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PostJun 04, 2020#6026

Its sad to see the Mad Dog era come to an end. I missed out on AA's MD-80 retirement last year, yet I flew on those AA Mad Dogs so many times with the last time being in June 2019. I actually liked the MD-80s. Sitting in the rear hearing those Pratt & Whitneys roar or sitting in first class with quietness, they offered the best of both worlds to aviation buffs like me.

I did get to fly Taiwan's Uni Air's last MD-90 flight back in 2016 and wrote about it here:

https://allwheelsforward.com/uni-air-md ... t-retired/
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PostJun 04, 2020#6027

From a novice perspective like mine I thought this was a very interesting Motley Fool  article on what Southwest Airlines is doing in respect to restoring service and going after some particular markets while retreating partially from Ft Lauderdale.    The article title is who benefits from these moves and makes a point that Phoenix as a hub is on a short time line..    The article also got me thinking, the shrunken market must mean that at least one US airline will fold or look for buyer IMO.   Tough to imagine how everyone survives as it currently stands from Legacy carriers, to Southwest, and the rest in between to dirt cheap Spirit to Alaska Airlines.  But curious on thoughts?

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/06/ ... ded-g.aspx
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PostJun 04, 2020#6028

dredger wrote: ↑
Jun 04, 2020
From a novice perspective like mine I thought this was a very interesting Motley Fool  article on what Southwest Airlines is doing in respect to restoring service and going after some particular markets while retreating partially from Ft Lauderdale.    The article title is who benefits from these moves and makes a point that Phoenix as a hub is on a short time line..    The article also got me thinking, the shrunken market must mean that at least one US airline will fold or look for buyer IMO.   Tough to imagine how everyone survives as it currently stands from Legacy carriers, to Southwest, and the rest in between to dirt cheap Spirit to Alaska Airlines.  But curious on thoughts?

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/06/ ... ded-g.aspx
One thing to keep in mind is Southwest used FLL as a gateway to International destinations. Chances are demand on those will be lower for awhile so they had to cut back on those, which means less feed from other stations to fill those flight and so you are cutting back on the feed stations also. We will see what it means long term but I think it might be temporary.  I know they had had plans to grow that station as little as 6 months ago. 
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PostJun 04, 2020#6029

Definately remember the experience of those MD-88s, especially sitting in the rear row and experiencing the noise of the engines. The 2-3 seating arrangements are definately nice when you were able to snag a seat on the 2 side. Only got the rear of the plane getting back home to ATL from ORD when my flight got delayed (I predicted it would since it was coming from LGA) and was able to get a free change. Thankfully I was already approaching the airport very early and able to get an earlier flight home than planned.

Need to get on one of the A220s since it has the same seating arrangement with the seatback entertainment and plugs. But they don't operate from ATL.
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PostJun 05, 2020#6030

^I expect the A220s will operate from ATL soon enough. Might take a while, but they'll get there.

As to Perseus's last "classic" question I'm not entirely certain what was meant, but there's a way that the MD-80s, with their JT8Ds were a lot closer to that 80s airline experience than anything high bypass. There were obviously high bypass jets in what I would call the "classic" era, owing to it being my youth, but they were maybe all on big planes. But it was sill kind of novel. I remember sitting at the gate with my grandparents when their 757s were still brand new thinking that those high bypass engines were absolutely absurd. And now? . . . They seem dead normal. It's a little hard to pick out a 757 from an A321 or a 737-900 if you don't know what you're looking at. Anyway, yes, I am going to miss them. I guess my last ride will have been last summer, as it was an all 717 trip in January. (Well, the little jets were both 717s. Plenty of big Airbusses on that trip. Several 350s and a 330. All full. How crazy does that seem now?) :(
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PostJun 05, 2020#6031

At some point I think STL-SLC/LGA would be good routes for the A220.

Also Sun Country extended their schedule for Winter/Spring 2021 and Fort Myers is back on it but Tampa is not. Not surprising, Fort Myers had good loads and Tampas were sub par
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PostJun 06, 2020#6032

I didn't phrase my statement very well. Sorry about that.
I would say any plane that was first flown, or evolved from a plane designed in the 60s-70s is a  "classic" plane. DC-9, 727, 732, 747-100/200, DC-10, etc... that sort of thing. The opinion of classic varies from person to person.
Given the MD-80 is essentially a stretched DC-9 with some other changes, I would say the MD-80 was the last classic still flying. This makes their retirement even more unfortunate.

