Originally Posted by
gooselee
Sigh....never mind. I was just assuming that since a) WN is the end-all, be-all pinnacle of airline operations, and b) WN made a mistake by serving BOS, it would only logically follow that all other airlines should abandon BOS because it's such a poor business decision.
No, I didn't say that. It's big enough to support mainline service from other carriers. However, I would say that domestic traffic should be more evenly split between the three Boston airports.
I'm sorry you will have to deal with mini-jets for the foreseeable future due to the needs and preferences of so many other travelers, and the profitability that those planes and routes provide to the airlines that use them.
The thing is, there aren't "so many other travelers". The vast majority of travelers don't fly to regional-only routes to BFE, and would rather that the major hubs be de-clogged than for someone who is too lazy to drive an hour or three can have absurdly over-priced air service. And yes, this means cutting the closest commercial air service to where I live, at HVN. It shouldn't have commercial air service. If people are too lazy to drive to BDL, PVD, or take public transit to LGA/JFK then they don't deserve air service.
The remaining regional flights are on routes that also provide mainline service, like to the BDLs and PVDs of the world, and those flights can be more efficiently consolidated into fewer mainline flights, as WN has proven very successfully.
The only reason that they are profitable is because they are so absurdly overpriced. It's not efficient to operate commercial air service if you can't drop the equivalent of 13 737's in a day, and it never will be. Overhead is too high. Because they are so absurdly overpriced, only a tiny minority of people can/will use them, with the vast majority going to their nearest big mainline airport for good airfares.
Even just cutting everything smaller than a 717 out of the US commercial system tomorrow and adding some more mainline flights to compensate, without any other necessary changes, would serve to massively de-clog the airports in the US. Add in repositioning hubs, eliminating assigned seats and first class, turning planes around faster, and the whole system would function far better for more people with less congestion than it does today.
Clearly, any perspective other than your own, even when based on empirical fact, will never be valid enough for your discerning mind.
The empirical fact is that most people don't fly to BFE, and that regional mini jets are clogging up the hubs. Heck, the hubs have even grown to be too large because of the mini-jets and the inefficient business models. With WN turning jets around in 30 minutes and sending them back out, and with every jet carrying 143+ passengers, they are hubbing out of MDW. Meanwhile, DL is hubbing out of DTW, which is several times larger, because they have a ton of mini jets and inefficient operations that leaves planes at the gates for more than 30 minutes.