UAPremierExec

Hey BiggAW - like to commend you on the posts, most people just give up. Nothing like a healthy discussion about our air service.

Juneau should NOT have jets, based on its "size" when you look at other communities in "Mericuh" or Lower 48. However, we are the regional hub for places like Kake, Gustavus, Hoonah, Skagway, Haines, Angoon, and to some extent Petersburg, Sitka, and possibly Ketch. So there's a lot of people flying in and out of those places who don't even have things like banks, hospitals, OT care, cancer care, etc. And with no roads and a "limited" ferry system, air travel is a huge part of everyone's life. You, based on your profile, live down in "Mericuh" near a few large airports with more than one airline. You get to fly to Florida for $99. You can do a day trip to NYC and back without paying $100 at a Hilton. You can bring your dog with you almost anywhere and pay only one fee. You can make it to 80/90% of america with only 1 stop or connection. We can't.

We constantly are forced to overnight in Seattle. Ever wonder why there's such a HUGE amount of hotel rooms near the airport compared to other places like Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago (well except for the convention center), Detroit, hell - even Philadelphia. Seattle has more hotel rooms PER GATE than any other airport in the US (based on hotels with shuttles) - this is from an HSMAI survey (Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International).

Think it could have to do with.... Alaska ....

hhhmmm

Now that its summer, I don't always have to overnight on each and every trip south or back home. If I "stick" with Alaska past September, I will. I will to get to Atlanta. Miami. Raleigh/Durham. (mostly) Chicago. St. Louis. Kansas City. San Juan. Heck, even Honolulu has me sitting for 4 - 8 hours sometimes.

When was the last time you had to overnight while trying to get to St. Louis? Probably never. Unless it was bad weather.

So for us, we're paying $700 roundtrip if not more to those cities I mentioned, AND $125 at the Hilton / Radisson / Doubletree (if/when lucky) BOTH ways -- get out your calculator - so on a roundrip, I'm at $1k.

So... as a BUSINESS TRAVELER who did 250k miles last year - am I going to waste time just to keep my loyalty to Alaska Airlines - which is a great carrier. Or am I going to deal with Delta's "shenanigans", match to Platinum, and save $250+ on each trip and get home same day?

Hilton Gold or CRJ 900.... hilton gold or CRJ 900..... I'm not a points @#re but I can tell you that most of us in Southeast AK like our families/homes/dogs/beds more than we do Alaska Airlines or the Hilton.

I pray that the Alaska execs heard DAVE1013 and I loud and clear when we mentioned the daily 6am nonstop YEAR ROUND and the time savings. I even was on the same flight as DAVE1013 - we both had to overnight where we were going that day.... yet, if we had flown Delta, we would have been at our respective destinations by 4PM that day. Instead of 10AM the next.

eponymous_coward

For a 30-200 mile flight that maybe lasts a half hour to JNU tops, who cares if you're in a jet? SEA-PDX does quite well with Q400s, and are orders of magnitude larger than SIT/KTN/PSG/WRG-JNU.

BiggAW

Many airports in the lower 48 that currently have regional service shouldn't have service at all, because they are within an hour or two of a major airport anyway that has competitive mainline service from multiple carriers. That doesn't apply to Southeast Alaska, due to the obvious lack of roads, therefore it needs commercial mainline jet service to SEA and ANC, just like it has now.

I'm not sure about each town, but JNU isn't really a hub, unless you're counting a few pax going on tiny planes or for places like Haines and Skagway where you have to get on a ferry from JNU (that was a fun trip, did it in 2012 on M/V Malaspina). The other places with air service have stops at JNU, but it's the same plane that goes to/from those other places like KTN, SIT, WRG, YAK, etc.

True, we have it a lot easier traveling. I have family in JNU, and have heard for years their dealings with flying in and out. At one point in time a while back, they had to fly JNU-ANC-DFW-BOS to get the best fares, which we would joke about since it makes no logical sense. Now they have the flights from SEA to BOS or EWR, so it makes things easier.

I just hope that they retain mainline service to all of these places at least a couple times a week. I don't really care what the schedule is, if I want to go there, I'll work around it, as long as the prices aren't terrible, and they are flying 737's.

