DLASflyer

I think the only Delta aircraft that is ASE capable is the CRJ-700. SkyWest is down to 6 of them flying for Delta. I think DL would love to service ASE in the future but it’s tricky when only one model of commercial aircraft can fly there. Probably not worth keeping an odball fleet for one seasonal destination.

Endeavor has 18 CR7s but they generally stay east.

third_wave

Does this have to do with the length of the runway? Altitude? Or some other factor?

SFTNYC

I'm sure I'll be corrected but from what I understand, 2 things 1) the airport outright does not allow any commercial jet larger than a CR7 including due to apron/taxiway limitations and 2) from a performance perspective, you have both high altitude and terrain (as well as a not terribly-long runway given the altitude at 8,000 ft.) requiring good runway / climb performance. Before the CR7, the airport was routinely served by Dash-8's and the old United/Air Wisconsin BAe-146. A similarly situated airport like Gunnison (GUC) gets A319s, but has a somewhat longer runway at 9,500ft. and I don't believe has the same terrain issues. Eagle/Vail (EGE), where mainline is typically limited to A319s/737-700s and 757s has a slightly longer runway at 9,000 ft. but its elevation is about 1,000 ft. lower than ASE.

DLASflyer

After cutting so much winter ski service, Delta appears to have come around to mountain destinations for this coming summer. ATL-JAC/BZN/RNO/ANC were loaded this weekend plus MSP-JAC/FAI.

DLASflyer

Delta once again seeks a CARES Act exemption for HDN and MTJ, calling them “not commercially viable.”

UA, AA, WN and B6 must not be commercial 😀

https://downloads.regulations.gov/DO...tachment_1.pdf

Would appear to mean Delta intends to restart ASE.

Billy Mumphrey

I drove by MTJ last week. AA, WN and two United jets all parked at the airport at the same time, all looked like 737s. And lots of activity outside the terminal. It seemed to me like there is plenty of demand this year.

DLASflyer

I think it has less to do with the airports themselves and more to do with Delta's hubs. ATL, MSP and DTW are nowhere near as big of skier markets as DEN, ORD and DFW. SLC is an okay connecting point for Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana ski resorts but no one coming from the east wants to overfly Colorado just to go right back. Delta seems content ceding Colorado to other airlines.

Billy Mumphrey

I realize it's just anecdotal, but my EGE flights have been completely full this season. Meanwhile the one time when I flew to SUN the flights were nearly empty, and this was over the new year holiday weekend. And they were running 4x daily SLC-SUN, which seemed like overkill. ATL has a ton of connecting traffic, and I think it was a mistake for Delta to give up on Hayden and Montrose this year.

Intl359Widget

I concur but what can we FT'ers do besides vote with our wallets? I've been to HDN twice in the 2020-2021 Ski Season and have 2-3 more trips back there on AS/B6.

PupManS

I think there are 3 things going on here...

1) Correctly pointed out DL's core hubs aren't gigantic ski markets
2) SLC is geographically problematic for connecting east coast to mountains (and based on the fares on SLC connections I'm seeing this year, DL is filling the planes well anyway)
3) DL for some reason has ceded some big ski markets where they have a good FFP base (NYC and LAX) to others. In NYC, apart from JAC and SLC, you generally fly UA or B6 for nonstop ski destinations (B6 for ABQ and RNO, notably, and this year MTJ, BZN, HDN.........UA for the traditional ski town markets). In LAX, there's a lot of SWA planes carrying skis. There's also the AA EGE flight that always goes full.

The ski market IS a leisure market but it's interesting, considering the demographics. Compared to most leisure travel skiers will pay a premium for nonstop, and they tend to be more inelastic about when they will travel, so you can make a nice revenue premium. So all that, I'm surprised DL has never been more serious about it. That said while there is a revenue premium there is only so much of it and maybe they don't think they can peel enough away from UA and B6 to be viable.

One thing I think they should consider once ASE gets the taxiway situation fixed is a weekend only nonstop on the A220 from LGA to ASE. The plane has the performance for it (singularly, I think), it will fit inside the ASE NIMBY mindset and DL could score a crazy revenue premium on it- they have the FFP base too. Same for SUN, but I doubt the market is there, it's more of a LA destination for whatever reason. If they could time it right you could get there early enough to ski on Saturday easily and you could make the return at 5pm- given the proximity of ASE's airport to the mountains it would enable weekend trips for the high end demographic. Today you can only do that with Netjets.

Intl359Widget

At least you have a semblance in the inner workings of Airline Pricing and Revenue Management (Yield) so I'll give you kudos for this post.

DLASflyer

MSP-JAC
ATL-JAC
LAX-JAC
ATL-EGE
LAX-BZN

Have all been extended through the end of ski season (mid-April.) Typically these routes end in March. The decision to pull out of ASE/MTJ/HDN is looking like a bad one. All the airlines are making tough choices but betting against skiing this year was wrong.

PupManS

Additionally, RNO-ATL is holding at 5 days a week through March and then going daily in April. Interestingly, once it goes daily it's moving to an evening arrival/red-eye return. I am skeptical of filling up a redeye return year round (SLC has a hard enough time with this and they have connecting flow) but we will see what happens. The issue with the redeye return for skier types is that if you need to connect through ATL you're not home until lunch, so you lose either a work day or a ski day.

And yes, we have skiing in RNO thru May, sometimes longer.

It would be super nice if they did a JFK-RNO nonstop. But I guess they want to leave the market to B6. Too bad.

DLASflyer

Delta upped JAC again. Some days in March there are two 757s doing ATL-JAC-ATL.

CaliguyNYC

Delta’s ski flights out of the NYC area have frustrated me for years. Why can’t they fly JFK-EGE nonstop (or other CO ski towns). Oe at least SLC-EGE/Aspen that give different connecting options to the 6am LGA-ATL-EGE/Aspen flights. Skiing is core the the demo that is Delta’s business FF out of NYC. So why force us to fly other airlines? AA has such a diminished presence at JFK but still flies to EGE.