Why doesn't CO serve any destinations East of Berlin (except TLV)? Is it lack of equipment or demand or something else?

Lack of equipment. EWR-TXL is about as far as a 757 can fly, and CO is using all of its widebodies extensively on other routes.

What about once the 787's come online, I wonder if we will see any Eastern expansion then.

Basically all Eastern European flag carriers serve New York and all Eastern European carriers are getting nice subsidies which make those flights worthwhile.

There is simply not enough demand ( yet ) for carriers to serve WAW, PRG or BUD in addition to the national carriers, only DL sees enough demand and has announced to serve BUD from Kennedy.But DL sees potential in any international market right now and will apply for domestic flights within Cuba shortly...

Seriously though, some Eastern European gateways are really high yield , but are not nearly big enough to justify nonstop TATL service, a fact which is used by OS or LH nicely to get some feed into their TATL services...

They were planning for Moscow a few year back, but I think lack of decent facilites and regulatory (political) issued nixed those plans.

-Vincent

Alitalia is more subsidized than any airline in Eastern Europe and it doesn't stop CO from flying to Italy. (not that business demand is the same...)

Eastern European airlines have relative few wide body planes and they can't afford to add too many daily flights overseas. LO was flying once a day to JFK when number of passengers at WAW was 1 million/year. Three years later 3-4 million passengers go through WAW, but the number of fligts to JFK did not change. Same with CS from PRG. The increased passenger traffic from Eastern Europe was absorbed by AF, KL, LH, SK and BA by adding more connections to their hubs. DL used to do the same thing flying passengers form all over Europe on B727 to their hub in FRA.

This would be a great opportunity for CO. I would love it if CO started WAW service.

You mean OK

EmailKid

I constantly read that excuse. Answer this for me: Whose poor planning resulted in CO's lack of equipment?

It comes down to a lack of metal. CO is seriously short of widebodies, and the 752s just can't make it anywhere past berlin. Watch DME to be the first eastern european destination, oil traffic to moscow is through the roof and CO knows it's losing pax to DL on IAH-ATL-SVO.

If CO wants to fly a route real bad, they can find the plane to do it.

When they won EWR-PEK, they found the 772 to fly it.

When they got authority to do EZE, they found the 762 to fly it.

Similarly, if they really think Moscow or Lagos or wherever can make more money than the 767/777 can do right now, they can put it there as well. There are still plenty of 767s flying routes that can be done with the 752s.

Edit:

I also wonder if anything can be done with the GUM operations. The way I understand the timetable, THREE 764s sit there overnight, ranging from 6 to 12 hours. Pretty inefficient use of the widebodies, in my opinion.

Yeep. Also, I'd guess that if CO has the chance to serve a new route they weigh the costs of decreasing/fragmenting service to an existing one. For example, if CO wins PVG rights this year they'll find another two 777's (...errr, the route takes two right?) for service. Don't know what route will be cannibalized, but I'd be surprised if CO failed to locate equipment.

Another question: did not CO order two more 777 last year about this time? Have they already been delivered and are they in service?Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if those are CO or COmike birds?

The three times I changed planes in GUM last year they looked a lot like CO (those would be the ones I flew on, didn't see the others).

And quite frankly, unless there's freight going to EZE or GRU, I am surprised those are flown with767s. Or is that out of 757's range?

EmailKid

Maybe they can base a couple of planes in Europe (MD-80s) and use them as Shuttles to say BUD or PRG to say AMS or CDG wherever where they will connect to a wide-body to EWR. Pretty much as PanAm did. That way they can service these Cities/Countries

What country will give them those fifth freedom rights? Since DL dropped PA's FRA hub, I don't think any american airline has beyond rights within europe.

The two new 777 should arrive spring 2007. That's a year from now.

PVG can be done with just slightly over 1 plane. Just like PEK. That's how UA does it as well. About lunch time departure, and then getting back to ORD early evening. PVG-EWR is a little longer, so it'll arrive back later, but there's still connection available to most cities, including Houston.

As for the 764s at GUM, I am not an expert on this, but first, I was wrong to say they have 3 of them overnight at GUM. It's only two. One is the Air Mike 767 that goes to NRT twice a day. The other is from HNL - it's a 767 5 times a week, and a 764 the other two days.

I don't know how feasible it is to switch those flight to the 752.