rtalk25

ACY is a different market. It'd make more sense to replace ACY-IAH with ACY-IAD r/ts. Maybe three or four r/ts be done in the time that it takes to operate a single ACY-IAH, and provide much better use to United's network.

As for IAD-JFK, I think UA could replace it with IAD-ISP. It could then possibly sell the JFK slot pairs that were used for IAD-JFK. Possibly Southwest, Frontier or Spirit would be interested in JFK slot pairs. Arguably, if Southwest ran JFK-BWI (perhaps moving it's ISP-BWI over to JFK), it'd just feed Southwest's nascent international network at BWI. JetBlue would be impacted if competing LCCs started covering JFK, but it depends more on what routes and how big the other LCCs would become.

cyclogenesis

I would love it if UA flew into Islip! That would mean I could be on LI without having to negotiate down down traffic!

sbm12

The latter.
Not by much. The *A carriers who serve JFK and not IAD mostly have other partners to get passengers on to IAD anyways (the much more logical SIN-LHR-IAD with VS TATL, for example). There is minimal feed from UA to those long-haul flights. It is a low-yielding market and in an operating environment where 50-seat flights are getting cut this is quite a rational decision.

Kacee

Perhaps not in practical terms, but it undercuts the purpose of the alliance for those carriers to rely on other airlines for their US domestic feed. It would be like UA relying on AB rather than LH at FRA.

Of course, we see this already with *A partners such as SQ and NZ preferring to sell domestic connections on airlines other than UA.

Billygreg

Not true, not even close. The market is plenty big to support a lot more flights as it has for years and years. What changed to make this less valuable? There are more people with more money, who want to go to more places in NoVa than ever before. How can there be less demand today than 10 years ago? The answer is there isn't.

What changed is that you have bad business people making bad decisions. When you take away everyone's options a "small" O&D becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Crappy flights, at crappy times, at crappy prices drives people to other options. Which of course makes bad business managers believe that there is no market for their services, so they quit for what is allegedly "greener" pastures. Woe betide to them when it starts to become apparent that there aren't any greener pastures. Not sure what they do then but shrink away into oblivion.

sbm12

The alliance is set up to allow seamless connections, not to force them. And there's the part where the number of passengers who need these flights for those connections is tiny. Even if the IAD-JFK flights were ONLY passengers connecting to long-haul at JFK there are only a tiny number where that makes sense.

Yes, there is. The market has changed significantly since a decade ago. More destinations are now available non-stop from IAD without the JFK connection (or vv). More destinations are available with other connections rather than requiring the JFK-IAD hop. UA now has a major hub in the NYC area, something they most certainly did not have 10 years ago. And the cost to operate these flights is rather different than 10 years ago as well.

There are plenty of people in NoVa and NYC who have money and want to travel. Very, very few of them do it by connecting at the other site en route.

Billygreg

Sorry, you missed the point pretty dramatically. Don't care about connections. I was told there is no O&D market in NoVa to go to LI. And I can tell you that is not true. And by the way, a hub in Newark most certainly helps no one to get to Long Island.

The UA flights to LGA and JFK have gotten crappier and crappier over the years, more expensive, more inconvenient, less reliable. All because UA made bad decisions based on bad self-fulfilling information, whether it was the old UA or this new (kinder and gentler) UA. Bad business decisions based on bad information remain just bad decisions.

787fan

Please show the numbers about this large O&D between Long island and northern VA that you allege exists. I've shown you the flight schedules that neither DL nor B6 think it's big at all. I can't find one single airline that flies any 100+ seat jets between those 2 airports.

And I don't recall UA ever having a IAD-ISP flight, even back in the hay days when IAD was a meaningful hub. (Neither does WN)

Billygreg

Talking about today's flights is ridiculous because it just reflects the results of years of cuts and retreats and the lack of demand to justify the cuts becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one is flying so therefore no one wants to. There used to be a morning a319 to LGA and an evening 757, the JFK flights were at least CRJ700 sometimes. Now, we are done with JFK, down to 4 flights to LGA with that likely on its last legs as well. As I said every consumer who used it for O&D has abandoned this route because they kept cutting and cutting. I used to fly it all the time (4-5x a year). Now I drive 5 hours because they have made it so painful and inconvenient to fly. They have no idea what the demand is because they drove it away, and it won't come back.

bob_the_d

so that means the only UA presence at JFK will be the p.s. flights? that's pretty small. p.s. must be raking in a boatload of money i would imagine to maintain all that infrastructure and presence at a major airport just for two destinations.

whlinder

LGA and JFK aren't necessarily the same market.


None of us can say for sure whether JFK-IAD contributed profitable feed to the system. And passengers don't all fly international out of JFK.

It's the death by a thousand cuts issue. Chip away at the network enough and soon it becomes unusable.

787fan

They reside in the same county, and are only 13 miles apart. Other than an artificial restriction of perimeter, they serve exactly the same catchment area.

nerdbirdsjc

Says who? If United was carrying significant traffic at interline prorate fare levels on that flight, the airline likely comes out ahead by ditching the service and instead flowing those passengers through its various JV-inspired options, capturing a far greater (and higher-yield) share of the ticket revenue.

rtalk25

WN has a ISP-BWI flight and US has a ISP-DCA flight. DCA is technically in VA.

Along with connections that are there, it probably has more O&D from the LI point of sale headed into the DC/NoVa region than the other way.

Anybody have an idea what these slot pairs will be used for? Maybe it'd shift the CLE-LGA slot pairs over to CLE-JFK and use the LGA slot pairs that were originally occupied for CLE, for more IAH, IAD or ORD.

exerda

I'm curious if UA can sell them. If so, that's my bet on what they'll be used for.