UA wants MIA-LHR

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MAH4546

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Rumours are going around that AA may have some compietition to London, giving AA some compieition. United Airlines wants to transfer thier BOS-LHR flight, ending in two months, to Miami. A fourth carrier cannot enter the Miami-London market until traffic reaches x amount. Apparently, traffic has reached that amount. The United Airlines flight would apparently be a daylight flight, leaving Miami in the morning. But London Heathrow is just the beginning of UAL''s plans for Miami (***uming they are still around), which include RJs to Savannah and Raleigh; mainline to San Juan and Dallas; and the return of services to Port of Spain and Panama City, among others. They want 25% of the market by 2010.
 
UAL did briefly operate MIA-LHR back in 1991 when they took over the PAN AM LHR routes. Pan Am took MIA back and operated to LGW. On the morning when UA succeded Pan Am at LHR 4 747's arrived for UAL one each from JFK, SFO, IAD, and MIA. I have always wondered why UA didn't operate MIA-LHR but since they only operate a limited Latin America schedule I figured Europe wasn't in the mix.

About a day flight though, given it takes about 9 hours from MIA to LHR. The 9 hour of flight + 5 hours difference in time is 14 hours local time later in London. to arrive at LHR at 10pm the flight would have to leave MIA at 8am. With several 777 at MIA early in the morning with the arrival of SCL, EZE, GIG and GRU, This early time may be convenient logistcally. I wonder though how many are how many floridians would take an 8am flight from MIA to LHR? I think UA would be better off leaving at 5-7pm like every other European flight from MIA with say a 777 or even one of theirsurplus 744's. With a evening departure they could at least feed the flight with some Star alliance Mexicana flights from Cancun and Mexico City. When Pan Am flew to LHR I would take that flight and was always perplexed by a announcement made from Mexicana on arrival of a flight at about 3pm from Mexico(I'm not sure which city) saying, p***engers going to London or Paris on Pan am go to gate ***. 10 or 20 p***engers extra always helps.
 
United Airlines currently cannot operate MIA-LHR. Bermuda II is complex, and unless traffic reaches a certain amount, four carriers cannot operate Miami-London. BOS, JFK, EWR, LAX, ORD, and IAD (even though IAD only has three carriers) have reached this point a while back. And it looks like MIA has now reached the traffic point as well. Doing a daylight flight gives UAL a very distinct advantage over other carriers. The same way TAM as an advantage with it's distinct daylight on MIA-GRU (although Varig is making MIA-GIG a daylight next month). And it can attract p***engers connecting to and from LatAm, even if it does not get Mexicana p***engers, which bmi's flight can get, because bmi has promised they are launching MIA-LHR the day they are allowed the US and UK reach open skies. SEA-LHR, DEN-LHR, ORD-LHR, and IAD-LHR are the other promised routes.
 
I agree. A daylight flight to Europe, or even deep South America for that matter, is a waste of day. But the fact remains there is a market because some people like it that way, as it reduces jetlag (not in the case of LatAm). O'Hare, Boston, New York City, Toronto, and Dulles have daylights (mostly to London, but NYC has to Paris, Frankfurt, and some others too). Miami has daylights to Sao Paulo and soon Rio de Janeiro (and flights from Belem and Manaus are daylight).

As for Dallas, well, again, the point is that United wants to get people to connect IN Miami, not go from Miami to connect in O'Hare, etc. The latest word is that an ACA (United Express) base will be started within 18 months at MIA for regional feed, as well as some RJ long-hauls to Houston and New Orleans (the rest of the plan includes intra-Florida, Savannah, Raleigh, and Atlanta). UAL has big plans for MIA, despite thier financial problems, they see a big market, and they want 25% of it. How AA will react will be interesting, but UAL's $800M terminal that is being built on the southside is proof of thier commitment.
 
A day light trip to Europe. What a waste of a day. Its a wasted business day. Its a wasted vaction day.

I doubt United will start flying Miami to Dallas. That would be one of the dumbest things I could imagine. But as I write it I could see a airline manager thinking its a wonderful idea. After all, look at all the flight AA has between Miami and Dallas. We want some of that.

United would be better off runnning flights to citys where they can connect on. DC, San Fran or Chicago.
 
