urbanSTL

imperialmog wrote:Not sure if any of the other flights to hubs by AA/UA/DL could use more seats or frequency soon since I've heard more than a few have been getting crowded from here.

Delta upgauged many of their STL flights last year, at the cost of reduced frequencies, as part of their effort to remove many of the 50 seat planes from their regional jet fleet. Larger regional jets backfilled many former 50 seat flights with mainline aircraft backfilling a number of larger RJ flights in markets like St. Louis.

American is going in the other direction. Having had the smallest fleet of regional jets (due to contract limitations prior to the USAirways merger), they are now taking on a significant number of larger regional jets. The majority of ORD-STL flights are now on 76 seat jets while the Airbus A-319 is starting to appear on DFW flights. Both markets were previously served with all MD-80s.

Greg

If this documentcan be trusted, It looks like UA is upgauging STL-DEN and STL-ORD flights to mainline. Too bad STL-IAH isn't on that list yet. I'm getting tired of those 145s.

KevinAdams wrote:If this documentcan be trusted, It looks like UA is upgauging STL-DEN and STL-ORD flights to mainline. Too bad STL-IAH isn't on that list yet. I'm getting tired of those 145s.

From what I can tell it looks like they are for one flight a day. The ORD one seems timed for international flights as its a mid-afternoon one. Hopefully the IAH does get upgauged since a 50 seater sounds rough for that long a flight, that and larger planes for premium seating. Maybe see at least the 175s.

It's hard to believe AA only has one flight per day to New York with first class...and it's still on a regional jet. The three remaining frequencies to LGA are on 50 seater ERJs. It doesn't seem right.

Also, AA is slowly axing the third daily option I had to get back to St. Louis from Los Angeles.

Has AA lost that many loyal flyers to Southwest in the STL market?

timersman wrote: Has AA lost that many loyal flyers to Southwest in the STL market?

I cut up my AA card years ago when they gave up on StL. I used to fly them probably once a month. Regional jets are are truly awful places for tall people.

imperialmog wrote:

KevinAdams wrote:If this documentcan be trusted, It looks like UA is upgauging STL-DEN and STL-ORD flights to mainline. Too bad STL-IAH isn't on that list yet. I'm getting tired of those 145s.

From what I can tell it looks like they are for one flight a day. The ORD one seems timed for international flights as its a mid-afternoon one. Hopefully the IAH does get upgauged since a 50 seater sounds rough for that long a flight, that and larger planes for premium seating. Maybe see at least the 175s.

I'd be fine with them switching over to a 175. That is actually a pretty nice plane.

timersman wrote:Also, AA is slowly axing the third daily option I had to get back to St. Louis from Los Angeles.

Before the USAirways merger, American typically kept very steady schedules -- with very little variation by day of the week or time of year. Since the merger, AA has started to implement flight schedules which vary by day of the week or time of the year.

This can be seen in the Los Angeles and Miami markets quite clearly. For LAX, is operating 2x daily over the summer but is back up to 3x daily in October. Miami over the course of the year has varied between 1x & 3x daily.

Greg

^ I wonder if some of AA scheduling changes too is related to rebanking hubs and integrating fleets. Hopefully the 50 seaters to LGA get removed since that seems like a long flight for them, and not having premium seating seems odd for that market since I picture STL-NYC would have a lot, especially with the growth in financial services jobs here in recent years. That and airlines are dumping those planes overall so something larger would likely come if the route isn't axed.

Isn't variances with Miami and Los Angles likely too related to now having hubs in Phoenix and Charlotte to work with? Since the latter makes more sense for any domestic connections than the former and the former can be used more for local traffic and international connections.

With the most recent schedule release, as was happening since May of this year, AA LAX-STL goes down to 2 daily. Even through the peak holiday travel season. The mid-day departure from Los Angeles went away, and more annoyingly the evening departure from St. Louis. It was nice to be able to spend the full day with family and friends before heading back to Cali in the evening.

