Originally Posted by
Rain Gonen
thank you, I never said that it was only flown on LAX to Seattle, I know very well that it is flown on mostly transcontinental routes, at the same time utilization wise, they could have it flying all day between the east and west coast. Just like with wide-body aircraft that go on multi day turns, Alaska Airlines can have 2 to 3 aircraft operating the same route going on 2 day turns, Right, because of a flight is less than five hours then they can operate it four times a day, for flights over five hours (obviously six hours, but I’m including an hour turnaround times) let them operate it three times a day but because it is an odd number they would need a second aircraft to counter the first one, and at the end of the second day schedule it would even out, My point is simply that they could have them continue flying transcontinental routes and yet for some reason once daily they’ve decided to use them between Seattle and LAX, a route that I fly often as I live in LAX, and with my experience on that route, those flights are almost never full which means flying at a321 on that route is not necessary.
No, seriously, it improves utilization to have it run a ~2 hour flight leg in combination with transcon runs. It’s the same reason why UA and B6 fly 752 TATL or MINT aircraft NYC-Florida/Caribbean, even though those markets aren’t premium markets.
Also, nobody in their right mind is flying out of SEA transcon at 3 am. Or arriving then. This isn’t India (which has these kinds of ghastly flight timings are a function of geography, time zones and no ability for citizens to put restrictions/quiet hours on airports). You realistically only have an 18 or so hour window for flight operations. One transcon round trip plus a two hour flight leg does that nicely. It also helps you park the plane for the night somewhere else other than SEA.