CPMaverick

Guys, the OP is a troll, has posted this drivel about not needing airports within 8 hours of each other before. Only has one other locked post with the same pointless ranting. Don't feed it.

jb1012xna

And if someone is making a profit on those "tiny" planes and "tiny" routes then...ehh it's all worth nothing because everything is "tiny"? You also need to add MS and WY to the "CONUS" that WN doesn't fly to...yet other majors see to.

BiggAW

I'm not a troll. I've been to places before that are 5-6+ hours away from the airport.

MS as a whole is served out of New Orleans, Panama City, Birmingham, Memphis, and Little Rock. Jackson, MS is served out of New Orleans. Unless there's some city-specific issue, I guess it's just not a market that supports commercial air service at scale. DL does have some mainline service there, looks like it doesn't scale to being profitable for an efficient business model though.

The only real civilization in WY is near DEN, which is well served by WN as a hub. Yellowstone is served by SLC. Does anyone fly mainline to anywhere in WY? There's no market to fly to with Cheyenne and Laramie near a WN hub, and Yellowstone served by the DL hub at SLC.

In terms of profits, a small profit off of a tiny minority of passengers shouldn't trump the interests of the masses in de-clogging the big airports and making the whole system more efficient.

If people want to live in BFE, fine, but don't expect convenient air service from BFE to anywhere. Every major population center in the US has multiple mainline carriers already.

BiggAW

MA is an ironic situation. Most of it's domestic air service is handled via CT, RI, or NH, not MA itself. And then there's the cluster**** that is BOS that people get stuck with for international or Alaska flying, which is an awesome airport in it's own right, there's just nowhere to pahk the cah so to speak.

adambisi

You are way off.

26.5 million domestic passengers in BOS for 2014.

MHT - 1.04 million (down 13% by the way)
PVD - 1.79 million (down 7%)
BDL - 2.91 million (up 8%)

gooselee

I shouldn't, but slow morning at work so I'll bite.

I fly to both LGA and JFK regularly (and occasionally EWR). I try to avoid JFK when I can, though it's occasionally much cheaper. Still, it takes about a $150 price difference for me to go to JFK over LGA.

Cab LGA to/from Midtown = $30 and 20-45 mins
Cab from LGA to Woodside, then LIRR to Penn Station = $25 and 35 mins
Cab from JFK to Manhattan = $65 and 1+ hour
Airtrain + E train JFK to Manhattan = $10 and 1.5 hrs depending on where, exactly, you're going

For those of us going places other than CT, LGA is generally a very nice option to have. Your personal circumstance is not the center of the universe, as you seem to imagine.

Two other things:
1. You've never flown from LGA, so how do you know it's hard to get to? Have you ever tried?
2. Curious how you fly out of JFK all the time since it isn't even served by WN. By your logic, everyone should just fly to BWI, I guess, and then rent a car to drive to NYC.

I wasn't comparing JFK to just ATL. Please share your thoughts on ORD, DFW, LAX, PEK, DEN, CLT, LAS, IAH, LHR, CDG, fRA, AMS, IST, YYZ, SFO, PHX, and HND - all of which handle more annual departures than JFK.

I stand corrected on MDW. However, WN's HQ is at DAL, which is what I was thinking. MCO ranks somewhat low...I suppose you're just speaking from your own myopic experience there, vs. actually doing any actual research, though.

Speaking of research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwe...nes#Top_cities

You do realize that without EAS, many of those small airports would close completely and cargo carriers would not have any place to land, right? I think you also deeply underestimate how much mail and cargo is carried every day on passenger planes, including express shipments that might not have several days to get trucked around.

Wow. You really do think that people who live outside of big cities don't matter. The next time you're having a meal, try to think real hard about who is growing and raising the stuff you're eating and where they might live. I know it might be difficult, since you believe those places have no purpose, but please try.

Your choices and lifestyle do not reduce the importance of anyone else in the world.