^ Note too is that in November there will also be an Orange County flight as well. I wonder if the AA frequency reduction to LAX is related to that? Also they only have so many gates there so it could be them reshuffling what they do there, also they have the Phoenix hub now to work with.

Curious is with next week the flights to Austin start if they will use either the Missouri One or Lone Star One plane for the first flights?

Next week will be interesting in seeing some new destinations which will fill in some of the remaining big holes. Also SWA does another schedule extension so maybe announcements of new or expanded service. One route I'm now really curious on for expanded service is STL-BOS if they will go add a third flight year round, since JetBlue announced reentering Nashville for service to Boston so Southwest might add frequency to defend turf. Since at this point its more when not if JetBlue enters that route. (I'm guessing they would be in C when they show up?)

timersman wrote:With the most recent schedule release, as was happening since May of this year, AA LAX-STL goes down to 2 daily. Even through the peak holiday travel season.

Two things to keep in mind...

1) Flight schedules are loaded and tickets can be purchased up to 330 days before departure. At that point, AA loads a "default schedule" to allow initial bookings to take place, but are really placeholders as actual flight frequencies, aircraft and times are not loaded until several months out.

2) AA has been finalizing flight schedules much closer to departure than before the merger -- making changes as little as 6 weeks before flight date.

What does this mean? Let's look at STL-LAX for example.. (I've looked on the 15th day of each month as an example)

July - 2x daily MD-80s
August - 2x daily MD-80s
September - 2x daily A319s
October - 3x daily MD-80s
November - 2x daily MD-80s
December - 2x daily MD-80s
January - 2x daily MD-80s
February - 2x daily MD-80s

At this point, the July & August schedules should be pretty much set and not likely to change significantly.

The September schedule just changes in the last week or so to show A319s operating instead of MD-80s. This may still be subject to some changes in the future, but likely shows the A319 will operate STL-LAX in the future.

October goes back to MD-80s. Why? Most likely the default schedule for STL-LAX still has MD-80s on it.. and will likely change to A319s at some point. With the MD-80s being retired and STL-LAX being one of the longest MD-80 routes still existing... I just think it hasn't been updated. The 3x frequency is interesting and may still happen for October.

After October, we are clearly in "default" schedule mode... number of flights, times and aircraft by no mean finalized.

AA said recently that 90% of tickets are now purchased within 90 days of travel... so watch out for more flight schedule changes closer to travel than ever before.

Greg

^ I saw an update that showed October as 2x now. I picture it will likely be 2x A319 going forward, since anything less would be an opening for someone else to jump in. That likely serves the local traffic plus connecting to transpacific flights for them and their partners, the latter being less important now with new service from DFW.

Looks like on latest Southwest schedule extension has the return of service to Little Rock with 2x daily restarting in January. A bit of a surprise due to they have recently been cutting short routes lately so to start reversing it is interesting. (They did the same with IND-MDW, connections could be a factor) Might be since they are expanding fleet again they are restoring some routes they ended in recent years, so maybe some more routes ended from here might return later.

I caught an interesting news story on the radio this morning. It was related to how this is a big week at the airport for new service with three new non-stop destinations from three different airlines. The interesting note was the airport director stated some sort of announcement next week. Its very interesting since they wouldn't say that most likely unless its important, and someone here mentioned some announcement around the 4th of July weeks ago. Considering Southwest had their schedule extension today its almost certainly not that (unless they are announcing an international route). Its curious what they would announce since it sounds rather important like an airline entering the market and/or international flight.

I'm also curious on the air cargo facility. Did it get approval from the city alderman? It seemed like a no brainer but who knows

^ I was wondering that too, where is the status on it. I think with the dual customs facility its currently pending approval from the Mexican Government.

On the Southwest announcement of returning service to Little Rock, it was interesting to see on the airlines blog on their website that it was set up to allow for better connectivity for people in Little Rock due to timing. It seems the times of the flights are set up for people there to connect here for flights, particularly to the big east coast airports. I am curious but how much of the Southwest traffic in St. Louis is connections? If there is a notable number maybe there should be tourist information and signs promoting local attractions for those who are connecting here to promote said people to visit here in the future.

