CO Adding More Flights To Honolulu
 

I have not seen the official news release, but CO is going to add an additional 282 seat DC-10 from IAH to HNL in mid 2001 on at least 5 days/week. Additionally some rumors re more capacity EWR-HNL but the details are really fuzzy.

MisterNice

Great - so there will be a whole 3 more seats available for BF awards no dobut.

Mister Nice,

The nice press release can be found at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010115/tx_contine.html http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif. Unfortunately, this service is seasonal and five times per week.

I wonder if perhaps Continental has enough Cleveland traffic to support a flight to HNL. Probably not, as that would just siphon off passengers from IAH, LAX, and EWR. I do wish they would have maintained service from SFO.

Interesting to note that Continental plugs service from Honolulu to Los Angeles, Houston, and Newark, but fails to mention Agana. They do mention Guam as a hub later in the release, however. I've always wondered why Continental seems to not promote their Pacific operation.

The flight from EWR-HNL actually has less BF seat since they will switch from a 242-seat to a 282-seat DC-10. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif

'Bout time, if you ask me. I'll be flying in cramped class tomorrow on the IAH-HNL, which will no doubt be full or very close. Hopefully more HNL flights will mean more award seats not only to Hawaii but to points onward.

I have traveled in some of the Micronesia backwaters like Majuro, Pohnpei, Kosrae and Yap, and even have talked with tourism officials at two of the places. Imagine trying to promote your country's tourism when you've got only one airline flying there that's out of your control, charges monopoly rates and has a ho-hum attitude about promoting the destinations. CO has even recently downsized the aircraft and cut the route frequency in some cases in Micronesia. Doesn't make sense.

Amen! Their fares are terribly monopolistic. While I'm no expert, it seems the markets could support more frequencies. Ho-hum is an understatement...

It is a shame that the airline with the youngest fleet in the sky is using the oldest aircraft in their fleet for this popular route.

Look forward to more rickety, neglecteted coach service on the cattlecar class to HNL.

Even more of a disgrace is their policy towards confirming upgrades in BF on these flights..

quote(s):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) "....Look forward to more rickety, neglecteted coach service...."

(2) "....Even more of a disgrace is their policy towards confirming upgrades in BF...."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I certainly respect and learn a lot from the experiences and opinions of the other FT-ers, and one really important thing I have learned is to really respect the opinions of those flyers doing mega-flights/yr over those doing micro-flights/yr especially on a single routing.

I fly the East Coast-HNL route approx 8-10 RT/yr and have been doing such for 9 years, the last 5 years on CO (previously I was on the really old shamefully creaky-n-filthy DL L-1011's). Almost of my RT fares have been in the $600-$900 range usually outta DCA, PHL, ABE or BWI to EWR (the price will definitely vary) and most are during the winter season on Tu, We or Th. My lowest RT fare was $210 and the highest was about $1080. I received ff mileage for all flights (and actually triple mileage for the $210 RT).

Doing the math regarding CO, thatsa about 40-50 RT and I have flown in B/F every time on mileage upgrades (it was 40K mi RT and now 35K mi RT) except one RT......and that was on a www.cheaptickets.com ticket that specifically said "non-upgradeable" and was priced about $120 less than the price of a regular ticket. The CO agents refused to budge. Big deal......I knew thatsa the rules so why ......

The CO DC-10's are old, but they have been nicely re-furb and most have the expanded luggage racks and the extra middle racks added on the B/F center-line. Occasionally a seat wont operate properly (or other problems) but IMHO these the best upgraded and maintained DC-10's in the air today. As for upgrade timing, itsa been 3 mo in advance to upgrades at the gate. I always carry a cert or two. Once I redeposited 2 expired certs for $35 each when they. Again no big deal, and it was nicely worth it.

MisterNice

I do respect your opinion and experience here, but even you have to agree, if you've been in BF on every trip, you really have no idea how bad the cattle class and the equipment that serves it is on these flights. If you experience the ocassional broken seat up front, imagine how bad it is in the back.

NJDavid-

OK, OK, itsa gotta be h*ll back there, although to date I havent seen the super-saver squeezed-n-squished squashed-n-stuffed steerage-seated citizens actually revolt, rebel, riot or seize my highly coveted honestly-earned upgraded-by-mileage B/F seat yet. FWIW, and for educational purposes only, I will offer to change seats with you for a couple of hours (assuming we are on the same EWR-HNL flight). Sometimes one forgets the travails of others when dining on lobster and drinking champagne. I didnt realize it was so bad back there (you should really "try" DL if you want to see bad).

I guess the upcoming EWR-HNL aircraft will only have 24 B/F vs the current 38 B/F seats. I may have to re-evaluate any upcoming routing. Soon CO will be one of few carriers having non-stop east coast to HI flights. Arrrrggggghhhh!

MisterNice

ps: I save all my earned mileage for the 8-11 hour very long HNL upgrade certs. I mostly do steerage to Europe.

MisterNice,

You deserve every bite of the lobster you paid for with your hard earned miles...I've long since decided not to fly anymore of the CO DC-10s to HNL (not a destination I get to go to frequently anyway). Besides, most of my travel is domestic, and as CO points out with it's upgrade policy, Hawaii is not part of the United States. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

But I am seriously afraid for those aircraft, and hope CO's progress toward replacing them with the 767's speeds up even more.

If anyone's interested in buying one of these rust-buckets, give Ron at fleet management a call: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif
www.continental.com/dash/build_dash.asp?corporate_11



[This message has been edited by NJDavid (edited 01-16-2001).]

NJDavid-

Thanks for the affirmation. Burp! One item I seem to remember is CO conviently (certainly not on purpose, of course) left out any easily understandable reference as to the upgrade rules to/from HI. Also if you do get screwed and must fly to HI, please do not do it on a DL creaky crummy L-1011.

MisterNice

ps: Burp! (and EXCUSE ME!)