Again, please explain why. If you are 6'3" standing and 6'1" sitting, you need to reevaluate your sitting skills.

Again, you seem to have several hours of spare time each time you travel to spend driving to/from various destinations. So YOU can fly to MDW and YOU can rent a car and YOU can sit in it for however long it takes you to get to Peoria. For those of us without the luxury of that time, we will endure the RJs in your place to get there in a faster and safer manner.

As for your runway delays at JFK due to our pesky RJs...well, you obviously have several additional hours on your hands for all that driving. What's an extra 20 minutes waiting to take off on your comfy WN 737 that doesn't even exist there?

NotHamSarnie

This guy seems unduly obsessed with size: size of planes, size of cities, size of airports. I wonder.

Sousaphil

I can certainly appreciate wanting to avoid RJs. I have broad shoulders so those narrow seats are terribly uncomfortable. The reason why I chose Delta over United (despite DEN being my home airport) was Delta flies Mad Dogs and A320s DEN-MSP (I've done that round trip weekly this year) while United usually has RJs.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous to think airlines should drop airports rather than use regional jets. Despite my preference for non-RJs, I absolutely love flying into and out of small airports like Orange County, Harrisburg and Green Bay. Being limited to LAX, MKE and PHL seems pretty stupid.

mAAine_flyer

It was worth having you re-engage for this line alone! Priceless

BiggAW

I'm getting PVD at 3M, logan at 31M, but still, WOW. I didn't realize how many people are going to Logan. It's kind of crazy, since except for the small urban ring around Boston proper, BDL, MHT and PVD are easier to get to for the entire rest of the state, depending on location, including much of the Boston Metro area itself. Plus, BOS is a cluster**** in terms of where to pahk the cah and how much it costs vs MHT and PVD.

Cabs aren't a valid comparison. The MTA and NYCTA serve transportation needs within the city of New York. The fair comparison is just over an hour from LGA vs 1:15 to 1:30 coming from JFK, either to downtown Manhattan. Of course it will depend on where in the city you are going. JFK is convenient because of it's rail link, but it's also a PITA because it's a congested mess because of DL. EWR is about the same as LGA, but then you are on more of a schedule on NJT vs. the subways where there is a train every few minutes.

I don't imagine it's the same as everyone else's. But the transportation links to the airports are the same for everyone. To get to JFK, you have to get to either Jamaica or Howard Beach, with LGA, you have to get on a bus, since there's no direct link there. I suppose for someone more familiar with the NYC bus system, LGA isn't that big of a deal.

I fly out of JFK once in a blue moon, to chase cheap DL mainline tickets, but the airport itself is kind of miserable because of the DL-created congestion problem there. Getting to it from the CT shoreline is a breeze and a pleasurable experience. It's like $30 to get there (mostly MN, SLE is cheap, the subway is like $2.25 or whatever now) and there's free parking for as long as I need.

ORD is a congested disaster. I hope to avoid it if possible. If I fly to Chicago, I will fly direct to MDW. Not sure about the others, but some airports have more capacity than others. JFK shouldn't be a hub of sorts at all, and it shouldn't have anything with less than 143 seats coming in. Also, instead of allowing it to get near capacity, the runways should be limited to 50-60% of their theoretical maximum capacity. There's a reason why BDL and PVD recover from a snowstorm in a few hours, and JFK is messed up for days afterward. They shouldn't be running that close to capacity. When you're only using half of less of the runway capacity, then you can quickly recover from a weather or other cascading delay effect by going to 100% capacity for a short period of time to clear everything out.

I'm speaking from what routes they fly and how many flights. MDW is their biggest. MCO isn't truly a hub, but they have a lot of direct service there anyway, due to the leisure market that they target.

If it's a market worth serving, UPS and FedEX fly there. Then they truck elsewhere. That's what they do anyway, they're not moving stuff around on passenger planes, with the possible exception of the B737-400 Combi fleet, which numbers 5 aircraft in the US on AS, one of two of which I will be flying on next month.

