ER can do 3200nm, which would be pushing it since even BOS - LGW is a little over 2800nm.

 

[BoeingBoy]

The problem with the 700ER is more fuel burn per seat mile, producing a higher CASM than larger aircraft like the 757/767.

The 900ER gets you relatively close to the same passenger capacity as the 757/767 (thus close to the same fuel burn per seat mile), but doesn't have enough range to replace them. PHL-SNN is 2759 nm and PHL-LGW is 3096 nm great circle distance and somewhat longer for the actual routes, so there's no way to serve more than a few of the PHL-Europe routes, and possibly none westbound without a fuel stop. To get that 3200 mile range, ZFW is down to about 135,000 lb (14,000 lb less than max) so full fuel can be carried.

The 787 would work better for WN, despite the added fleet type. They could serve anywhere in the world with a plane that'll probably burn about the same fuel as a 757.

Jim

 

[sfb]

BOS would make a good jumping off point if WN builds it up. Both Aerlingus and Iceland Air fly into there and have connections to most of western Europe. Or maybe get one of them to come into BWI to get the WN feed.

Southwest did a cooperative agreement back around 1995 or so with Icelandair at BWI. I don't recall the details, but it was a marketing agreement if memory serves, not a codeshare.

They don't fly to JFK, ORD, DFW, ATL, hence all the other majors are not good candidates for a joint venture with SWA - except for US Airways in PHL. It's possible that the SWA presence may actually proof to be beneficial for US

All the talk of a long-haul codeshare is far more likely to involve a foreign carrier. And in any event, outsourcing domestic connections to WN at PHL would pretty much destroy the hub there.

At that point, however, they might have also considered a new fleet type to make longer overwater trips like that and/or Hawaii.

The 737-700 can make it from the West Coast to Hawaii with no problem; that's what Aloha was using for its trans-Pacific flying. However, the 737-900ER would be far better from a unit cost perspective. The 737-900ER would also be well-suited for Southwest on longer domestic routes.