Does anyone have further information on the comment that was mentioned in a radio story I heard? They mentioned what sounds like a new service announcement next week and I'm assuming its not the Little Rock resumption. If its something not announced yet it is unusual for them to say anything in advance, since normally that's only done for announcements for either an airline arriving or international service.

imperialmog wrote:Does anyone have further information on the comment that was mentioned in a radio story I heard? They mentioned what sounds like a new service announcement next week and I'm assuming its not the Little Rock resumption.

I'm pretty sure it was the STARTUP of 3 new routes, not the announcement of 3 new routes:

Southwest began service to Austin on Sunday.
Alaska began service to Portland yesterday.
Air Choice One began service to Jackson, TN began on Sunday.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morn ... tions.html

Greg

gregl wrote:

imperialmog wrote:Does anyone have further information on the comment that was mentioned in a radio story I heard? They mentioned what sounds like a new service announcement next week and I'm assuming its not the Little Rock resumption.

I'm pretty sure it was the STARTUP of 3 new routes, not the announcement of 3 new routes:

Southwest began service to Austin on Sunday.
Alaska began service to Portland yesterday.
Air Choice One began service to Jackson, TN began on Sunday.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morn ... tions.html

Greg

The announcement on the three new routes starting this week was the story on KMOX. I heard it Tuesday morning but when they commented with the airport director in the story about new routes, there was a mention of something being announced next week in the radio news story. Since they said next week I'm assuming it was not the return of Little Rock service announced later that day. It was just interesting that little blurb on the story on new service since the airport director did say more service is their number one question, but said something next week.

If some new service is actually being announced next week I have no idea what that could be. Almost certain it would only be one route if there is something to announce. Also someone said something on an earlier post about some announcement coming around July 4 which is curious.

I'm in Portland on vacation and saw this big billboard behind the food trucks and carts downtown. https://flic.kr/p/uCuH1W

^ It will be interesting to see how much that increases demand to and from Portland from here. It would be really good if it gets upgauged to a 737 some point down the road. Anyone know how the AM Seattle flight that runs 5 days a week this summer is doing? Since that would be really good if that ends up having at least an e175 year round (basically similar setup to how United is to San Francisco from here), since it would be great for business travelers and makes the Alaska network much better to connect to from here.

Looks like the announcement last week was actually the self-serve Ted Drewes, which is a definite nice surprise. It is another revenue stream and more local flavor at the airport is good. (I saw on the St. Louis Business Journal Lambert gets 52% of sales from them, which could easily be a 6 figure revenue stream)

As for new service likely won't hear anything until fall for anything next spring/summer. Though not sure what are the most likely new and/or expanded service could be at this point. The announcement of Southwest restarting Little Rock in January is surprising due to it (and MDW-IND) being a reversal of their trend of ending short flights. This might make the next few schedule extensions by them interesting to see if more will happen. Also I wonder what their longer-term plans are for their operations here. Since that announcement emphasized connection opportunities here, and wondered if they might want to do more of that here.

imperialmog wrote:Anyone know how the AM Seattle flight that runs 5 days a week this summer is doing? Since that would be really good if that ends up having at least an e175 year round (basically similar setup to how United is to San Francisco from here), since it would be great for business travelers and makes the Alaska network much better to connect to from here.

Looking at availability for next week, bookings for the AM STL-SEA flight are very strong, with Monday & Tuesday's flights having fewer than 7 coach seats for sale. The evening departure SEA-STL is not doing quite as well, but still has only a few (if any) seats available in the cheapest fare classes. As for year-round service, we will have to see. SEA is VERY seasonal.

Bookings for PDX seem quite strong as well.

Greg

It's really pretty there in the summer. Personally, I like the cooler (40's to 60s) , misty, greyer days they have the rest of the year. Lots of people hate those.

^There's really no better way to escape the stifling St. Louis summer heat than a family vacation to Orlando.