robertn42 wrote:Just anecdotal, but I've flown on 6 Southwest flights in the past 2 weeks and they've all been completely full.
Most airline flights throughout the country are completely full these days. Over the summer, the major airlines were reporting load factors in the high 80s, which counts low-demand flights like the ORD-STL flight I took at 10pm Saturday night which was maybe half full.
robertn42 wrote:Just anecdotal, but I've flown on 6 Southwest flights in the past 2 weeks and they've all been completely full.
Most airline flights throughout the country are completely full these days. Over the summer, the major airlines were reporting load factors in the high 80s, which counts low-demand flights like the ORD-STL flight I took at 10pm Saturday night which was maybe half full.
Greg
I can't remember my last flight that wasn't completely full. I want to say my last one was a HOU > STL that got in here after 11pm. Had a row all to myself.
Whenever I fly to EWR it always seems like the flights out are 80% full and the flights back are packed (I might have that backwards). I can't figure out why StL isn't overpopulated with New Yorkers/New Jersians by now.
I had about 85% full on a flight last month going to Grand Rapids on a Thursday evening and a Sunday morning return. I glanced at the boarding thing when I was getting on the plane here and looked like about 60% was local people with the rest of the people connected here.
I was really lucky last April having a half empty flight on a Tuesday afternoon LHR->ORD flight, got the whole row to myself so I got to really stretch. Just a shame that didn't happen on the flight over being an overnight one since I could sleep well .
Interesting hearing the PDX flight sounds like its doing real well. Maybe at some point Alaska will upguage to a 737.
Next Tuesday is next schedule extension for Southwest. Hopefully something new or expanded service beyond the normal seasonal adjustments.
At an event this morning at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Southwest Airlines will announce "several" new nonstop destinations from St. Louis. The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. in Terminal 2 in front of Southwest's ticket counter.
Looking on their site, looks like 2x daily to both places (both places are losing MDW service) and looks to be similar to the Little Rock service coming in January in being timed for accessing the network. There is also the seasonal Seattle return in this one. (interesting is it looks like a different time than before, where its different than the year round Alaska flight which is a plus since before they took off within minutes of each other) Also looks like they are ending Grand Rapids which is shifting to a 3x MDW-GRR. This is a puzzling one due to short distance, but likely improves access to network and looking at it is a better schedule for people here travelling there even with losing the nonstop. (since the only option that made sense was the nonstop in the evening, this while losing the nonstop allows good schedules in mornings and afternoons with minimal layover)
Looks like might be a lot of shifting around of routes in this. Also would be interested to see what frequency changes there are overall and timelines.
From what the press release from the airport it is 12. Isn't the number higher if you compare number of different destinations? Also of note is that the Seattle flight that has been seasonal will be a year-round flight which looks like it has a different time than before.
Southwest's blog has a table showing all the changes. Interesting is noting their new scheduling system and methods. Interesting is it seems the trend of going away from short flights has ended and also seems like connections are increasing in importance. Curious if what they are doing here will cause gate issues at peak times of the day, and if they will start grabbing D gates as a result.
imperialmog wrote: Isn't the number higher if you compare number of different destinations?
That is not a metric widely used in the airline industry.
Interesting is noting their new scheduling system and methods. Interesting is it seems the trend of going away from short flights has ended and also seems like connections are increasing in importance. .
I've read that this is the first schedule Southwest has put together with their new scheduling system, which is likely to have led to many of the switches (dropping STL-GRR and MDW-DSM while adding STL-DSM and MDW-GRR).
imperialmog wrote:Curious if what they are doing here will cause gate issues at peak times of the day, and if they will start grabbing D gates as a result.
Probably not, overall the total flight change is +1.
STL was #10 in the Southwest system in 2012.
In 2013 it was #11 (with addition of Atlanta)
Today it is #12.
STL will gain Wichita, Des Moines, Little Rock, Seattle year round, and Pittsburgh (all into 2016).
Looks like Southwest is now beginning to use STL's SWA hub with more connections and chopping Midway. Wichita, Little Rock, Des Moines are all adding STL as their connection airport and chopping Midway / and/or Dallas.
With the additions Southwest seems to be positioning STL for future big growth in connections. Reason I say this,
SWA is cutting Chicago from Des Moines and Wichita and replacing it with connections through STL. In addition, SWA has
beefed up connections to some major SWA routes from STL (I/e: Austin, San Antonio in the past year).
I did notice a pattern they used in their schedule change since it reorganized a lot of their smaller Midwest/great plains stations. Cities in the Eastern time zone they shifted routes to Midway and Central time zone cities they shifted here and this really is showing a move towards becoming a hub and spoke carrier for those markets and increasing focus on connecting traffic. Wonder if the time zone aspect was a factor due to scheduling. Their comments on new scheduling software and methods does sound like they are going to a more hub structure too.
It is interesting looking at schedules with the changes is the times for DSM and ICT are very well timed to the rushes that occur here maximizing connections. (note too, the 2nd Tulsa flight was done by ending the TUL-MDW flight, likely for connectivity) And interestingly ending Grand Rapids nonstop here, by shifting flights there to Midway actually increases flexibility for travel from here to there, since it was basically limited to the nonstop which posed problems for some travelers. The Seattle flight is interesting since its timed differently than the seasonal one that has been offered. The seasonal one had nearly identical times to the Alaska flight, while this one is earlier than that one (and different from the 2nd Alaska flight they added over this summer). It will be interesting to see if Alaska reacts to Southwest making that flight year-round, and their plans for that 2nd flight over the summer if it varies.
American will be matching non-stop fares offered by LCC carriers such as Frontier or Spirit. As American has no overlapping non-stop routes with Frontier out of STL... no impact to us.
This is mostly a shot across the bow to Spirit, who has begun a number of flights out of ORD & DFW recently.
A question arose this week about Centene's stable of 5 corporate jets. When asked about whether it was appropriate Ceo Michael Neidorff responded, "Would you rather we move the company to Dallas or Chicago..."
Makes you wonder if there are similar companies in town that would have common destinations and would be willing to supplement a new non stop.
^ The corporate jets would not be for international travel due to corporate jets tend not to do that. Its likely if they need to go to some small US markets.
In terms of companies helping push for a non-stop, I think that was a reason St. Louis - Des Moines was announced this week. It was something Monsanto wanted (and I think some others too) and was pushed along by people in Iowa. Not sure if there is any other destinations a local company or companies would go for.
Also with Southwest seeming to want to use St. Louis as a connecting point more, is there more places that they might try in the future? Also there might be some places where there is service that might need more frequency due to connecting feed.
^on that comment, I get the feeling transatlantic service is the push that local companies want and the airport is doing in terms of service, mainly since there isn't too much obvious needs for domestic places left. I'm guessing a transatlantic flight in 2017 since I think that is when some of the possible carriers will have more fleet growth than the minimal amount that has occurred.
The corporate jets are used for flying across the pond. The example Michael gave was how he'll will fly out Sunday, grab dinner with the team in Valencia, and be home for dinner Monday evening. If he flew commercial it'd take him 4 days.
More frequently they're used though for more local flights to offices in Little Rock or Jackson where there are no direct flights.
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