knope2001

MCI westbound flights upgraded to Airbus, changed to less-than-daily, and (generally) not timed for feed from Milwaukee...formerly the strongest feed to/from the west at Kansas City.



MCI-BOS 33.2% (left 7:00am -- no feed)
BOS-MCI 54.1% (arrived early afternoon, allowing connections west)

The one MCI-LGA-MCI trip upgraded to Airbus ran a similar schedule:
MCI-LGA 29.2% (left about 7:30am -- no feed)
LGA-MCI 54.5% (arrived early afternoon, allowing connections west)



First month of service, and starting in the dead of winter is unsurprisingly weak. Madison did better than Grand Rapids early on.

DCA-GRR and GRR-DEN segments
34.1 onboard passengers
14.5 local pax to/from GRR
19.6 thru passengers to/from DEN

DCA-MSN and MSN-DCA
46.8 onboard passengers
32.8 local pax to/from MSN
14.0 thru passengers to/from DEN



In case anyone happens to go back to the source data, you may notice that Chautauqua reported nearly everything at MKE as 37-seat RJ's (except Omaha, for some reason). In fact the ER3 flew MBL and RHI-IWD, plus a single daily FNT flight. I adjusted these for the real 50-seat capacity actually flown.


The sharp difference in loads between AirTran and Southwest are in large part due to connecting feed versus no connecting feed. Southwest took over many flights to these destinations in January, and Southwest has nearly no connecting feed. AirTran, on the other hand, is designed for connections at MKE. Even in January, flying half-empty to Florida is bad news.



This is better than some may have expected, and it reflects their newfound monopoly. The early-morning BOS-MKE 737 only filled about 37% of seats, but they did better on other segments. In spite of the monopoy and the connecting feed, their twice-daily fligts operated nearly 40% empty. But January is a weak month.


In case anyone wondered why AirTran has a $48 MKE-DEN sale fare today...

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January is a weak month, and it's important to take that grain of salt with these numbers. But it's hard to imagine anyone happy with routes barely half full...or emptier...even in January.