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[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 9/7/2002 10:17:27 PM kirkpatrick wrote: [BR][BR][BR][BR][BR][BR][BR]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]p***engers [/BLOCKQUOTE][BR][BR]Moderators, could you please either straighten out this silly software censoring feature or turn the damm (deliberately misspelled) thing off?  It's ridiculous to see words like pa$$enger, a$$et and a$$igned blanked out.[BR][BR]MK[BR][BR][BR]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE][BR][BR][BR][BR]Agreed. I started a thread on the Just Conversation board about this very thing. When you can't use the word pa$$enger in an aviation forum...that's just asinine (only 1 S in that word, fortunately).[BR]
 
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p***engers [/blockquote]

Moderators, could you please either straighten out this silly software censoring feature or turn the damm (deliberately misspelled) thing off? It's ridiculous to see words like pa$$enger, a$$et and a$$igned blanked out.

MK
 
ALL the day light flights to LHR are from the Northeast. JFK, BOS, IAD, YYZ and ORD have flight times 2 hours less then MIA to LHR which allows for a later morning departure and earlier evening arrival. a jfk-lhr 9am departure arrives at 9pm.

About the connections fron Latin America for a daylight flight to LHR from MIA: For a 8am departure people coming from RIO, SAO PAULO, Santiago or Buenos Aires( these are the first arrivals of the day at 5 or 6 am) will have already been jetlagged( these flight themselves are 8 or 9 hours). If the local market can sustain it then UA should do it. I think a departure at a more traditional evening hour would work better.
 
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On 9/8/2002 9:38:09 AM FA Mikey wrote:

Thru the end of the year. United is set to add a new Dullas and Denver flight.
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And a new LAX flight too (on Halloween). And they are putting the 777 on Miami-O'Hare runs. And Newark should be starting in December like it usually does (the EWR flights are filled with practically nothing but SAS connecting p***engers).
 
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On 9/8/2002 9:28:56 AM JFK777 wrote:

About the connections fron Latin America for a daylight flight to LHR from MIA: For a 8am departure people coming from RIO, SAO PAULO, Santiago or Buenos Aires( these are the first arrivals of the day at 5 or 6 am) will have already been jetlagged( these flight themselves are 8 or 9 hours). If the local market can sustain it then UA should do it. I think a departure at a more traditional evening hour would work better.
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Chicago is not the Northeast, it is the Midwest. The sole daylight flight gets in at around 1030. Also, honestly, maybe it is just me, but I don't get jetlag flying SCL-MIA, etc. It is an overnight flight and the change in time zone is one hour either way. You may not get any sleep, but you most likely will not get jetlag. And the fact remains that with the decrease in service between Europe and LatAm, more and more people are being forced to connect in the US. It is annoying, but it just like how most Americans have to connect in Europe to get to Africa. UA's SCL/GIG/GRU/MVD/EZE flights all get in within 5 minutes of each other between 0430 and 0435. A 0630-0700 departure (which could also get the RG GRU flight; SSA arrives too late and MAO, BEL, and GIG are daylights) could work fine for a UA daylight if they were to be that reliant on connecting traffic. And then, of course, there are p***engers that interline. Besides, UA wants bmi to operate the evening departure.
 
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On 9/8/2002 3:25:45 PM JFK777 wrote:

DEAR Mark in Miami,

You ae right that service from Europe to Lat AM has been cut, especially Lufthansa doesn't fly to Ecuador, Peru, or Bogota any more. However, service from the Northwest LAT Am( PERU, Ecuador,Colombia and Venezuela) has been cut but not from the southeast( Brazil, Argentina, and Chile). These countries do to their greater distance from MIami has more trade with Europe( Argentina did) then the USA. Air France, British Airways, Lufthansa, and Iberia fly almost daily or more to GRU, GIG and EZE. SCL is usually a tag leg from EZE. The theory that all these people from these deep Lat AM cities fly to Miami to connect to Europe is a little long in tooth. If I lived in one of these major Lat Am cities I could get to Europe on a flight nonstop to a major European airport and then connect to where I needed to go. Even the South American airlines, especailly Varig, fly to many of the major cities in Europe daily from their hub airports. Lan Chile flies daily SCL-MAD on A340. Aerolineas Argentinas flies to Madrid daily, or more. Tam flies to CDG daily and FRA a few times weekly. Europe is well served from the deep South American Metropolis's, this the same reason why UA flies only to these major cities and not the lesser north south american cities. The money in South America is in Argentina, Chile and Brazil (even in these times).
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In recent years (months even) SCL has lost Swiss, British Airways, and KLM; Buenos Aires has lost KLM; Rio de Janiero has lost Lufthansa; and TAM has ended Frankfurt and Zurich (which was daily). Rio has no non-stop service to London; Santiago's only non-stop service is Madrid, and otherwise they have Lufthansa and Air France. Buenos Aires, with the exception of the fact that they do not have daily London service, is pretty strong, so is Sao Paulo. Rio de Janiero is not that strong to Europe, but Varig has been improving that a little lately. As for where the money is in LatAm, right now it is in Ecuador, and Bolivia, because of how underserved it is, is always a huge money generator. Not to say that Brazil/Argentina/Chile aren't big moneymakers, because, as you said yourself, even in these tough times, they are still near the top. And, actually, Caracas is one of the best and strongest European markets from LatAm. British Airways to LGW, Lufthansa to FRA, Air France to CDG, TAP to LIS (as well as a Portuguese island community whose name escapes me), Iberia to MAD and TFS, Avensa to MAD and Santiago Compastela, Aeropostal/Air Europa to MAD, Alitalia to CCS, and KLM to AMS.
 
