US to Fly MEM-DCA / MEM Continued Decline?
 

US intends to offer 3 daily flights from MEM to DCA. They're on CR2s, which sounds like a hellish 750 mile flight to me, but it's nice to have the service.

Is this good news or bad news for MEM? It could mean competition on the MEM-DCA flights, but it might also signal that Delta intends to drop the route. Does anyone know?

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...s-memphis-rea/

I used to be MEM based and have always loved the MEM airport. I flew back into MEM for the holidays, and I had never seen the airport so dead. There were, literally, 3 arriving flights on a Saturday. It was like a scene from the Langoliers. Then, leaving on a Friday, there were more flights listed on the board (not many, but more), but there was not a single person in the TSA line. I walked right up and through. That had never happened to me before.

It has me very worried for the future of MEM. It seems to me that all of DL's cuts are a self-fulfilling prophecy. DL cuts a flight, leading to less traffic, leading to fewer passengers and emptier flights, and ultimately to even more cuts. (Meanwhile ATL just gets worse and worse to go through every week.) Now fares to/from MEM are sky-high, and the local paper has run articles about how high airfaire is leading companies to leave and driving away convention business. It's a real mess.

(One bright spot: a Moe's Southwestern Grill has opened where the Einstein Bagels used to be in Terminal C. Who knows if it will survive, but it's good to see a food addition after so many stores have closed shop in the last year.)

If that's what you want to read in the LGA/DCA slot swap, announced in first form 28 months ago, fine.

It's a result of the slot swap LGA/DCA - Delta is decreasing their flights from DCA as a result. Not an issue with MEM, particularly.

MEM isn't what it used to be, but still has a decent number of flights.

Where your flights late? NWA used to have a later bank outbound flights and much more activity late. With the removal of the later bank of outbound flights it is pretty dead in the evening.

My flights were mid-morning. We arrived around 11am, and just 3 flights were listed on the board as arriving (and practically nothing departing). I spoke with an agent at the check-in counter, and she told me DL had cut the Saturday service to almost nothing.

Flying out on a Friday was better. There was a screen and a half of departures listed, but still, at 9:30am, I was able to walk right through the security check point.

My initial post was mostly about a concern that MEM is caught in a downward spiral of service cuts, with the announcement of US flying DCA-MEM on a CR2 being a cause for concern that route would be cut too. (The MEM-BWI route was cut in early December). The DCA flight is practically always full, so I don't know why they would cut it, but then the MEM-SFO flight was always full too, so I can't say I understand why DL does what it does.

In any event, this article in today's Washington Post makes it sound as if DL will continue to fly DCA-MEM. We shall see.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...TbP_story.html

It sounds as if your recent experience was a product of weekend and holiday flying schedules. As a MEM based flyer, I can say with certainty that there are typically more than three flights on the board on a weekday.

I didn't know about the Moes on C. Thanks for the heads-up ^