rkkwan

I wonder how much of a boost does CO give to the economy of Goose Bay, Labrador (population ~8,000) every winter?

Looks like CO111 (CGN), 123 (CPH), 75 (HAM), 97 (TXL) have been going there just about daily this week, with 69 (ARN) joining some times.

Maybe CO can build a hub and start various flights to/from IAH, CLE and other US airports. US and Canada just recently completed "open-sky", right? That can give Reykjavik and Icelandair's own fleet of 752 some competition! Meanwhile, with the extra range from YYR compared to EWR, even more European destinations can be served with the 752! Who needs the 767 when you have YYR?

channa

So sad. Anyone know how they treat the customers who misconnect from those?

We all know the real reason is they're pushing the envelope on the aircraft, but do they say it was headwinds, so "weather," or EWR had ATC issues, so "ATC," and then not pay for accommodation or other carriers?

Xyzzy

Even with a two hour delay for refueling, I think all of those flights arrive with enough time for passengers to still make same-day connections. The question is how many seats are left on those connecting flights. It sure would be nice if CO put in an EWR-REK flight, though

craz

It would be nice if CO warned the people before they purchased the tkt on a 757 that during the winter most likely there will be a fuel stop on the way to the States. TW did this yrs ago when they had the old 747s out of TLV and after they ditched them and hadnt gotten their 767-ERs as yet and used reg 767s. They let everyone know that the non-stop really wasnt.

I still remember the time we had to go into Shannon for refueling and then again into Bangor, at least we expected Shannon

rkkwan

You'd be surprised how much airlines, especially ones with decent reputations, can get away with.

Cathay Pacific's CX883 LAX-HKG have been stopping at TPE and ICN like 30-40% of the time during parts of winter, year-in year-out. Yet I've never heard people complain about it publicly. That stop adds at least 3 hours to the already long 14+ hour flight. Those planes can make it, it's just that CX decides cargo revenue is more important.

And the last 2 weeks seem to be particularly bad over both Oceans. CX and SQ's SFO-HKG have been stopping at TPE quite often too, and that's somewhat strange, as usually cargo isn't as important from SFO than LAX, at least what's what I thought.

CO 1E

My guess is that the answer is yes.

yellow77

I don't know the 'most likely' comment is quite fair.

CO97 has been diverted 6 times since Dec 1, and made it to EWR nonstop 27 times. 18% isn't ridiculous. Yes, a warning on the on-time record of the flight might be called for, but it does far better on this score than some of the domestic short-haul flights into and out of EWR...

(And it looks like I was on this flight on the day it had its shortest flight time in the last two months: 8:02. Lucky, huh? Even succeeded in standing by for an earlier connection out of EWR, only 1:20 after the scheduled arrival...)

channa

I think 18% is a very high number. If my car didn't have the range to get me into work 18% of the time, I'd get a different car. We're not talking about some freak wind or something that came up. We're talking about a 1 in 5 chance you don't have enough fuel to make it. That means the aircraft is undersized for the market.

The real issue with the fuel stop is that it adds significant time to the journey. It's not like pulling off the freeway, getting gas, getting back on, damage = 5 minutes. You have to go through the whole descent, taxi, fuel up, taxi, and ascent. While they can do this on the ground in about 30 minutes, I'm thinking with the diversion, speed reduction, acceleration, we're looking at best case, an hour of delay.

rkkwan

Look at DL17 BOM-(xxx)-JFK-ATL.

Today's flight goes to MAN, adding 4 hours. But like the CO flights or CX into HKG, they arrive early enough so most people can still get same day connections.

A few days ago, it somehow went to BOS, and just flew BOS-ATL. Don't know what the deal with that one.

Other airports it have gone to are DUB and SNN.

