urbanSTL

Pretty minor in the scheme of things, but it looks like we're losing air connectivity to several small regional airports: Kirksville, Missouri; Marion, Illinois; and Owensboro, Kentucky.

Cape Air is pulling out and being replaced with Contour, which will service Chicago from those towns. Makes sense for those people. A flight to O'Hare gives you a lot more options for onward travel.

https://www.kirksvilledailyexpress.com/ ... cago,10250

https://thesouthern.com/news/local/comm ... b971d.html

I'm guessing in terms of new service, its likely focus will be on additional domestic service until the new terminal is built? Since at this point there is little physical ability to add international service (excepting anything with customs preclearance) due to gate constraints? 

eee123 wrote: ↑

Apr 28, 2023

Pretty minor in the scheme of things, but it looks like we're losing air connectivity to several small regional airports: Kirksville, Missouri; Marion, Illinois; and Owensboro, Kentucky.

Cape Air is pulling out and being replaced with Contour, which will service Chicago from those towns. Makes sense for those people. A flight to O'Hare gives you a lot more options for onward travel.

https://www.kirksvilledailyexpress.com/ ... cago,10250

https://thesouthern.com/news/local/comm ... b971d.html

Also means cape air will be leaving STL. Those are their last 3 routes here.

Technically Cape Air isn’t pulling out, at least by choice. Those communities picked contour over Cape for a new contract.

November international numbers
Southwest Cancun 93.5%
Lufthansa Frankfurt 81%
Air Canada Toronto 78%
Frontier Cancun 74.5%
Frontier Punta Cana 72% - Partial some of the inbound data was bad

dweebe wrote: ↑

May 14, 2023

That 81% for the Germany flight is…..?

meaning that this flight is coming to an end?

It means Lufthansa is ecstatic about 81% for November, you’ll see another international route announced by end of the year.

Good to know. Hopefully the route is something very new.

Loads don't mean everything because fares play into it but my general rule. 

Over 80% is solid and shouldn't go anywhere
Under 70% is the danger zone. 

Main caveats. 
Jan/Feb usually are rough so those months this rule doesn't apply as much, look over a bigger time period. 
Spoke routes that are short and high connectors (Des Moines, Little Rock types) probably have more leeway also because they only fly to a couple cities so it isn't like they can cut them back more. 
Long haul international (ie Lufthansa) can deal with a little lower loads if the business seats sell well, those are the money makers. Conversely, if business isn't selling well only so much can be made up by a packed economy. Business so far has sold well from what I can tell. 

matguy70 wrote: ↑

May 14, 2023

Lufthansa said the slowest time for their flights would be NOV thru FEB and to have 81% overall capacity in November is HUGE!  Most international flights throughout the year range in the low 70s.  So this is great!

Wasn't it around this time as well that cargo ops started on the flight. Recall there is high value cargo opportunities on this route, particularly in pharmaceuticals.

Are Frontier's two internationals the Apple Vacation charters? I expect the logic behind a charter operation like that is different. Maybe you don't worry quite as much about the load on the plane since you're really selling resort nights? In any case, those are the destinations that seem the least important to me, so I'm not too worried if they end up cut. Those are kind of "nice to have" and not so essential in that hierarchy my wife keeps throwing at me. Losing Toronto would worry me, though. Can't imagine Air Canada would really cut us off permanently, but . . . should I be more worried? 78 is at least pretty close to 80. And I guess you did say January/February is the low time. (Odd that it's when I usually fly, but . . . Asia.)

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

May 16, 2023

Are Frontier's two internationals the Apple Vacation charters? I expect the logic behind a charter operation like that is different. Maybe you don't worry quite as much about the load on the plane since you're really selling resort nights? In any case, those are the destinations that seem the least important to me, so I'm not too worried if they end up cut. Those are kind of "nice to have" and not so essential in that hierarchy my wife keeps throwing at me. Losing Toronto would worry me, though. Can't imagine Air Canada would really cut us off permanently, but . . . should I be more worried? 78 is at least pretty close to 80. And I guess you did say January/February is the low time. (Odd that it's when I usually fly, but . . . Asia.)

November is a down month so these numbers are fine, imo. The spring/summer months really make up for them.

Frontier started a 3rd international flight this year. So now they fly to Cancun, Punta Cana and Montego Bay. The do work with Apple but also sell tickets on the side to help fill it. I’m not too concerned with those routes. They have them all running A321s at the moment. They could back them off to A320s.

I’m also not worried about Toronto. They just upped it to 2x a day this month. They also charge crazy high fares so they can deal with a dip in loads. It is 80.5% for the year.

^ no impact. STL doesn’t have many Serbs and you’re not going to see Bosnians ever fly through Serbian to get to Bosnia. The benefit for STL-FRA is that you’re coming home when you take off from Europe


On a related note, sometimes next month everyone will get to see what Lufthansa thinks of STL, it’s pretty awesome the opportunity we are being given next month and I’m happy to have played a small part in it, more in June.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

May 17, 2023

^ no impact.  STL doesn’t have many Serbs and you’re not going to see Bosnians ever fly through Serbian to get to Bosnia.  The benefit for STL-FRA is that you’re coming home when you take off from Europe


On a related note, sometimes next month everyone will get to see what Lufthansa thinks of STL, it’s pretty awesome the opportunity we are being given next month and I’m happy to have played a small part in it, more in June.

Consider me titillated.

Let the speculation begin!

Daily STL-FRA-STL service?