http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.bz.airlines21sep21.story

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm VERY sad for the employees who will lose their jobs; but I was never fond of Metrojet anyway. In light of the current situation, does US just give up BWI for FLA service, or does mainline return in some small form?

Two things of interest from the article:

1. MetroJet cuts will not occur until December.
2. Some of the eliminated flights might be picked up by the main US Air.

MJ was a> a lousy product, b> flown by regular customers only because in some markets that was all they could take, c> never built loyalty,appealing primarily to bottom feeders, and d> failed to halt the growth of Southwest (and JetBlue). Other than that, it was great.

Oh, Come ON now, DEELMAKUR. You can't convince me that you didn't LOVE the snappy 1970's vintage 737-200's....with all that legroom; and they were always so CLEAN and FRESH smelling; with those convenient, always-on-time schedules and smiling agents...and that great extra step of standing in line at the gate for a boarding pass even though you'd checked in at the front counter....and oh, the in-flight service and entertainment. Lo, how she will be missed.

While this will sadden all of us who earned US Airways miles doing the MJ BWI-MCO runs... it really begs the question...

Isn't it time to start calling BWI a WN fortress hub...well fortress is a strong word... but they are beginning to own the place.

-g

Will mainline replace some of these routes? If US doesn't replace mainline on MCO/TPA/FLL-BOS/LGA/BWI, Delta will win the battle over Florida (even though DL has Express to BOS, at least they have mainline to LGA).

I won't be missing much about MetroJet except for the very cheap fares out of FLL. It may not have been the greatest, but $100 for a same-day advance purchase round-trip to LGA could not be beat, fares which were still in the system yesterday.

The overarching question is how U will try to compete with Southwest now.

I though new schedules were supposed to be loaded Saturday - but as of now, I still see MetroJet flights well into February. Anyone find a booking system that has the new schedules loaded?

I was told early in the week. I have access to an actual CRS, and it shows no changes as of Sunday AM.

Here is another story on the shutdown of Metrojet:
http://biz.yahoo.com/apf/010924/us_airways_metrojet_1.html

This came off of the FA union website last week. It might have something to do with these reports:

http://www.cwa.net/mergerbriefing.htm

A whole bunch of LAX-BWI nonstops have been cancelled. I wouldn't be suprised if this is the end of what is left of the BWI mini-hub. It's a holdover from the Piedmont merger - never really made sense with PHL and PIT so close.

Exactly why I did not book a non-stop BWI-SEA recently and opted for the connect through PIT.

Well going through the booking system at www.usair.com (http://www.usair.com) (which is tied into Sabre), MetroJet flights are still showing in the schedule, but if you try to book them, they come up as sold out for the flights I checked in December. So the process has begun...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by iflybos:
This came off of the FA union website last week. It might have something to do with these reports:

http://www.cwa.net/mergerbriefing.htm</font>


So what exactly is the MetroJet story. Suspiciously, MJ is still in the schedule, and they are selling tickets for flights next summer. While every other airline announced their cuts - and released their new schedules - US announced cuts, but has not reflected those cuts in the schedules. This is now three weeks since they said MJ would be no more "by December". Is MJ really no more - or was it all just a ploy to win concessions from the MJ employees as ifly's link could lead one to conclude?!

i'm also still very confused about this.

i wanted to book an award flight from NYC - MCO and the only nonstops listed on usairways.com are MetroJet. 2 flights a day nonstop.

can i even book these? and what happens if they're cancelled, does that mean I have to be rerouted to a connection flight?

i'm only willing to fly nonstop. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by geo1004:
Exactly why I did not book a non-stop BWI-SEA recently and opted for the connect through PIT.</font>

The extra miles and the A321 didn't hurt either http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif