I have flown 12 legs this year so far, none of which has been on CO metal because of their prices and their constant tinkering with OP, seemingly to screw their best customers. My guess is they are learning a lesson and will reverse their confiscatory policies and fees, and bring back sundaes to the overbearing plats.

you are behind the times.....rather complain than read things that have been reversed.

Maybe I'm still a noob, but when reading your thread title, I though luggage had actually fallen of a cliff at some mountain airport or something (don't ask, I can't control my thoughts!).

Glad to hear it's not the case ;-)

...can't compare to 1997-2004... oil generally averaged US$20/bbl or below in those years. Now its still >US$40/bbl so they manage to much higher target load factors to compensate for the higher operating cost.

Expect it to get ALOT worse. We're in a depression, not a recession, but of course, no one will dare call it such until 5 years from now when it's over.

Load factors only represent paid fares, correct? So I don't believe nonrevs and award seats would show up in the statistics.

But regardless, there are an awful lot of these "loads dropping" threads not just in the CO forum where everyone is claiming to know what's going on based on one or two anecdotal experiences. Pretty much a waste of time, IMHO.

LF is expressed relative to total seats available, right? I'd like to see the numbers of seats available in those other years as well.

The load consisting of my rear end is certainly down. For the first time in years, I have no advance bookings at this time of the year. It's pretty early yet; but I could see myself going from plat to silver in 2010.

I have taken quite a few PBI-EWR flights this year and they have all gone out full (some oversold), 34 wheel chairs pre-boarded (29 of them no needed upon landing at EWR [Jetway healing strikes again) and FC always filled without the chance of an upgrade.

As far as PBI (the Senior Citizen hub) goes, it is business as normal.
Dan

All the traffic figures going back to mid-1997 are posted on continental.com. Capacity, Traffic, LF broken down into markets, mainline & region, everything.

I am on the 12pm SFO-IAH today (Sunday) and it has been sold out for weeks in all classes. CO decided to not fly the 10:30am SFO-IAH - so all traffic now has to go on the Noon flight. Not a good move.

FC was sold out weeks ago - as a Plat on a mid level fare - I am #11 out of 23 on the FC upgrade standby list. Undercapacity here.

From the timetable, CO1536 is coming back on Sunday starting 2/15, at 10:15a.

+1

Unfortunately, due to the economy, our customers are trying to cut costs and I will be doing MANY fewer customer visits in 2009 compared to the last few years. That, combined with customers closing facilities, I'm going to be pushing to hit 40000 EQM in '09. It sucks, but I guess that I can be glad that I still have a profitable job without fear of being 'downsized.'

Cliff is Here
 

At the 'Do, many executives confirmed that the cliff is indeed here and advance bookings are significantly down. The most impacted business has been in the forward cabin of the trans-Atlantic routes ...hence the BusinessFirst sales that are here now.

It'll be interesting to see how the airlines (and everyone, for that matter) weathers the worsening financial storm which will only get worse for the next year or two.

It ain't just CO. Most of the other carriers are talking about poor loads, as well. This will be a tough, tough stretch for a lot of carriers. If the TATL traffic is hurting as bad as pricing and anecdotal evidence suggests, then things may get really bad for CO and the other US carriers that ran for cover in that market.