What does that have to do with jet service? The bottom line is that AS's schedule is pretty darn wonky. I was looking at flying BOS-JNU, and there's an 8 hour layover in there somewhere. Weird. 4 or 5 hours is tolerable, but 8 hours stuck in SEA is pushing it. So we ended up flying WN to SEA and almost got stuck in MDW, but that's another story. Next time I come up here, I'm flying AS end to end. That sounds like they need to fix their schedules to make logical connections in SEA. I'm not sure what the slot situation at SEA is, they certainly don't have any issues in JNU considering only a handful of mainline jets go in and out per day, and even including the little planes, JNU is definitely not slot restricted.

I've learned my lesson. No more trying to book on multiple airlines. It's AS all the way, no matter how crummy their schedule is. If I have to catch a flight at weird hours, that's what I'll do.

The bottom line is that they need to fix their schedules to make logical connections. Maybe the sort-of competition from DL will force them to finally do this, causing a swing over to DL, and a swing back to AS that forces DL out of the market. So maybe it's a good thing in the long run. But with 33k people, the few who try DL will get tired of their shenanigans quickly after being used to flying on AS, which is orders of magnitude better, and quickly revert back to AS.

It doesn't matter how short the flight is. Horizon's sh*tty little turboprops aren't B737's. AS's B737's, well, are. JNU is kind of the one exception, as it costs way more to go through ANC vs SEA. I guess if I were flying that route, I'd either find the occasional mainline flight from SEA to PDX, or I'd fly into SEA instead.

That being said, looking at the whole market, for anywhere other than JNU, SEA-PDX doesn't make a lot of sense, as you can usually just get a flight directly to PDX, or if you're just traveling between those two cities, you wouldn't be flying anyway.

dave1013

There is a common, tangible theme to all your posts, and that is an intense dislike of/bias against turboprop aircraft. Or maybe I am misinterpreting, and what really is manifesting itself is your strong bond to B737's and the like. There's a reason, I just don't understand.

In any event, right or wrong, good or bad, the sh*tty little turboprops are destined to have a stronger future presence in Southeast. Jet service will not go away completely, but a goodly portion will be replaced by turboprop/regional jet service. That said, you'll still be able to get here by mainline jet. You're likely to have less choices, though.

We're just starting a sustainability master planning effort for the Juneau airport and also preparing to renovate the north end of the passenger terminal (the oldest section, portions of which date back to the 40's). Both activities will have significant focus on fostering and accommodating commuter service. Once the north end is rebuilt, I expect it will house Horizon and its ilk.

Juneau really is a hub, a regional one with several commuter carriers that operate regular daily service to a host of small outlying communities. UAPremierExec made mention of many in his earlier post. Commuter enplanements and those attributable to nonscheduled service have exceeded 100,000 in 7 of the most recent ten years for which we have data. They account for ~40% of total enplanements. This is not insignificant.

Many of us are as passionate about nonstop service to SEA early in the morning so we can get to east coast destinations the same day as you are about the continued ubiquity of jet service. UAPremierExec's comments relate to the obligatory overnight in SEA when flying AS because their earliest departure in the off season stops in KTN, precluding same-day access to points east. Hopefully that will change. If not, it won't be for lack of effort and arm-twisting we exerted at the Gold event held here a few weeks ago.

I'm a loyal AS customer, too. Hell, I just passed the million mile threshold. I'm not a shareholder so I really don't have that level of skin in the game. But as an FAA retiree and current member of the Juneau airport board, I realize that things change and we have to change along with them. I don't expect service in five years to be a mirror image of what we have now. There will be different schedules, different aircraft types, and maybe even different (more) carriers. Jet service will not be at the same level it is today. You are certainly entitled to your opinion on turboprop aircraft. The fact of the matter is - we're going to see more of them (along with regional jets) here.

eponymous_coward

Yes, they are: fuel-hogging, harder to fill up, less appropriate for small market 737s. A Q400 pseudo-hub in JNU makes all kinds of sense in serving SE Alaska.

If every airline ditched every market that couldn't use a 737 effectively, there would be a whole bunch of places where planes wouldn't fly.

Anyways, did Q400s steal your pickup truck, run over your dog, and make out with your girlfriend? What's your beef? I couldn't possibly care less on a 45-60 minute flight if it's a turboprop or a 737, that's a good 300-400 mile radius (right in the Q400 fuel efficiency wheelhouse, and pretty much the same flight time as a bigger jet). QX has been flying them for decades now. It seems to work just fine for them.

AS Flyer

Your point is well taken by me, and I wish I had something to do with scheduling because I've always wondered why there wasn't better connectivity from Southeast Alaska. That said, your statement above is not completely true. Taking the earliest flight from JNU (yes, it stops in KTN) allows easy connectivity to ORD, DFW, ATL, MSP, EWR and DCA. Not to mention SLC, DEN, and, of course, a huge assortment of cities up and down the west coast. ORD, ATL and DFW all allow onward connections to other cities in the midwest, southeast and east coast. Sure, Delta can take you to SEA, then get you to JFK, ATL, DTW and MSP in the east, but then there's a connection there as well if you're going beyond those cities. Alaska can get you to pretty much most of the same places with a connection at a major hub to one of their partners. None the less, an earlier departure from JNU would, I'm sure, be a welcome addition for most.

UAPremierExec

Not true. SEA-ATL is 9:30AM. the 1:05PM DFW flight is always ALWAYS full and never comes up when searching for flights out of JNU, let alone to an AS/AA flight to the places I go to. And only the SEA-ORD at 8:00PM is BARELY a connection for SeAK - and that's with a hefty long layover or taking the milkrun.

DEN doesn't do much for connections since UA and AS don't play well in the sandbox. EWR is a 3 hour + layover. MSP is a 6 hour layover. So can you redefine "easy" layover?

AA is still limited in their codes, but has some good connectivity out of ORD, however I'm still leaving Juneau at 745PM, to ANC, then redeye to ORD, 9A/10A flight to where-ever, and landing at 3PM. Nearly 20 hours in transit.

Versus Delta's *year round* 625AM flight that gets me almost anywhere much much much much much sooner.

Calculon

I'd be curious to hear some specific examples of cities that "shouldn't have service at all" based on their geographic location. Because these days, airlines are usually making money on the routes that they fly, even those shorter ones. Who's on the chopping block, in your mind?

The overhead bins on a Q400 are pretty small. Some egos just will not fit.

You should try flying SEA-PDX a few times and talk to your fellow passengers. You'd be surprised how much more there is to air travel than how close two dots are on a route map.

CBear

How much essential air service money is floating around SE?

Would that have any impact on the type of aircraft flown?

Chugach

Public info...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service

AS Flyer

Flt. 60 arrives from KTN/JNU at 1205pm.

flt 750 leaves for ATL at 100pm
flt 662 leaves for DFW at 1255pm
flt 22 leaves for ORD at 1245pm
flt 706 leaves for SLC at 110pm
flt 2 leaves for DCA at 205pm
flt 14 leaves for EWR at 305pm
flt 692 leaves for DEN at 200pm
flt 28 leaves for MSP at 625pm (one could also take AS76 JNU-SEA arr SEA at 504p)

Checked the DFW flight for this Friday, from JNU, and well into June - it shows available for every date I check.

The MSP flight doesn't offer much in the way of connections but certainly is an option if you're traveling to MSP.

There are plenty of AA connections available to many cities in the east and southeast via ORD, only limited by the number of places that AA flies to from ORD.

I think a 6am flight from JNU would be wonderful... I agree. I am only pointing out that there are connections on Alaska that you simply aren't acknowledging.

BiggAW

I'm actually staunchly against all regional airplanes, from the Beech 1900C up through the Dash 8, CR2, CR7, CR9, and ERJ145, irregardless of them being jets or turboprops. Although turboprops are just that much sh*ttier than mini-jets, which are already sh*tty enough.

I hate regional aircraft because they are cramped, they clog up airports with inefficient use of runway capacity (although that wouldn't apply to JNU), and DL was screwing us for a while by farming most of our flights out to their sh*tty regional partners, showing us that they didn't care about our market. Finally, in the past year or two, they have restored mainline service to us now that the 717's from AirTrain are the babies of the mainline fleet.

All regional service should die, and the routes should be pared back to only mainline, with the B717 being the smallest commercial airplane available, with the exception of rural villages in AK that have no road connections and need the Beech 1900's to get into gravel/dirt airstrips, but those aren't regional airlines anyway, they are small airlines not affiliated with the major carriers. BRW, OME, and the like currently have 737's, so they should keep them.

That's very unfortunate. JNU deserves to keep all mainline service, and they have the traffic volumes to support a couple of flights a day. The 737-700 fleet would make sense, since it's a bit smaller than the -800 or -900ER fleets.

I hope KTN, PSG, WRG, YAK, CKU, SIT, GST, and the rest keep at least some B737 service.

