Originally Posted by
FlyingHoustonian
I am well, well aware of that and was not really intending to get into that discussion here. More of an airliners.net topic but thanks for the reminder.
I am more curious if the seasonal service is actually coming back or not. Being at least Platinum on UA I obviously have no problem using them, but some friends and family are not so lucky.
I wouldn't expect it to return by late end of year, as it didn't run so last year at that time. So if it doesn't run in 2016, who knows for 2017 or another year?
F9 should have run it PHL-IAH-SFO last year. Some one-stop traffic would have helped stabilized each individual leg in terms of filling seats (and profitably). It might even need to run it longer than the limited time frame it ran it last year, so that it could build more regular repeat traffic.
Sorry to tangent the below to PHL moreso, but F9 was larger in PHL/TTN than in IAH, as IAH was more just a spoke, while PHL/TTN was a little more.
Last year's F9 PHL strategy didn't permit PHL F9 pax to reach the West Coast at all, and the West Coast has most of the popular destinations during the summer, moreso than Texas when Texas is too hot and humid. This year, F9 has added some useful routes like PHL-DEN, but some of the other routes are rather questionable, like PHL-CVG. There hasn't been great ties between Philly and Cincy, and F9 might not really be able to stimulate it. It also seems to cower at times, not run PHL-LAX/SFO when it should really be covering these routes at this point, but it chooses short-hauls instead. That's ok if there is demand, but IND and CVG aren't like LAX and SFO as destinations. And let's be real: Philly isn't like NYC or DC for PHL to be a great destination getaway airport on the other side for IND and CVG based pax.
F9 has a strong base in the PHL/TTN area (let's say more than IAD), while Southwest is incredibly small in PHL, ~only 32 departures in the 5th largest market. In some ways, F9 wants to be big on select routes (e.g. PHL/TTN-MCO) which is good. My criticism lies in it's way of doing things half heartedly at times. I get it that it doesn't want to put all eggs in one basket (henceforth a smaller DEN hub), But outside of DEN, I'm not sure where it has traction, except for being a cheap LAS and MCO provider. And, it spreads itself too thin and try to cover routes like SFO-LAS (4x weekly) where it's way too limited on a very overserved route, by much better carriers.