Summer 2010: New Routes

[MAH4546]

Here is what we have so far.

Chicago-Allentown - 3x ERJ - 10JUN
Chicago-Anchorage - 1x 757 - 13MAY
Chicago-Beijing - 1x 772 - 06APR
Chicago-Calgary - 6w CR7 + 2w S80 - 06APR
Chicago-Charleston (WV) - 2x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Dayton - 3x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Fargo - 3x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Harrisburg - 3x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Honolulu - 1x 763 - 07APR
Chicago-Jacksonville - 3x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Lexington - 2x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Rapid City - 2x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Scranton (Penn.) - 2x ERJ - 10JUN
Chicago-Sioux Fallas - 3x ERJ - 06APR
Chicago-Vancouver - 1x 738 - 10JUN

Dallas-Asheville - 1x ERJ - 06APR
Dallas-Augusta (GA) - 2x ERJ - 10JUN
Dallas-Fayetteville (NC) - 2x ERJ - 10JUN
Dallas-Myrtle Beach - 1x ERJ - 10JUN
Dallas-Rapid City - 1x ERJ - 06APR
Dallas-San Salvador - 1x 738 - 10JUN
Dallas-Sioux Falls - 1x ERJ - 06APR

JFK-Austin - 1x S80 - 02JUL
JFK-Columbus - 2x ERJ - 06APR
JFK-Madrid - 1x 75L -01MAY
JFK-Manchester - 1x 75L - 13MAY
JFK-St. Louis - 2x ERJ - 02JUL
JFK-San Jose (CR) - 5w 757 - 06APR

Los Angeles-Reno - 3x ERJ - 10JUN

Miami-Birmingham - 2x ERJ - 06APR
Miami-Pensacola - 2x ERJ - 06APR
Miami-Tulsa - 2w 738 - 12JUN

San Juan-Port Au Prince - 1x AT7 - 12MAR
San Juan-Santiago-Port Au Prince - 3w AT7 - 14MAR
San Juan-Santo Domingo-Port Au Prince - 1x AT7 - 13MAR

 

[eolesen]

Interesting mix, and a good chunk of these are DL/NW hinterland flying...

If FAR, FSD, and RAP work, maybe it's not too far fetched to think that there will eventually be something to IDA, BIL or BZN...

 

[joanne]

Interesting mix, and a good chunk of these are DL/NW hinterland flying...

If FAR, FSD, and RAP work, maybe it's not too far fetched to think that there will eventually be something to IDA, BIL or BZN...

I'm guessing, and I think it's a good guess, that DL won't put up to much of a fight for those routes that use to originate out of MSP(NW).
DL fed the city/state fathers (MSP/MN) a line of BULL SHITE, even though they "threw" some guaranteed money/jobs up front. IMHO "that" was one of the first things settled by Steenland and Anderson, and sold to "ATL" in the form of ...cost of doing business(acquiring NW). DL will try Hard to make it work by connecting everything thru SLC.

My "ultimate" would be ORD/FCA in MT. FCA=Flathead county airport, home to the real Crown Jewel of America's National Parks, Glacier National Park !

PS, GOOD work as Usual............Mark in MIA !

 

[JFK Fleet Service]

Quite the bonanza for Eagle and whoever is picking up the extra ORD flying this summer.

JFK-STL...889 miles on an ERJ, yes, let me choose AA for that segment. :facepalm:

 

[Skymess]

Quite the bonanza for Eagle and whoever is picking up the extra ORD flying this summer.

JFK-STL...889 miles on an ERJ, yes, let me choose AA for that segment. :facepalm:

Yes, only 9 mainline AA new flights. Madrid and Manchester on a 757.......yuck. Good thing the guys running the company know what passengers want. 🙄 Looks like everyone wants to be cramped on a really small plane for a really long time!

Sorry I'm not so excited about Eagle doing everything. Not even Eagle either on a lot of them. Chautauqua from what I've read.

 

[eolesen]

Well, many of you believe customers only want cheap fares. If smaller aircraft is what it takes to get that, I'm sure they'll put up and shut up.

 

[MAH4546]

Sorry I'm not so excited about Eagle doing everything. Not even Eagle either on a lot of them. Chautauqua from what I've read.

Zero of the new routes are Chautauqua.

 

[joanne]

Yes, only 9 mainline AA new flights. Madrid and Manchester on a 757.......yuck. Good thing the guys running the company know what passengers want. 🙄 Looks like everyone wants to be cramped on a really small plane for a really long time!

Sorry I'm not so excited about Eagle doing everything. Not even Eagle either on a lot of them. Chautauqua from what I've read.

"mess'.....If AA were to run an RJ from ORD to Kalispell MT. FCA, I'd GRADLY ride in the cargo bin !

