ibrandsguest

Since UA has a partnership with Amtrak from its EWR hub, allowing people to take Amtrak for short distances from EWR and allowing joint UA/Amtrak ticketing, why doesn't AA do the same with Amtrak (or NJ Transit/SEPTA) at PHL--particularly as a replacement for flights between PHL and LGA?

Since it is necessary to take SEPTA commuter trains between PHL and Amtrak's main station in Philadelphia, it would take coordinating with SEPTA and either Amtrak or NJ Transit to have seamless rail service between PHL and Manhattan, but several commuter railroads already coordinate trains (such as Metro-North and NJ Transit, which run trains from Connecticut to NJ for football games).

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would prefer to leave PHL and take an 80-minute train ride to Manhattan (and not have to wait for PHL-NYC trains, which come several times an hour), rather than waiting for an infrequent PHL-LGA flight and then have to trek back to Manhattan. This could also open up the NJ market more for AA.

Thoughts?

bridge29

I wonder this as well. It could help them improve feed into PHL and potentially reduce PHL-LGA flights. They could feed from EWR and potentially even Lancaster and Harrisburg (MDT) via the frequent Keystone trains.

Yoshi212

The points you pointed out about having to coordinate with multiple agencies is probably quite the deterrent and those organizations would have to be interested also. If Amtrak had a PHL stop it would probably be a great deal for both AA/UA and Amtrak.

Also AA being the size that it is now in both markets could probably do without but could also benefit if not for the hassles.

ibrandsguest

@Yoshi212, great points.

SEPTA and NJ Transit are both broke. Amtrak is perpetually short of funds but isn't in a deep a hole as SEPTA and NJ Transit are.

I'd figure that it would take a good cash payment from AA.

Non-NonRev

The UA deal might prohibit Amtrak from having deals with any other airlines.

ashill

I don't really see what SEPTA or NJ Transit (or AA, for that matter) have to gain from a partnership with AA; their trains are unreserved, so you just board the train and pay for your ticket. No need for interline tickets or revised capacity controls or protection for missed connections or anything.

What does annoy me is that SEPTA schedules are not set up for connections through Center City. Connecting between two every-30-minutes trains to get from home to the airport, the typical wait time is 25 minutes. But that's SEPTA's problem, and coordinating with AA wouldn't have anything to do with fixing it.

What optimising does the SEPTA schedule to the airport need? It runs every 30 minutes, all day (4:30 AM-midnight to the airport and 5 AM-after midnight from the airport). There's a one track section on the way to the airport, so I don't believe they can make the trains any more frequent. (It's possible I'm wrong about that.) Changing that one track section involves real money, not anything an AA-Amtrak/SEPTA partnership could fund.

It's 80 minutes from 30th St once you're on the train, more like 120 from the airport best case when you factor in waiting for the train at the airport and the 15 minute train ride from the airport to 30th St, and more than that when you factor in waiting for the roughly hourly PHL-NYP trains.

I don't think train service from PHL to NYP has any real promise as a connecting service from planes: AA has a two-airport hub/keystone city/whatever they call it in NYC, and I'm sure the focus is on serving markets with flights directly to NYC. They're not going to win anything but low-yielding traffic flying AA for cheap fares with an inconvenient connecting service from PHL. EWR is much more convenient to Amtrak than PHL is.

A train connection has much more promise for smaller cities like Trenton, Atlantic City, Wilmington (all of which would or could involve SEPTA/NJT, not Amtrak), cities along the Keystone Corridor, and even Baltimore (particularly non-LHR Europe-Baltimore traffic which can instead take a nonstop to PHL and then catch a train instead of connecting flights in LHR, PHL, or JFK) than it does for NYC, which of course is a much larger city which has nonstop service on at least one airline to everywhere that has nonstop service to PHL.

But the relatively-infrequent SEPTA connection between PHL airport and 30th St makes any AA-Amtrak codeshare or interline ticketing impractical, in my opinion.

+1 I think that's more likely than designing Amtrak connections around NYC.

Yup, but the Amtrak route doesn't go very close to the PHL airport. The closest point is about 1.5 miles from the airport terminals, so as I think you know, there's just no good way to make that happen unless the entire NEC is rerouted (which is under conceptual discussion to make it truly high speed, but we're talking decades if that ever happens, and my money's on never. If even a modicum of funding couldn't happen in 2009 with the stimulus focus on high-speed rail when oil prices were near an all-time high, I don't see when it will).

Amtrak isn't short of funds from the Northeast Corridor routes.

Often1

The NEC is Amtrak's sole money-maker. The entire UA (which dates back to sCO) deal with Amtrak is intended as a competetive advantage to bring Philadelphia traffic to EWR.

