urbanSTL

imperialmog wrote:

JAL007 wrote:UA has loaded a second SFO flight on Skywest E-175 beginning in October. The schedule has been tweaked a bit but nice increase in capacity to 1x 320 and 1x E75. Hopefully this means UA is sticking to the market although I could see both flights going to E75s in the future.

How is this timed? Since having extra frequency will help out as well for connecting to United and their partners Transpacific flights from SFO depending on timing. Since it is most extensive from that hub compared to their other ones. I didn't know that plane had the range to do that route, especially going west.

It is interesting is all the SFO capacity increase this year, is there any particular reason or is some of this reaction to others? I was thinking maybe the tech startups occuring in the area lately could be driving increase in traffic demand to that market. It is good seeing the added SFO capacity and west coast overall here. I'm not sure what holes domestically there is left for both any non-stop and at least a daily year round non-stop. I'm half intrigued as to what are the busiest routes from here that lack it to guess what could be added in the future. (if I had to take a guess the most likely next move is Southwest starting non-stop to Austin since that might be the busiest destination from here without a non-stop)

Schedule effective September 21, 2014:

UA 435 SFO 10:45 STL 16:40 320
UA 4718 SFO 16:10 STL 22:05 E75

UA 4717 STL 07:30 SFO 09:47 E75
UA 715 STL 17:30 SFO 19:47 320

Agree it will enable more Asia connections which is a good thing. Its unfortunate they didn't go two daily mainline, although with WN entering the market this is a big jump in capacity. While a long flight, this is well within the range capabilities of the Embraer 175. For passengers the 1-2 seating in FC and 2-2 seating in YC is more comfortable over 2-2/3-3 on the 320.

^ To give a tie in per the business community where demand for west coast service is coming from. McCarthy adding another office in the Bay Area because of the building trades demand happening. On a side note, always thought McCarthy would be a good opportunity for a HQ relocation within the region

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... llion.html

McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., the largest commercial builder in St. Louis, is pushing west with a new office in San Jose, Calif.

The Silicon Valley office, at 2665 North First St., will open May 15, the St. Louis-based company said. “We already have offices in San Francisco and Sacramento, but we see a need to be local in Silicon Valley,”

matguy70 wrote:31st in busiest air traffic in 2013. A gain of passengers at about .029%
MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is 352nd busiest

Glad to see the increase of passengers at STL even if small. The airport continues to add service nicely. Looking at all the airports that have been dehubbed in the past 10 years - STL is still the busiest (by far) of them today.

I've always noticed for a non-main hub STL does VERY well. I'm not sure why there are so many complaints, guess I didn't live here during the hay-day, but still nearly every major city has a non-stop, and even many smaller such as Madison and Richmond.

STL is home to 4 "regional" hubs. -
1. Trans-states
2. Go Jet
3. Air Choice One
4. Cape Air

I think this helps us quite a bit, I'd like to see all of them keep adding routes.

Air Choice One and Cape air are big players in connections for us since they serve towns such as Cape and Decatur, they'll connect through STL instead of elsewhere

I just few back from LAX yesterday on Southwest, non-stop leaving at 12:40 PM LA time and arriving in St. Louis at 6:15 PM. Curiously, AA also has a non-stop from LAX leaving and arriving at exactly the same times. I'm guessing Southwest saw that the AA flight is always full and overbooked, and decided that if AA wasn't going to accommodate the demand, they would.

The family sitting next to me and in front of me were changing planes in St. Louis to get from LA to Grand Rapids Michigan. The non-stop went on to Atlanta and then Washington.

cteclipse wrote:

matguy70 wrote:31st in busiest air traffic in 2013. A gain of passengers at about .029%
MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is 352nd busiest

Glad to see the increase of passengers at STL even if small. The airport continues to add service nicely. Looking at all the airports that have been dehubbed in the past 10 years - STL is still the busiest (by far) of them today.

I've always noticed for a non-main hub STL does VERY well. I'm not sure why there are so many complaints, guess I didn't live here during the hay-day, but still nearly every major city has a non-stop, and even many smaller such as Madison and Richmond.

STL is home to 4 "regional" hubs. -
1. Trans-states
2. Go Jet
3. Air Choice One
4. Cape Air

I think this helps us quite a bit, I'd like to see all of them keep adding routes.