Does Horizon have separate counters and stuff from Alaska? I thought they were all combined, since they are a regional partner of Alaska? What's wrong with the current airport? It's quaint, sure, but it seems about 2x as big as it needs to be right now, since the most that's ever in there is two 737's at once.

40% are small aircraft?!? Still, that's not what I'd consider a hub. A hub is DTW, MSP, ATL, DEN, ORD, MDW, DFW, SEA, etc, where you have scheduled commercial jet aircraft coming in or out every few minutes and international connections (a turboprop to Canada doesn't count there either).

It sounds like AS needs to fix their schedules, not farm out their operations to Horizon.

That's really unfortunate. It sounds like JNU will be losing some of it's already limited mainline AS service? I doubt DL will stay... the market just isn't big enough for them, and people in AK are just going to fly AS anyway.

Those towns deserve full mainline air service, especially since they don't really have alternatives. That hubbing system would also require another connection that's not currently required, even if some of the milk runs do have multiple stops.

Right. AS serves them with milk runs, the lower 48 has things called highways where you can drive to a major airport.

I am a big guy, and I only fly on real airplanes, i.e. MD-95 (B717), B737, or A319 or larger. I'm not flying on, nor giving my business to, airlines flying sh*tty little regional planes, jet or turboprop. If an airline wants my business, they can fly a full-sized mainline jet where I want to go.

In the Lower 48, with the exception of two cities in Montana, anything that can't support about a dozen 737's a day should be cut. If there are 300 locations with commercial air service today, about 200 of them should be cut and consolidated into the remaining 100, which is where virtually everyone flies into and out of anyway, since the tickets are a lot cheaper than small regional airports. I went into great detail about this in the thread "717 Headroom".

Alaska is a different situation. With the exception of ANC, which supports a lot of traffic, lower volume, less efficient service is a necessity, since there is no other way to get there. It is necessarily going to be expensive, since there isn't enough traffic to drop a dozen 737's a day like cities worthy of air service in the lower 48.

I also wouldn't fit very well on a Q400.

Well, they are connections to/from other places. No one in their right mind would fly just from SEA to PDX, since it's faster to drive or take Amtrak by the time you factor in security theater and the like, plus it's just not very far in the first place.

EAS money can go to sh*tty little turboprops too. EAS in general is a ridiculous waste of government money, as most of the places it flies to just shouldn't have service at all. Alaska is the one place where the program actually makes sense, since most or all of the places it serves don't have a practical alternative to air service, i.e. a highway or ferry where you you can drive to a major airport within a couple of hours.

eponymous_coward

Not everyone is a "person of size". How fortunate that we live someplace where people can decide what they want. And a lot of people do want to fly from smaller cities.

A three to four hour drive from Pasco to Portland or Seattle to then fly where you want to go, or a 60 minute flight to connect (if that)? This is not rocket science.

(BTW, that drive to Seattle goes over mountain passes that are quite snowy in the winter.)

And then we get into places like Montana...

LOL. You're not from around here, are you? Never got caught in a traffic jam at Ft. Lewis or Centralia, apparently.

Amtrak's a bad joke- if we had real, functional high speed rail you'd have a point. But in the US we have a bad joke of a passenger rail system that would be embarrassing for a Third World country. This isn't Europe, China or Japan. 60 MPH and getting caught behind freight trains and delayed for hours is par for the course here. Amtrak is useful for sightseeing, that is when they don't put people on busses because of mudslides over the tracks (very common in the Pacific Northwest).

BiggAW

I'm nowhere close to a customer of size. I'm 6'3", 250lb, and I flew on two regional aircraft, on one trip, and I will never do that again.

EDIT: I can fit OK into the seat on a 737 or similar sized aircraft. I have everything figured out for getting luggage in and out of bins and whatnot and there is *just* enough room for me on such an airframe.

Get in the car and drive. Add connection time, and higher fares, and you can see why regional air service makes no sense.

Snow tires.

No, I'm not from that area. Amtrak is kind of a joke, and yes our rail system is totally and utterly deficient. The Cascades Corridor isn't horrible, but I can't blame someone for just driving instead. Flying from SEA to PDX just for the sake of going from Seattle to Portland, however, is utterly nonsensical.

czpdx

Trust me, for business travelers, it is quite sensical when you're making a day trip between both cities. While the actual time savings of flying over driving isn't that great, sitting on a plane or waiting in an airport is way less exhausting than six or seven hours of driving in one day. The shuttles probably have mostly connecting passengers, but there are plenty of people only going PDX-SEA/SEA-PDX.