I can't imagine UA keeping the Amtrak deal if Amtrak starts an AA deal as well.

dls25

I hate SEPTA with a passion I reserve for few things. I don't understand why they do not have a ticket office (or at least have some ticket kiosks) anywhere at the PHL airport so I can use my cc to buy tickets. It is like they are stuck in 1952. I just end up ubering/cabbing from PHL because it is easier for my expense reports. If they cannot do something simple like sell me a ticket at PHL, I would be very surprised if they would be able to coordinate something with AA/NJ Transit/Amtrak for service to NYC...

ibrandsguest

@dls25, great question; I was also frustrated by the lack of kiosks (even at 30th Street Station) and was told that SEPTA likes the surcharges for cash purchases onboard, so to keep those surcharges, there are no ticket machines. Another reason is that the old ticket machines that SEPTA had broke down and have not been replaced.

Separately, I would think that there would need to be a one-seat ride from PHL all the way to Manhattan, so it would take running one train from PHL through Center City (if it's possible) and then to Manhattan. I don't think that most people would bother taking SEPTA to 30th Street Station and then SEPTA to Trenton and then NJ Transit to Manhattan, or SEPTA to Center City and then another train to Manhattan.

ashill

I haven't lived in Philly long enough to know about the history, but at least now, there are no kiosks that sell regional rail tickets anywhere in the SEPTA system, so it's not targeting the airport. And with four different airport train stations (one of the most convenient train setups at any airport I know anywhere in the world, so not something to complain about), staffing a ticket booth at the airport isn't feasible. I suspect this is a case where one should never attribute to malice what can more easily be attributed to incompetence (or technical hurdles). There are plenty of commuter rail systems elsewhere with conductor-punched tickets and no ability to sell tickets at automated kiosks. At least in Boston, they waive the surcharge when there isn't a ticket window open. (Boston also now allows you to buy tickets through an app on the phone with a credit card, though it's cumbersome if you don't already have the app.)

Any year now SEPTA Key will be operational on regional rail, and then you'll be able to pay with proximity cards (ie pretty much any credit card from many countries except the US) or mobile payments like Apple Pay.

There isn't a one-seat ride from EWR to Manhattan, but the Amtrak-UA codeshare works fine. Even in FRA, one of the best airport-train connections in the world, it takes a bus (not even a train) to get from one of the terminals (the one AA uses) to the intercity train station.

The main issue, in my opinion, is the frequency of the shuttle train or bus from the airport terminals to the airport train station. I don't think every 30 minutes cuts it, and that's the main hurdle to making plane–intercity train connections at PHL a mainstream thing. And as I mentioned earlier, I think there are very large infrastructure hurdles preventing SEPTA from increasing the frequency to the airport.

And I have no idea why AA would focus on serving NYC via PHL; why would they want to undercut their LGA and JFK operations, and why would they think that any significant number of profitable customers would prefer flying to PHL and taking a train to flying directly to NYC?

phlwookie

It's also possible that the UA deal provides exclusivity such that other airlines couldn't do similar. But EWR and BWI are really the only two airports that would seriously merit airline codeshares given the proximity of their stations to the airport.

"SEPTA Key" should solve this when it finally sees the light of day, and a limited pilot has begun on the subway lines. But it is moving with all the stereotypical speed, efficiency and costs of a government-run IT project.

The old ticket machines broke down a lot and, amusingly, couldn't recognize newer cash bills and coins, so were removed a while ago (10 years+ now perhaps? Been a long, long time since I saw one of those orange beasts). With the delays to Key, though, they could have easily run through two generations of newer kiosks in the interim. It really isn't that hard to engineer something that can take cash or credit and spit out a ticket.

nova08

I think one thing that makes it a little more cumbersome is the lack of a NEC PHL station like the one that was built for EWR. It is really easy once you get off at EWR to just hop on the monorail and be at the terminals in ~10 minutes. Obviously EWR has had it's fair share of problems with the monorail. But much easier than a ~45 minute journey through 30th st. (do all Septa platforms have elevators or escalators?), waiting for the train and then the actual train ride.

This is coming from someone who has taken Amtrak 30th st. to EWR at least 25 times to catch UA flights out of EWR.

ashill

At 30th St, yes. Each of the three SEPTA pairs of platforms has one escalator (usually or always going up) and one (fairly small, but large enough for two or three people and luggage) elevator.

phlwookie

Stations at University City (UPenn/Children's Hospital and potentially a quicker transfer to the Wilmington/Newark DE and Media/Elwyn Lines), 30th St, Suburban Station (15-18th & JFK) and Jefferson Station (formerly Market East, 8-11th & Market) are all high level platforms with elevators for handicapped access and can also be used for larger luggage. In the case of at least Suburban, where the tracks are two levels below ground, these elevators can also be taken all the way up to street level, not just to the station concourse one level underground.

nova08

Thanks, I figured as much but remember typically walking down stairs with old heavy doors. Something that is not conducive for an airport transfer.