January T100's (onboard loads)
Here are the onboard loads (T100s) for Midwest and select MKE competitors for the month of January 2010. Remember, as always, that onboard loads are only half the picture when trying to estimate relative performance, because they dont tell us much about fare or traffic composition.
As in recent months, the YX flights operated by the A319 are not included in the T100s. So the only 319 stats we have are for MKE-DEN.
Midwest
Routes primarily served by E170 or larger
92.1%
.. MKE
.. MCO
87.6%
.. MKE
.. FLL
80.7%
.. MCI
.. RSW
79.3%
.. MKE
.. DEN
78.7%
.. MKE
.. LGA
74.3%
.. MKE
.. DFW
70.9%
.. MKE
.. ATL
69.5%
.. MCI
.. SEA
67.7%
.. OMA
.. MCO
67.2%
.. MKE
.. BOS
64.6%
.. MKE
.. DCA
63.1%
.. MCI
.. LAX
58.3%
.. OMA
.. DCA
56.3%
.. MCI
.. SFO
54.3%
.. MCI
.. DCA**
50.0%
.. MCI
.. LGA
49.4%
.. MKE
.. MCI
34.6%
.. OMA
.. TPA
25.9%
.. MCI
.. BOS
**MCI-DCA are all Republic flights, which includes both YX and US cannot differentiate in these stats.
Routes primarily served by ER4/ER3
71.0%
.. MKE
.. MSN
70.8%
.. MKE
.. MSP
68.3%
.. MKE
.. GRR
64.0%
.. MKE
.. ATW
63.9%
.. MKE
.. IND
62.8%
.. MKE
.. EWR
61.8%
.. MKE
.. PHL
61.0%
.. MKE
.. PIT
59.4%
.. MKE
.. DSM
58.9%
.. MKE
.. GRB
53.0%
.. MKE
.. FNT
51.5%
.. MKE
.. BNA
50.4%
.. MKE
.. OMA
43.9%
.. MKE
.. DAY
42.2%
.. MKE
.. CMH
40.7%
.. MKE
.. CLE
27.2%
.. MKE
.. SDF
Select MKE competitors
AirTran
90.6%
.. RSW
87.5%
.. PHX (only first few days of month)
86.1%
.. FLL
85.2%
.. MCO
84.7%
.. TPA
84.6%
.. LAS
81.8%
.. SEA
78.1%
.. SFO
77.8%
.. LAX
72.0%
.. MSP
65.3%
.. ATL
62.9%
.. DEN
59.4%
.. LGA
56.3%
.. BWI
46.8%
.. BOS
44.9%
.. DCA
35.4%
.. IND (only first few days of month)
Skywest / FL*
68.0%
.. STL
47.2%
.. PIT
41.0%
.. IND
25.8%
.. CAK
Southwest
91.2%
.. PHX
76.8%
.. LAS
67.6%
.. TPA
66.3%
.. MCO
47.1%
.. MCI
38.4%
.. BWI
---------------------------------------------------------------
A few comments about the numbers
On the Midwest side, these are (generally) stronger than what January historically has seen. Some of the perceived strength is due to flying 76-seat E170s on many MKE business routes, however even if you bring that down to actual onboard passengers, the numbers in many markets are well above historic averages for January. We dont know the traffic breakdown (locals vs connections) nor yields, of course.
Kansas City numbers are largely on the lower side, and the represents both a continued sluggishness of the MCI market and the higher utilization of the E190 there. This is especially true on the E190 flights to BOS and LGA. Both Boston and LaGuardia had a very early westbound/late evening eastbound trip flown by the E190 which averaged only about 26% full for BOS and 31% full for LGA. Its the largest plane at the weakest time of day. That E190 was on the only MCI-BOS trip, and the other two MCI-LGA trips flown by the E170 were nearly 60% full on average. January is the weakest month of the year, and those off-peak flights with larger aircraft flew lots of empty space. Those will pick up during heavier months.
Also of note is the new OMA-MCO and OMA-TPA service, flown with the 99-seat E190. This just got going in January, and the southbound loads were notably stronger on both than northbound. That pretty much makes sense
the first several days there wouldnt be so many people returning from Florida. The idea of doing MCO 5x and TPA 2x definitely made Tampa start out weaker. Well see how things look in February and March.
The RJ side posted historically strong numbers in many markets, some of which benefitted from the smaller ER3. However if you go back a few years when many of these routes were 32-seat FRJs, these are stronger results in many cases than the typical January. (Remember that January is historically a dog of a month in most markets.)
Poor Louisville really sticks out like a sore thumb. It was definitely a high-fare market, but clearly that kind of a load would need very high fares. Anecdotally, business fares to SDF seems to have softened in recent months. Time will tell if it hangs on or not. I dont think they have much slack to play around with these days and some RJ markets these days (STL, CMH, IND) have peak-time flights which fill up quickly. So perhaps if SDF doesnt last they will redeploy some lift to other RJ markets.
Regarding the competition, AirTran posted their normal strong numbers to sun markets, good numbers on the long hauls west, and soft numbers in the business markets. Connections and thru traffic appear a key part of the market. We dont have a way to know about connections, but thru traffic shows up in these stats. SEA-ATL was about 29 thru passengers per day (accounting for about 20% of the load factor); LGA-MSP had 36 thru passengers on an average day (and that does not include connecting passengers, just ones who happened to be on a LGA-MKE-MSP thru flight on the same flight number.) As I mentioned before, January is a notoriously weak month, and the results in the eastern business markets seem to reflect this.
The Skywest numbers are not out of line which what Ive been hearing. Akron was lighter than I expected, but I knew St Louis was doing reasonably well a market where the CRJs replaced the 717s. Well see how PIT, IND and the new additions of DSM and OMA look as the travel season progresses.
Southwests numbers were weaker than I expected, and its interesting that the two markets at the lowest end are *not* the markets they are trimming for late summer and fall. Worth noting in Januarys comparison, though, is that Southwest continued to fly 3x/day nonstops, but AirTran has cut back from 3x to 2x. So Southwest actually carried more MKE-BWI passengers than AirTran in January, though we dont know about traffic composition. Similarly, Southwest carried more MKE-LAS passengers than AirTran as well, by a small margin. That route was also one trimmed by AirTran, from 3x to 2x, shortly after Southwest started.
January, again is the weakest month of the year in general, and its interesting to see how the market at Milwaukee has grown so much overall but definitely not caught up to capacity in every instance.
Ill see if I can patch together some reasonable numbers on the YX A319 flights in Milwaukee and post them.