Long Train Runnin

Took the weekly seasonal JFK-SKB flight this Saturday. I know Saturday morning is the lightest travel time of the week, but boy was it sad in T8. Just feels totally lifeless in the midfield terminal.

Flight was lightly loaded, no one for the exit rows, and MCE was not full either.

It was interesting to me that even at 8AM the Departure Boards had so little on them to show the Europe night flights were already up.

krakendown

It seems the only flight AA gives a hoot about is the JFK/LAX route. Other than that good luck getting around directly. I switched over to Delta this year because my situation changed and now I'm flying JFK/SEA of which they only have one daily direct flight option, pitiful.

AAEmpireState

The Admirals Club last Friday morning was similarly depressing - we were two of maybe 15 total guests. That said, my upgrade rate to/from JFK is fantastic these days (even on premium transcons), and I can't complain about never having a security line with more than two people in front of me.

Beltway2A

I just did a pass on my reservations and my SEA-JFK-DCA is now SEA-CLT-DCA. There's no longer a non-stop SEA-JFK (at least in May).

dkc192

Fortunately (?), PHL already has a BCN flight. But co-sign all of the posts above on how sad JFK T8 can be at certain (or all?) times of day/days of week.

AA has said some of the recent reductions, especially the Eagle ones, are related to the closure of 13L/31R this summer (other airlines have been asked to similarly reduce their schedules), and that they'll resume flying their "full schedule" in the fall once the runway is reopened.

FlyerWx

This is purely anecdotal, but the times I have flown between JFK/BCN, many people on the flight seemed to be O&D, either visiting family or tourism (on both ends). The flight is also timed well for business, where you can get a full day of work in Barcelona. And the load factors were pretty decent. Granted, I don't know the kind of yields they're getting because I bought JFK-BCN rt for $500 and I've also seen JFK-MXP for $450 on occasion (in May, no less).

GUWonder

Adelphos

The thing is that AA still runs a solid schedule out of LGA, and they are not giving up slots at either airline - so despite their weakening positioning, they really aren't cutting net capacity, or so it seems. On Saturdays especially, all of these airlines (and especially American) are flying flights that are half full. I've been on plenty of Delta flights in and out of NYC that are lightly loaded. Are airlines OK with this situation long term?

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Those routes may be profitable overall (although I tend to think AA makes very little, if anything, on its domestic operation). If they cut out flights for Saturday afternoon and evening they have to find a place to park those a/c. Then there is the issue of getting a/c back online to cover the heavy Sunday afternoon flow. For work I often book last minute travel and can't get a Sunday afternoon flight out without going way over policy (a just booked a Sunday MIA/ORD flight and if I had left in the afternoon it would have cost over $1,300). So there's more to it than airlines willing to fly half empty flights. Often it's a better option.

BillBurn

Posted at the CrankyFlier blog today: https://crankyflier.com/2019/04/09/a...ork-this-fall/

Looks like they will be increasing the # of flights/day out of JFK post the runway renovation.

Austin787

Schedules this fall, and beyond, are subject to change. AA has been reducing JFK, and may not have implemented the reductions in the fall schedule yet.

BillBurn

For what it is worth this blogger used to work at American and it sounds like he talked to people at American when writing this post so seems like, at least for now, American's intention it to actually expand the JFK schedule in the fall.

rvolkcpa

It is a shame that AA and AS can't codeshare between JFK and SEA considering the minimal service the AA now offers. Our JFK-SEA flight on 6/1 was cancelled. The AS flight would have been a good alternative.

PHL

Would have been nicer to see more long haul, intl. routes use those slots post Nov 2019.....

golfingboy

PIT-JFK-LHR is definitely a through fare... You can see in the fare construction of a random search I just did that the fare doesn’t break for PIT-LON with a JFK connection.

PIT AA X/NYC AA LON 370.00QKW8C1B5 AA X/NYC AA PIT 320.00

For hub rebanking - sometimes how things look on a spreadsheet does not always translate in reality. Rebanking absolutely helps drive down costs by a considerable margin.... When everything goes according to plan. When you pad your flight times too much (i.e. PIT-PHL has 30-40 minutes of padding) it gives a false sense when calculating ground resources causing revolving operational challenges on the ground when something skips a beat (ground crew, gate agent, caterering, gate space, etc.). Once one link shakes the domino effect begins.

Rebanking is better than rolling hubs no doubt, but the question is how aggressive should you be with rebanking? I think this is the challenge AA has right now as I can tell from my experience that AA is deep in the aggressive terriority (missed connections, mis-catering, gate agents struggling, lack of gate space, etc.). AA’s operational reliability is not very good and their financial results aren’t showing the benefits that I think they are hoping to achieve from tightening up the hub banks.