I wonder why they don't go to YYR too, as that adds much less distance than going to MAN/DUB/SNN? Maybe because it's in the middle of the night when the fuel pump operators there aren't around?

yellow77

I count on an hour of delay any time I fly through EWR in the winter, so that would be no worse than flying shorthaul. (However, it actually seems to be more like a two hour average delay, presumably since the days you have to make a fuel stop are the days the headwinds are strong anyway, so you would have been delayed even without the fuel stop. I agree two hours is less desirable.)

MBM3

Given that they are stretching the 752 on some of these routes before considering WX or ATC issues, maybe CO should increase the scheduled flight time to accomodate for potential a gas-n-go.

crnk

I just hope that EWR-YYR is EUA-able! And hopefully competition will keep the prices reasonable. Perhaps just like LGA-IAH-__, we could go LGA-YYR-CGN!

Any guess for the AC they will fly for hub-hub.....767 like EWR-IAH? Those new 777's they were hoping to use for China? put Colgan on it?

Edit--I'm on CO111 on 21-jan, perhaps I'll get to experience the new hub myself!

craz

Not only that but it still will appear that its gonna be a non-stop flight, when they know most likely it wont be. Id rather know that 3/4 or so thru I'll have to wake up if sleeping etc cause we pulling in for some gas. Personally if I was warned ahead of time, Id probably use a Carrier that can get me as promised NS, thats why CO and everyone else doesnt want to mention the fuel stop.

LawFlyer

Right you are, CO 1E. Of my 4 roundtrips on CO 757s between EWR and HAM or TXL, three of the westbound flights made a fuel stop. That is a full 75% of the EWR-bound flights. In each of the three instances, CO blamed it on weather and "unexpected" headwinds. ("Unexpected," my ...). Further, in each of the three flights, I suffered major accommodation problems at EWR getting re-booked for onward flights to either DFW or IAH. I even had to overnight on one occasion, even flying full-fare J (because I could not be accommodated on other CO flights that day).

In fact, CO absolutely refused to book me on a nearly empty AA flight from EWR to DFW (my final ticketed destination on the CO itinerary) because "weather" and "headwinds" had caused the fuel stop inbound from TXL. All remaining CO flights from EWR-DFW and EWR-IAH-DFW were booked, and CO flat-out refused to put me on the empty AA nonstop.

Frankly, even though I have been a CO loyalist from many, many years, those three fuel stops (3 out of four, remember!) -- coupled with CO's subsequent refusal to help accommodate pax inconvenienced by CO's using the wrong equipment for the job -- have had merely one effect on me:

I will never, ever buy a CO ticket on a 757 trans-A service again. Never. They have lost my business completely on those routes until they schedule the proper quipment for the job.

Now YES, I understand that some of you will argue that CO is, in fact, scheduling the right equipment for the job. But what those flyers are REALLY arguing is that CO is doing "whatever it can" to hold on to those routes by flying a place-holder airplane on that service so that CO won't lose the authority to fly it. That is, better to fly it with the wrong quipment and retain the route than to abandon the service for lack of proper lift and then lose the route authority as a result. That is CLEARLY the MO here.

To that I say, "fine," but let's not pretend that a commercial aircraft that makes a stop even 20% of the time (to quote Yellow77's statistic above -- I'm not vetting that research nugget) is actually getting the job done on a route marketed as "nonstop service." If CO 10 from IAH - CDG or CO 4 from IAH - LGW had to make a "mechanical diversion" or "fuel stop" more than once per week (or imagine 3 days out of 4, as my experience was on the ex-Germany routes!), it would be an outrage and we all know that.

Only twice in the past decade of my trans-A flying on CO 10/11 and CO 4/5 have I experienced a weather-related diversion over the Atlantic; both occured with DC-10 equipment which was on its last legs, anyway. So to say that the 757's record of "weather-related" diversions on trans-A runs is acceptable (whereas it almost NEVER happens on a dispatched 777 or 767) is, in my opinion, dishonest apologia. It's as if some supporters of these runs claim that it's an acceptable price to pay for "nonstop" (ha ha) service to HAM and TXL. I would much rather connect with a scheduled flight in FRA or CDG than pretend that my ex-TXL flight will actually make it to EWR in mid-January, which in turn will cause me many connecting problems chalked up to "weather" and "headwinds."