Air Choice One and Cape air are big players in connections for us since they serve towns such as Cape and Decatur, they'll connect through STL instead of elsewhere

STL does not currently have non-stop service to MSN and RIC. Those were former American Eagle/American Connection routes that ended in 2009-2010 when AA right sized STL.

http://www.flystl.com/Airlines/NonStopService.aspx

JuanHamez wrote:Yeah there's no direct flight to Richmond anymore. I was sad when the RIC route was closed. I used to ride it quite often and was on the very last flight. I've written to several airlines about reinstituting a direct flight down there to no avail.

I could see Southwest add a non-stop in time. They just recently started going into there with the AirTran merger but has limited numbers of flights at this time to Atlanta and Orlando. They will likely need to add routes in time going west to connect into the network better. I am not sure if they can really add many more flights to Midway since if they can't and want to add something west it would either be St. Louis or Nashville most likely.

I am curious to look up numbers overall for total traffic from St. Louis to different places and see what are the busiest routes that have no nonstop service and if there are any that could see increase in frequency by an airline or another entrant on the route. Is there a place for that?

imperialmog wrote:

JuanHamez wrote:Yeah there's no direct flight to Richmond anymore. I was sad when the RIC route was closed. I used to ride it quite often and was on the very last flight. I've written to several airlines about reinstituting a direct flight down there to no avail.

I could see Southwest add a non-stop in time. They just recently started going into there with the AirTran merger but has limited numbers of flights at this time to Atlanta and Orlando. They will likely need to add routes in time going west to connect into the network better. I am not sure if they can really add many more flights to Midway since if they can't and want to add something west it would either be St. Louis or Nashville most likely.

I am curious to look up numbers overall for total traffic from St. Louis to different places and see what are the busiest routes that have no nonstop service and if there are any that could see increase in frequency by an airline or another entrant on the route. Is there a place for that?

The data is available through the DOT, although for it to be presented in a meaningful manner you'd need access to a service such as MIDT (service used by airline network planners)

I flew to London two weeks ago on BA from Chicago, St Louis could absolutely support a London route. With BA's new 787s, I can see STL being able to support a regular flight. The problem is getting one.

Presbyterian wrote:I can't. But I'd hesitate to fly Aeroflot. My worst flight ever, though, was with Ukrainian International Airlines. Aeroflot hand-me-down plane. Bare metal walls. Two propellers cranked by hand. Vodka passed around to soothe the nerves.

Soviet legacy flights are just not my thing.

IMO we are incredibly blessed in this country with the quality of our airlines. Off topic, my worst flight was STL-JAX in 2008 (I believe). Absolute worst turbulence ever. Flight attendant hit the ceiling and drinks and laptops flew everywhere. I still get somewhat anxious when the fasten seat-belt sign turns on. The best was British Airways ORD-LHR. One of the smoothest flights ever, crew was incredible, and the programming and food were spectacular. Only downside of that trip was the horrendous air quality in London.

Chalupas54 wrote:I flew to London two weeks ago on BA from Chicago, St Louis could absolutely support a London route. With BA's new 787s, I can see STL being able to support a regular flight. The problem is getting one.

I think their flight to Austin is a big test route for a number of other markets including St. Louis. If that one does well for them it makes adding a route to St. Louis that much more likely once they get more planes. I remember seeing them state they want to add at least 5 more US cities to London which if you start looking at numbers St. Louis would more likely than not be one of the five.

Also on other things, did Alaska just recently move to C from A? And is this related at all to any rumored issues they have with Delta lately with their buildup in Seattle? And what are the chances at some point Alaska would offer a 2nd daily flight that leaves here in the morning and arrives late? (similar to the 2nd flight United is doing from SFO)

I did see last week as well Southwest pushed up the start date of the SFO flight from Sept 30 to Sept 9, not sure if that was in reaction to increase in flights from United. Also what are the chances that Southwest will start using more gates? Since I was arriving a few weeks ago from Boston and we had to wait on the tarmac about 10 minutes due to all the gates being used at the time. I saw on the news they are changing their schedules for longer turnaround times to deal with performance issues, so it might mean they need to get another gate or two here.

imperialmog wrote:Also on other things, did Alaska just recently move to C from A? And is this related at all to any rumored issues they have with Delta lately with their buildup in Seattle? And what are the chances at some point Alaska would offer a 2nd daily flight that leaves here in the morning and arrives late? (similar to the 2nd flight United is doing from SFO)

Delta previously held ground handling contracts for a number of Alaska stations across the country, including STL. Middle of last year, Delta announced they would not renew those contracts. Why? No one knows (outside of Delta). DL insists Alaska is an important partner of theirs... recent actions call that into serious question.

SEA is a market which could support a second daily flight.. at least in the summer. Traffic to SEA is HIGHLY seasonal. TWA had 7 daily flights to SEA in the summer in the late 90s, including an occasional L-1011.

