PDX & Aircraft Utilization
 

Kind of a random question, but can anyone make sense of the CO fall schedule at PDX? It's bizarre and horribly inefficient from an aircraft utilization perspective. Here is the schedule for next Monday, Oct. 3 (other days are similar):

739: IAH-PDX 9:35am-12:02pm --> RON 11:40am-5:47pm PDX-IAH
738: EWR-PDX 9:25am-12:32pm --> RON 8:15am-4:30pm PDX-EWR
738: IAH-PDX 6:00pm-8:26pm --> 10:15pm-6:23am PDX-EWR
738: EWR-PDX 7:15pm-10:20pm --> 11:40pm-5:37am PDX-IAH
739: IAH-PDX 9:20pm-11:52pm --> RON 6:00am-12:06pm PDX-IAH

Notice that both noon-time arriving flights actually remain overnight (RON)! The 738 from EWR is parked for almost 20 hours, while the 739 from IAH sits idle for nearly 24 hours!

Surely there can be a more effcient way to schedule these aircraft... and indeed, during most monthly CO schedules at PDX, the utilization makes far more sense. (It's much less insane come November.)

Any thoughts as to why CO would schedule so inefficiently at PDX this fall?

How are you able to tell that the flights you are looking at RON this far out?

With only five flights per day, it's pretty easy to figure out which airplane goes where given the arrival and departure times...

Maybe they will utilize the aircraft(s) by starting up again PDX-ANC? Maybe PDX-HNL would be be a good use of aircraft.

Sure, but how did you determine that the early arrival 739 is not also leaving early the next morning (at 6:00 AM), but leaving at 11:40 AM?

Unless they are switching crew in PDX this one won't work. No way they're going to have a crew on a 6:08 overnight connection. Having an 18 and an 12 hour stop in PDX for crew rest makes a lot more sense.

Part of it is the lack of a West Coast hub. Once they integrate the two carriers, they'll be able to build more efficiency into the schedule.

Right now, the 12:30 p.m. arrivals wouldn't leave until say 1:30 p.m., which make it to IAH or EWR too late for many connections (EWR especially).

The turns on the late night flights are really obnoxious and are textbook CO -- they probably fly the crew EWR-PDX-IAH or IAH-PDX-EWR without an overnight, so even though there are planes there, there are no valid crew to fly them. Later flights are more prone to delays than earlier flights, subjecting the redeyes to more possible delays. At least PDX is not a delay-prone city. It's really frustrating when they schedule like that in SFO in the rainy season. But at least they save some hotel rooms.

Exactly what I was getting at.

The crew tht wrks the morning flight out of EWR will wrk the red eye back, and the crew who wrks the evening flight of EWR will wrk the morning flight back. The crew who wrks the morning flight out of IAH will wrk the red eye back to IAH, the crew who wrks the early evening flight will wrk the early morning flight back to IAH and the crew who wrks the late night flight out of IAH will wrk the afternoon departure back to IAH.

I was only discussing the a/c, not the crew, which can do the turnarounds descibed by JOSECONLSCREW.

pda.continental.com confirms Monday's schedule:

Ship 438 (737-900)
Arrives Mon Oct 3 at 12:02pm from IAH
Departs Tue Oct 4 at 11:40am to IAH (layover time: 23 hrs, 38 min)

Ship 278 (737-800)
Arrives Mon Oct 3 at 12:32pm from EWR
Departs Mon Oct 3 at 10:15pm to EWR (layover time: 9 hrs, 43 min)

Ship 204 (737-800)
Arrives Mon Oct 3 at 8:26pm from IAH
Departs Mon Oct 3 at 11:40pm to IAH (layover time: 3 hrs, 14 min)

Ship 237 (737-800)
Arrives Mon Oct 3 at 10:20pm from EWR
Departs Tue Oct 4 at 8:15am to EWR (layover time: 9 hrs, 55 min)

Ship 410 (737-900)
Arrives Mon Oct 3 at 11:52pm from IAH
Departs Tue Oct 4a t 6:00am to IAH (layover time: 6 hrs, 8 min)

And it's not just these two random days. This is the schedule (more or less) for September and October. Must be nice for the CO PDX ground crew -- no quick turn-arounds for any aircraft!

I should have been more clear in my original post about my primary point: That this fall's PDX schedule is different from normal. At all other times of the year, the morning flight from IAH arrives around 11:30am and immediately turns back to IAH around 12:20pm. As such, both the inbound and outback flights time perfectly with IAH connecting banks.

But for some odd reason, the uncharacteristically inefficient schedule (listed above) is in effect this fall instead. The only reason I can think of for such inefficiency is that its necessary for crew scheduling purposes. But then again, what makes this fall different than the other times of the year when the schedule makes more sense?

That's interesting, but ultimately I think channa is right, namely that with eastbound flgihts only to IAH and EWR, an overnight is virtually necessary.

Why it's scheduled the way it is seems a little strange, but I have to think there is a good reason why.

CO, like many other legacy airlines, are cutting domestic capacity this fall compared to last; and fall/winter already has lower capacity than summer. And CO are still receiving new aircraft. They have to be parked some place. Instead of parking some in the desert for the whole fall/winter, CO decides to just have long layovers of aircraft around the system.

As for why PDX more so than other airports, I have no idea.

Cheaper parking fees? Also, doesn't PDX have a ton of extra space since that's where a lot of airplane paint jobs are done?

My guess is that this has little to do with it versus just figuring out the times that they need the planes places and where in the schedules they need the flights to provide better flow of customers.