But seriously, I know what your saying.


joanne

 

[jj]

When i see all these new routes i think of the WN commercial- Thank you St louis. 😛h34r:

 

[jimntx]

Amen! After sleeping in STL Ops last Tuesday night, I emerged onto the AA concourse shortly before 5:30am Wednesday morning. We have a number of flights that depart between 0600 and 0700. The AA concourse looked half-deserted with just clusters of passengers at the gates with departing flights.

I went over to the East terminal (all WN) to commute home to Dallas. At 0530, the East terminal was packed with passengers. Even getting the "in uniform" crewmember pass through most of the security line, it took me awhile to get through security.

Before anyone mentions Ma & Pa Kettle, I should tell you that a large percentage of those passengers were men and women in suits and ties carrying briefcases and computer bags. In fact, on my flight to DAL, over half the passengers were obviously business people.

St. Louis is obviously going to be like MCI, and a lot of other destinations. AA has decided to give that business to WN so they can concentrate on our "corner post" hubs. (I love that term since they include DFW in any list of "corners". I've never seen a table or a piece of land that had a corner smack dab in the middle. :unsure: )

And, I have had frequent flyer F/C passengers to/from STL over the past few months tell me that they have no intention of flying on RJs on AE or anyone else, nor do they intend to waste time changing planes in DFW or ORD to get where they need to go if they have another choice. Of course, the company will just use that as an excuse to cut the STL flying even more. "The business is just not there, you know, to justify providing service." The fact that the business was there until they started cutting service does not seem to register with them.

 

[BoeingBoy]

The fact that the business was there until they started cutting service does not seem to register with them.

It's a problem all the legacies have - they can either match fares with low cost competition to keep the business or they can drop routes that are unprofitable because the yields aren't high enough. They just can't do both for too long.

Just saw two pieces this morning. One says that the low cost carriers have replaced almost all the capacity that the legacies have cut since 2003 (not route by route but generally). The other talked about the "Southwest effect" at MSP, particularly the MSP-Chicago market - passenger numbers have exploded because average fares have dropped significantly.

Jim

 

[eolesen]

I'm still not convinced the business traffic at STL was there in the last of the TW days, Jim...

 

[eolesen]

Full flights or not, there's been a lot of changes in the corporate environment. Between 2000 and 2009, five of the 12 largest employers with a headquarters in STL were absorbed into other companies headquartered outside the area. Others like SBC moved their headquarters.

Then you've got other companies closing down major facilities... In auto manufacturing alone, about 5500 jobs have been whacked in the past five years. Ford closed its Hazelwood plant in 2006, Chrysler shut down two assembly plants in Fenton during 2008, and GM cut production at their Wentzville assembly plant by 50% in 2009 (but didn't close it). And then there's Boeing..... Lockheed seems to own the order book for fighter aircraft, which means the only prospects for the F-15 and F-18 are overseas...

Even the Federal Reserve picked STL, RIC and ATL as the three cities being most likely to lag behind the rest of the country in economic recovery...

 

[BoeingBoy]

I'm still not convinced the business traffic at STL was there in the last of the TW days, Jim...

That's something I absolutely have no idea about. WN seems to have done fairly well there as AA (and others) have reduced service, however. That is the point I was really making - the traffic is there but not at fares where AA or other legacies can make money except as a spoke with flights to the hubs. So the legacies (AA in this case) are faced with losing money to maintain market share or reducing service to only what's profitable.

Jim

 

[jimntx]

Full flights or not, there's been a lot of changes in the corporate environment. Between 2000 and 2009, five of the 12 largest employers with a headquarters in STL were absorbed into other companies headquartered outside the area. Others like SBC moved their headquarters.

E, I'm not saying that St. Louis and the surrounding area is the economic power house it once was; however, it's not "nouveau Great Depression" city either. There is still a lot of money in that town.

You just accept that if management says STL (or BOS, SFO, RDU) is a money loser then it must be true. The fact that they use all kinds of book cooking to "prove" that bothers you not at all. For instance, because they insisted on it, half the STL-DAL flights were flown by DFW domestic crews. (They wanted in on the 5 hours flight pay for serving a total of 50 passengers roundtrip gig. Who wouldn't? ) Yet, Centreport charged every penny of the expense for those flights including the gates and staff at DAL to the St. Louis operation. I suspect some of the same thing is going on to justify cutting flights at all the above stations. It's just more running from WN. Well, as the saying goes, we can run, but we can't hide.

And, it seems to me that there is a lot more deck chair shuffling involved in these moves than actual attempts to create a profitable airline. We lost $400 million in just the 4th quarter. Must be the losses at STL. Yeah, that's the ticket. We'll just give STL to WN and create a bunch more rj flights out of ORD. That's what the public has been asking for--long flights on small airplanes. I bet we wipe the ground with UAL with our new ORD-DEN rj service on AE when it starts.