DEAR Mark in Miami,

You ae right that service from Europe to Lat AM has been cut, especially Lufthansa doesn't fly to Ecuador, Peru, or Bogota any more. However, service from the Northwest LAT Am( PERU, Ecuador,Colombia and Venezuela) has been cut but not from the southeast( Brazil, Argentina, and Chile). These countries do to their greater distance from MIami has more trade with Europe( Argentina did) then the USA. Air France, British Airways, Lufthansa, and Iberia fly almost daily or more to GRU, GIG and EZE. SCL is usually a tag leg from EZE. The theory that all these people from these deep Lat AM cities fly to Miami to connect to Europe is a little long in tooth. If I lived in one of these major Lat Am cities I could get to Europe on a flight nonstop to a major European airport and then connect to where I needed to go. Even the South American airlines, especailly Varig, fly to many of the major cities in Europe daily from their hub airports. Lan Chile flies daily SCL-MAD on A340. Aerolineas Argentinas flies to Madrid daily, or more. Tam flies to CDG daily and FRA a few times weekly. Europe is well served from the deep South American Metropolis's, this the same reason why UA flies only to these major cities and not the lesser north south american cities. The money in South America is in Argentina, Chile and Brazil (even in these times).
 
First of all, UA is not spending $800 million to build a new terminal at Miami.

The entire South Terminal Development Project at Miami (Concourse H and J) is going to cost $800 million.

United will only occupy Concourse J (15 gates). They will not be there by themselves. They will have to share the gates with their Star Alliance partners, all of whom are probably more capable than United of paying the expensive lease payments on those new gates.

The Project (Concourse H and J) is being financed by Revenue Bonds secured with those lease payments. At this time, United has very little financial exposure in the project. By comparison, AA has a greater financial stake in the North Terminal Development Project.

Of the 15 gates in Concourse J, none have been designed to handle RJ Operations. By comparison, there will be a whole series of gates in AA's SuperConcourse that will be dedicated to RJ operations.

The long and short of it is that AA's SuperConcourse was designed to be both an international and domestic hub; the Star Alliance Concourse J was designed as an international gateway facility.

Of course, United can use their gates whichever way they want, but they will have competition for them from their own Star Alliance partners, specifically Mexicana. Moreover, correct me if I am wrong, but the new Concourse J will have fewer gates overall than Concourse F, where United is now.
 
You are correct on the development costs, UAL is not paying it all, but they are putting quite a hefty investment in the project. Yes, the 15-gate terminal is designed for international flights. You are correct that Concourse J will have fewer gates than Concourse F's 20, but they share Concourse F with Iberia (which has a small hub op at MIA; I ***ume Iberia is going to move in with AA). UAL's growth at MIA will be mainly internatinal. Austrian should be back to Miami by next summer (this time without the MUC stop; still op. by Lauda), and Lufthansa is supposed to be launching a Miami-Munich connection within a year, in addition to rumours that SAS is coming after they get the SFO launch off the ground, and bmi has already said they are planning MIA. Mexicana is looking at adding SAL, ACA, BOG, and CCS, while Varig is looking at bringing back FOR and REC. Spanair is joining Star next year, and considering MIA will be LatAm hub, I think an MIA-MAD link would be ideal (operated by UA), but it is way to early to guess what their role in Star will be. LOT has expressed intrest in flying to MIA when they are allowed to effective 1 January 2004 (Miami is one of six designated US gateways for flights from Poland under the new Open Skies agreement). Most of the connections will be European p***engers to LatAm and visa-versa, but some domestic feed will be needed, and regional feed provides the most efficent way to add it. However it adds up, Star wants 25% of the market by 2010, and they have about 7-8% right now.

You seem to know alot of about the new MIA projects, thanks for the info. I'm glad to see AA is planning some RJ ops at MIA, because I really think that they could efficently use RJs on some Southeast routes that are too thin for mainline but perfect for RJs, such as BHM, GSO, and ORF.
 
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