No. That's not true at all. I love rural areas, and that's part of America. I support federal expansion of rail service to rural areas, as well as broadband access. That doesn't mean that they should have commercial air service in every little podunk town, however. I have visited places like this, like northern Michigan, and not via plane.

What?

Flying direct to MDW and then driving is actually quicker than hubbing somewhere else just to get on a rinky-dink flight.

I want to stay on schedule. I hate delays. I program in the required time to get somewhere from somewhere with cheap tickets available on a commercial mainline flight. I've flown through JFK on DL. I've learned my lesson with DL. I'm not chasing the $100 cheaper tickets anymore. I'll pay for the direct flight on AS out of BOS or go to the home of the low fares at flysouthwest.com and fly out of PVD or BDL.

SNA has WN service. Green Bay is served by MKE, Harrisburg is served by about equidistant to BWI and PHL, but since BWI is the big hub, it's best served by BWI with direct flights to basically everywhere. Any market that needs commercial domestic service is already served by WN. Plus some. Somehow DCA slid in there too. Once they get the silver line out to Dulles, DCA's operations should be consolidated to Dulles and BWI (with a new link from BWI to the rental car garage and the Amtrak/MARC station with more frequent MARC Penn Line service), and DCA should be sold for redevelopment. Unfortunately, the Congress critters wouldn't like that too much.

gooselee

I had some more responses in mind, but I'm short on time today so like OP, I'll just pick out the pieces of the conversation I feel like replying to:

Exactly.

LOL. I think you just proved everyone else's point about how completely ridiculous and uninformed your thinking is. ^

toolboxwi

I can certainly confirm that I have had the "pleasure" of a seatmate on many a RJ flight that was larger than you are. But, thanks for leaving us with a little extra room by refusing to hop on one?? Not sure the horrible inconvenience of ducking while your forced to stand for the few minutes it takes to get on and off of the plane is worth this kind of rant.

Also, not sure why you feel the need to keep throwing out the Southwest website. We are all aware of what it is and I doubt any of us are rushing over to book a flight in the hopes we might score a seat next to you in the cattle car. Can't even imagine what a pleasant experience that would be...If you wouldn't mind posting your future travel plans so the rest of us can avoid those flights it would certainly be appreciated.

Just a reminder: Air travel stinks most of the time - only your attitude can make it better.

BiggAW

Actually I rethought that. It should be turned into green space, like a giant waterfront park, with just the terminal buildings redeveloped.

Why should I have to be twisted into a pretzel and be in pain just to fly on some tiny little airplane just because the airline is inefficient and backwards in their operations?

Because Southwest is awesome, at least compared to the other airlines. I wish we had a decent rail system so I could avoid flying within the CONUS at all.

That's all for now. I'm off to flysouthwest.com to book four more flights. Seriously. I am. $89 each way PVD-DTW. Cannot be beat.

gooselee

Again, you've completely missed the point.

I really hope you're not being paid by WN to promote them in social media. Because your posts here are having the opposite effect.

If you would like to fly in a premium cabin (which is often enjoyed by people who happen to have a larger frame) or actually leave the US and Caribbean (as many people whose worlds are not centered around PVD often do), WN most certainly can be "beat".

pkk

Many of us in Central Illinois would like to thank Southwest for eliminating service for us not once but twice. First, when they took on the ATA routes that eliminated our connections to MDW and second for eliminating the our airports formerly served by AirTran. I'm glad somebody likes Southwest, but it ain't me! I'm not driving (or paying the fortune to park) in Chicago since it would never save me any money. If I want cheap I'll fly Allegiant, but I have no desire to fly them either.

Airports like Peoria (home of Caterpillar) Bloomington (home of State Farm) and Moline (home of John Deere) serve me well. Thank God for regional airports!!