This is absurd in the extreme. The headwinds over the North Atlantic, particularly in mid-winder, are NOT UNEXPECTED. They are NOT "sudden." And they certainly should not be a reason for CO to skate off the hook in re-booking its pax on other carriers when the inevitable misconnects occur. CO knows full well that the westbound 757 flights ex-Germany can handle the job only in the best of circumstances. Too many fat pax? Too many miscalculated cargo pallets? Fuel burn not exactly as expected? Engines not running at 100% efficiency? Oops -- gotta refuel, and blame it ON THE WEATHER?? Um. . .no, thanks.

I think it is highly unfair to the standard passenger who has NOT had the benefit that many of us have had in our greater flying experience that CO markets these routes as nonstop just as they do 777/767 nonstops. Most pax actually think it's the same transaction. But it is NOT. Consider:

CO markets and sells tickets on its 764 flight from IAH - GRU/GIG as a "nonstop" flight: even in very bad weather over the Amazon (which I've personally experienced) requiring massive re-routing in the air, adding more than 90 minutes at full cruise, coupled with bad weather at GRU, causing an hour of circling: this 10-hour flight topped 12 hours (!) and guess what? It was still a nonstop flight. Thus, CO markets this with the implication that, even in bad-weather circumstances, this is ALMOST CERTAIN to be a nonstop flight.

However, the ex-TXL and ex-HAM flights should only be marketed as "nonstop in perfect conditions." Sure, I realize that I got burned on three of four ex-Germany 757 flights -- but I'm not the only one. And for CO to have the gall to say say, "Sorry -- it was the weather" is such a load of crap. No, my friends, it was the equipment, not the weather. After all: When my ex-TXL flight failed to make it to EWR but the KLM narrowbody "all-business" flight from AMS - IAH (a much longer flight!) made it in on time ON THE SAME DAY, I have a BIG problem with CO saying "Unexpected headwinds over the North Atlantic caused our 757 to divert going to EWR, but KLM's narrowbody from AMS made it to IAH just fine, even though it followed nearly the same track, flew through the same headwinds, and went a further 1500 miles." Any clear-thinking individual would realize this is NOT a weather diversion. It's a false-marketing diversion.

Again, as Craz says above, "It would be nice if CO warned the people before they purchased the ticket on a 757" that this flight may very will make a fuel stop. And if it DOES make a fuel stop, the pax are S.O.L. because CO will blame it on the weather. I mean, come on -- if CO's equipment can just barely make the run under the best of circumstances, why are we penalized when CO's gamble doesn't pay off?

The straw broke the back of my applicable camel when CO refused to put me on the AA nonstop to DFW from EWR when my ex-TXL flight arrived 3 hours late due to our Stupidly-Employed-Equipment Diversion. Yes, I knew when I booked the ticket that it was a 757, but I also (wrongly) assumed that CO would take care of me should the short-legged 757 got thirsty over Greenland and cause a mis-connect. But no: CO says, "It's the weather, not our choice of equipment, and you must overnight here in EWR even though we could get you home on time -- as we promised -- if we put you on the AA flight down the hall. But we won't. Instead, here is your voucher to the crappy hotel, and your shuttle bus is waiting about a mile's walk down that corridor. Thank you very much for flying full-fare J over the Atlantic on a 757. Buh-bye."

Buh-bye, indeed, to trans-A on the CO 757. Ever since, Lufthansa has had ALL my Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf business out of Houston, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue to CO J they otherwise would have had IF they had put me on that ONE domestic flight from EWR to DFW on AA -- but once the camel's back breaks, that's it. And guess what Lufthansa's service record is for getting me ex-IAH or ex-DFW to Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Berlin, and Frankfurt on time?

100%.

Thanks for letting me vent!
LF

AvalancheZ71

Sorry no EUA's on BF equipped aircraft.