I guess we still have the 717.  But that seems like a totally different plane.
The 757/767 is in a grey zone for me.
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PostJun 07, 2020#6033

^No worries. It's a subtle distinction, and evolutionary design changes can create real problems. But I think that's pretty close to what I figured you meant. I just figure you pick that generation as classic because maybe that's the planes you bonded with first. (Certainly true for me, even though the odd 707 or DC-8 might still have made a passenger appearance in my youth. Not sure when they were really retired. And hey, to someone else TWA DC-3s and PanAm Clippers are the true classics. It's all a little relative.)
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PostJun 10, 2020#6034

Southwest is adding more flights on shorts notice. Some start as early as today.

Looking at next week
17 extra flights

Dallas extra Fri-Sun
Panama City extra Fri-Sun
Tampa extra daily (next week they already had 2 on Sunday scheduled)
Fort Myers extra Mon, Tues, Fri-Sun

58% of its original schedule pre-COVID (Max 66% full though)
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PostJun 11, 2020#6035

I'm curious for anyone who is booked on flights if they get any notice if new frequencies are added or if there are connections new options  so they could shift to the new flight for a better time and adjust availabilty on existing flight?

Curious if airlines have to do much work in getting planes back in service. Would they need some maintenance checks due to being in storage for 2-3 months?
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PostJun 11, 2020#6036

imperialmog wrote: ↑
Jun 11, 2020
I'm curious for anyone who is booked on flights if they get any notice if new frequencies are added or if there are connections new options  so they could shift to the new flight for a better time and adjust availabilty on existing flight?

Curious if airlines have to do much work in getting planes back in service. Would they need some maintenance checks due to being in storage for 2-3 months?
I think I read it takes a couple days to get them out of storage. 

I doubt they let you know unless your flight is overbooked. I had a friend on an overbooked flight and they called and asked if he would change (worked out for him because he went from 2 layovers to 1.)

If you do notice I would guess you could call and switch. They let me switch a flight for next week for free (no upcharge even though there was supposed to be one).

PostJun 13, 2020#6037

Upcoming restarts with the schedule updates today.

Southwest
June 14 - CLE/PIT/OKC
June 21 - Columbus
June 28 - PHL/RDU
July 5 - Minny

American
July 8 - LGA (LGA-STL starts day before)

Delta
July 2 - LGA
July 4 - Minny (Minny-STL starts the day before)

United
July 6 - DC/DEN
July 7 - Houston (Houston-STL starts day before)

Sun Country
June 26 - Minny

Previously scheduled domestic routes by airline not schedule to start by end of July
United - SFO
American - LAX
Delta - Cincy
Southwest - Hartford/Charleston/Detroit/New Orleans/Pensacola/San Antonio/SFO
Sun Country - Portland

All other routes have been restarted in some capacity. 
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PostJun 14, 2020#6038

I'm guessing to in addition to routes restarting there are a number of routes already run increasing gauge/frequency?

I'm guessing by August AA would restart LAX? Since wouldn't they risk someone else jumping in on that route if they wait on restarting?
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PostJun 14, 2020#6039

imperialmog wrote: ↑
Jun 14, 2020
I'm guessing to in addition to routes restarting there are a number of routes already run increasing gauge/frequency?

I'm guessing by August AA would restart LAX? Since wouldn't they risk someone else jumping in on that route if they wait on restarting?
Correct. Other routes are getting frequency upgrades.

I’m not sure who else would jump on STL-LAX. Delta and United aren’t exactly pushing LAX at the moment. I can’t see Spirit coming in and starting it at this point. I doubt Alaska would either. That all said I think August probably is a good bet but if they push it a couple more months I don’t think it’s a risk besides Southwest getting all the seats while they aren’t running it.
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PostJun 14, 2020#6040

I don’t see any SFO directs on any schedule yet- we used to have 2-3 a day between United and Southwest. There is one a day direct to Oakland still, but want my SFO back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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PostJun 15, 2020#6041

tztag wrote: ↑
Jun 14, 2020
I don’t see any SFO directs on any schedule yet- we used to have 2-3 a day between United and Southwest. There is one a day direct to Oakland still, but want my SFO back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Correct. 1 to OAK. 2 to SJC at the moment.

