US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - PHL-FRA twice daily from 04/02/05

Just discovered this while playing around with time tables starting 04/02/05:

US Airways 782 PHL FRA 450P 750A+1 0 767
US Airways 894 PHL FRA 810P 1105A+1 0 333

I was kind of upset when they recently moved the once daily PHL-FRA to 5pm, which I find way too early. I'm thinking to placate the Bayer flyers - Bayer complained recently about lost productivity due to going PIT-PHL-FRA. Now it makes sense. Competition for upgrades should be much less on US894 going forward as most business types would choose the earlier flight.

Ironic, though, US 782 used to be the PIT-FRA flight number, no?

I just wonder why they cancelled PIT-FRA in the first place.

maybe not. For me anyway I use FRA to connect to other flights within Europe and the 767 flight arrives at 6:50 am which may mean a longer wait time at the *Gold Lounge. That said, it will be nice to have options but all things being equal I'm still loving the 330.

I would love if a flight left in the morning to get to Europe in the afternoon. I can never sleep well on any flight

I would love if a flight left in the morning to get to Europe in the afternoon. I can never sleep well on any flight

Trouble is that it would be afternoon there even before you took off :)

Trouble is that it would be afternoon there even before you took off :)

United, BA and probably a few others run daytime flights to Europe. For example:

UA 922 IAD-LHR 09:30 AM - 9:55 PM 767-300

BA 178 JFK-LHR 09:00 AM - 8:40 PM 747-400

I just wonder why they cancelled PIT-FRA in the first place.

Yeah. LH already flies 4x/week to PHL, so US goes double daily after walking away from lucrative contracts on the PIT-FRA route.

And you wonder why these guys are in Chapter 22...

Trouble is that it would be afternoon there even before you took off :)


And I would be totally cool with that. Getting to Europe early evening and by the time I got home it would be time to brush my teeth and go to bed.

US doesn't have a fleet to support daytime flights to Europe because once arriving there (7-9pm ish), nobody wants to leave Europe at 10-11pm and arrive in the states at 3-4am. Instead the planes would end up sitting for 12-15 hours before turning around for the return segment. Over time, that's a lot of lost chances for revenue generating segments.

Even AA and UA have very limited daytime flights to Europe. Most of their flights (and all the US Airlines) do the red-eye/night time transatlantic for the reason mentioned above.

Yeah. LH already flies 4x/week to PHL, so US goes double daily after walking away from lucrative contracts on the PIT-FRA route.

And you wonder why these guys are in Chapter 22...

I looked at the empty International Ticket Counters at PIT last week (on my way to ORD for a TransAtlantic departure that would have been PIT-FRA) and wondered when LH is going to fill that space. One of the US TAs told me that she hoped LH came in because "that PIT/FRA flight was full every day!"

US doesn't have a fleet to support daytime flights to Europe because once arriving there (7-9pm ish), nobody wants to leave Europe at 10-11pm and arrive in the states at 3-4am. Instead the planes would end up sitting for 12-15 hours before turning around for the return segment. Over time, that's a lot of lost chances for revenue generating segments.

Even AA and UA have very limited daytime flights to Europe. Most of their flights (and all the US Airlines) do the red-eye/night time transatlantic for the reason mentioned above.

If thte flight left Europe at 11pm or 12 am from Europe and got to the US around 5am. Yes there would be people who would fly it. You would get to the USA early in the morning just like you get to Europe now early in the morning. And PHL early in the morning surely is much easier to get in and out of that is for sure.

LY has flights that leave TLV for NYC (EWR and JFK) at 1200 and 100, and arrive into NYC around 6-7-8 ish, usually enough to beat most others in, and save a long wait at customs. I wish US did that from Europe.

If thte flight left Europe at 11pm or 12 am from Europe and got to the US around 5am. Yes there would be people who would fly it. You would get to the USA early in the morning just like you get to Europe now early in the morning. And PHL early in the morning surely is much easier to get in and out of that is for sure.

Even if the flight left Europe at Midnight - it would still arive in the US at about 3 a.m. Even the 9 hour flights back from cities like Rome and Munich still gain 6 hours.

Even if the flight left Europe at Midnight - it would still arive in the US at about 3 a.m. Even the 9 hour flights back from cities like Rome and Munich still gain 6 hours.

They could do an 8am flight to LGW which would arrive at about 8pm. Schedule in a 90 minute turn and you'd be back to PHL right around midnight.

Given the early start up flights, there would be plenty of connecting traffic for the PHL-LGW direction with this sort of schedule (AC does a YYZ-LHR flight at this time which relies soely on O/D traffic). The return flight wouldn't work for connections in the US but would allow for PHL-area travellers to get a full day of work in before heading home.

I've done the BA JFK-LHR daylight flight a bunch. It's great, IMHO.

They could do an 8am flight to LGW which would arrive at about 8pm. Schedule in a 90 minute turn and you'd be back to PHL right around midnight.

Given the early start up flights, there would be plenty of connecting traffic for the PHL-LGW direction with this sort of schedule (AC does a YYZ-LHR flight at this time which relies soely on O/D traffic). The return flight wouldn't work for connections in the US but would allow for PHL-area travellers to get a full day of work in before heading home.
Here's my question - and this is based out of ignorance, so correct me if I'm wrong...

I would think that US's traffic to London would be more heavily based on tourist than on business travel than many airlines, in part because I'd figure that business travelers are more likely to be coming from NYC, Chicago, Washington, than Philly (this might be my own DC-centric view). If that's at all the case, I'd think that for tourist-y types, the overnight flight is preferable, as is a return that gets them back earlier, since I'd imagine that a fair number of the LGW-PHL traffic isn't ending up in Philly, but is also potentially returning to other US Airways markets (both places like DC and PIT and smaller markets like ROC, BUF, ALB, various other cities). So these people rely on the connections, which would make a midnight return useless?

I know on Airliners.net there's been a lot of complaining by PIT people about removing the PIT flight, but I think this supports it - that there is a lot of connecting traffic on the LGW trip in addition to the PHL O/D traffic, and that it just didn't make sense to have two hubs that close together (not just for international flights, but all flights). Unless someone else comes into PIT with a non-stop to Europe (which seems unlikely...), these people will have to transfer somewhere - moving the flight to PHL just opens up another flight to the larger market/connecting movements in PHL.

Regardless, I like the additional trips to Europe, I think this is a smart move for US.

Here's my question - and this is based out of ignorance, so correct me if I'm wrong...

I would think that US's traffic to London would be more heavily based on tourist than on business travel than many airlines, in part because I'd figure that business travelers are more likely to be coming from NYC, Chicago, Washington, than Philly (this might be my own DC-centric view). If that's at all the case, I'd think that for tourist-y types, the overnight flight is preferable, as is a return that gets them back earlier, since I'd imagine that a fair number of the LGW-PHL traffic isn't ending up in Philly, but is also potentially returning to other US Airways markets (both places like DC and PIT and smaller markets like ROC, BUF, ALB, various other cities). So these people rely on the connections, which would make a midnight return useless?

Regardless, I like the additional trips to Europe, I think this is a smart move for US.

Completely agree about the connections - which is why an outbound connection is possible with an 8am departure from most east coast US cities. On the return, these folks would opt for the existing flight wheras I think most PHL-area folks would take the later flight. I've been on the late LHR-YYZ flight on Air Canada (arrives at 11:59pm) a few times and it's always packed, mostly with tourist-types.