Greg

gregl wrote:

imperialmog wrote:Also on other things, did Alaska just recently move to C from A? And is this related at all to any rumored issues they have with Delta lately with their buildup in Seattle? And what are the chances at some point Alaska would offer a 2nd daily flight that leaves here in the morning and arrives late? (similar to the 2nd flight United is doing from SFO)

Delta previously held ground handling contracts for a number of Alaska stations across the country, including STL. Middle of last year, Delta announced they would not renew those contracts. Why? No one knows (outside of Delta). DL insists Alaska is an important partner of theirs... recent actions call that into serious question.

SEA is a market which could support a second daily flight.. at least in the summer. Traffic to SEA is HIGHLY seasonal. TWA had 7 daily flights to SEA in the summer in the late 90s, including an occasional L-1011.

Greg

I know Southwest does have a nonstop to SEA in the summer, oddly enough it is timed almost identical to the Alaska flight. I'm just wondering if another frequency would work that is am departure/late arrival would work? There is more interaction between divisions of Boeing lately and the increase in tech industry here, so there might be more air travel demand.

One route I'm curious on is Frontier doing the 3/weekly PDX flight. If that goes well and shown to stimulate demand, I could see Southwest or Alaska start that route at some point down the road. Would also like to San Diego go daily year-round instead of current seasonal. At least the issues of non-stops to the Bay Area are resolved with more service, since that seemed to be one of the oddest holes in list of non-stops from here. I'm not sure at this point what are the biggest service holes from here is, are there many domestic ones left? Or at this point its more increase service the existing non-stop destinations and international service?

^ Too add a little good ol speculation to your comment, from a Business Journal San Fran article which has had a few articles tied to Dallas lately, including one about Virgin American plans for Love Field are still up in the air.

My bet is Dallas trying to get a few more bucks out the deal and Branson doing what any good corporate leader does. Walk away and act like he is not interested until Dallas rolls over and gives him the deal he wants for the Love Field Seats.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco ... tkins.html

Virgin America Inc. has staked its largest-ever route expansion to the use of two gates at Dallas’ Love Field.

The low-cost airline has a deal in place with American Airlines Inc. to use those gates starting in October, it has the blessing of the U.S. Department of Justice and it has started selling tickets.

But an official with the city of Dallas, which controls Love Field, said the process of awarding the gates to Virgin America is “ still up in the air

As I stated when it was announced, I knew this wasn't going to last for long.

Frontier is ending STL-PDX service on September 6th and STL-SFO service on September 29th (the day before Southwest starts flying the route).

Frontier is adding STL-IAD (Washington Dulles) 3x/week -- yes, per week, not per day-- on September 8th. This route is already flown 4x/daily by United Express. STL-DCA is flown 7x/daily (5 on AA, 2 on WN).

Greg

gregl wrote:As I stated when it was announced, I knew this wasn't going to last for long.

Frontier is ending STL-PDX service on September 6th and STL-SFO service on September 29th (the day before Southwest starts flying the route).

Frontier is adding STL-IAD (Washington Dulles) 3x/week -- yes, per week, not per day-- on September 8th. This route is already flown 4x/daily by United Express. STL-DCA is flown 7x/daily (5 on AA, 2 on WN).

Greg

I'm a little surprised they are ending the PDX service, unless its a market like Seattle that has significant seasonal fluctuations in travel. Also Frontier is adding a number of IAD flights at that time so maybe the cut is related to needing planes for that. My guess they are doing this is related to United's profit issues overall and struggles in domestic operations there. I could see the PDX route return next summer. (unless Southwest or Alaska jumps in) Also isn't Southwest adding a 3rd daily flight to DCA around that time?

Also, did Frontier's announcement of SFO end up triggering Southwest finally starting nonstop Bay Area service here? (this was a big hole in their route network from here) Since it seems United ended up countering Southwest with added frequency just after that.

imperialmog wrote:Also, did Frontier's announcement of SFO end up triggering Southwest finally starting nonstop Bay Area service here? (this was a big hole in their route network from here) Since it seems United ended up countering Southwest with added frequency just after that.

For the most part, Frontier is offering less than daily service on many of their non-hub routes. Combine that with their ULCC status and most of the major airlines are not going to react to their service announcements.

I what spurred the Southwest flight to SFO is that the St. Louis area had only one non-stop to the entire Bay Area. United then increased frequency based on Southwest's entry into the market.

Greg

To be quite honest, I would NOT be surprised if Frontier goes under sooner rather than later.