Both southwest and United have SFO in the schedule for August but those haven’t been updated for COVID yet. So they might get pushed.

PostJun 16, 2020#6042

Graph showing how capacity is coming back in July at larger airports. 2020 vs 2019

Southwest at STL is the 2nd highest. Just under 80%. Pretty impressive to see Southwest bringing capacity back so quickly here. 

Keep in mind this is a percentage of original capacity and not total flights but still a good marker. 

Also, E34-40 are back open.

PostJun 18, 2020#6043

STL-IND start date moved up to August 11. 
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PostJun 19, 2020#6044

You know those pesky TSA Agents:
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation ... 58092.html
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PostJun 26, 2020#6045

Alaska is bringing back the Indy flight for all of July

PostJun 28, 2020#6046

This will just make you say what if... 

______________________________
Vasu Raja, Senior Vice President of planning at AA had an interview with Plane Business Banter. From the PlaneBusiness Banter interview with Vasu

PBB: Then there was all the debt. All the ill-will from the near-bankrupty in 2003. Concessions. 

Vasu: Right. It had so much debt and all this other stuff. And what it did was – all of this eroded everybody’s will. It eroded the will of the frontline team, of management, of investors, everybody.
I’ve always thought that if we could go back in time at AMR, the point I would go back to would be 2003. Whenever the airline got out of restructuring but after the time Carty left. 
If I could tell [CEO] Gerard [Arpey] anything – I’d tell him, "Grow the damn airline." 
Because, at that point in time, AMR had an advantage over all of these other guys – because they were all going to hurt their employees as they took them through bankruptcies and things like that. 
But the only way to do that was to NOT shrink. Grow at DFW. Don’t shut down St. Louis. 

PBB: St. Louis. That was so poorly handled. 

Vasu: Let me tell you something – St. Louis should have been and could have been the Charlotte of the Midwest for AMR. Hyper-peak St. Louis. When St. Louis was hot, that show was bigger than Chicago today for American Airlines. Think about that, right?
We should have gone the other way. When everyone else is shutting it all down, go. 

Full text:
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/amer ... rview.html
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PostJun 28, 2020#6047

^Pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing that. I do think they will be an airline to watch going forward. I wouldn't want to count either Delta or Southwest out, as they've both been very inventive in the not too distant past, but Vasu Raja surely makes me curious.
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PostJun 28, 2020#6048

Definitely an interesting “what if”. In 2003 the industry had a glut of overcapacity. Vasu is a smart guy, and knows during this time a number of initial LLC fleet withdrawals occurred, plus the F100s in early 2004 and meanwhile the company had began adding some two dozen new destinations from the Miami hub so something had to give, and STL was the weakest link at the time.  Also remember the DFW international Terminal D was nearing completion enabling ~120 additional domestic and international departures from the mother hub.
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PostJun 28, 2020#6049

This makes me wonder if its they are looking back and thinking STL would have been better than sharing ORD with United and having Southwest in Midway as competing hubs int he same market. It also further points out the issue with STL wasn't the market, but mismanagment of TWA back in the day. That is further reinforced with what Southwest has done since they didn't behave this way after other hubs closed. This likely goes to STL has really good geography for a domestic hub operation and if Southwest didn't jump in someone else in time would.
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PostJun 28, 2020#6050

imperialmog wrote: ↑
Jun 28, 2020
This makes me wonder if its they are looking back and thinking STL would have been better than sharing ORD with United and having Southwest in Midway as competing hubs int he same market. It also further points out the issue with STL wasn't the market, but mismanagment of TWA back in the day. That is further reinforced with what Southwest has done since they didn't behave this way after other hubs closed. This likely goes to STL has really good geography for a domestic hub operation and if Southwest didn't jump in someone else in time would.
There definitely is a case to make that the HPdbaAA of 2014-2019 would be more conducive to a hub in STL than the AA of 2003-2013. The lower costs and less exposure to competitive capacity better align with their low cost, low revenue model in PHL, PHX and CLT. 
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