Anyone else notice empty planes?
 

I fly AA 757s between NY and Miami on a regular basis. My flight on Friday had 80 passengers, where capacity is ~200. More often than not, these flights are 100% filled. Could just be a slow travel day, but any time it's cold there shouldn't really be a shortage of people flying from NY to MIA.

Anyone else notice unusually empty flights? *hopeful*

--Jon


____________________________________
My lawsuit against the TSA:
http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/

I guess the opt out thing last week worked.

Wonder about the same flight today ?

I was a passenger on a B6 flight from JFK to FLL on Friday. I've been on that flight before more than once at 100% capacity. It was around 60% full at best.

My flight on Wednesday from FLL to JFK wasn't even full (close to it, but not full).

Empty Planes = Good for our side.:)

It means people might be waking. The Press associated with NOOD was spectacular!

Hope we see more empty seats. One of them is mine, 4-5/month, that they lost.

I have three flights on Monday. Yes, three. We shall see.

The Friday after Thanksgiving is not a heavy travel day as most people are already there destination for the holiday weekend, many companies this is a holiday so this Friday is not as busy as a normal Friday for passenger volume. Many airlines used to offer lower fares for traveling on this day but from checking some fares I did not see this for this year.

I noticed that too (expected lower Friday fares because most folks want to be at their destination already and/or aren't ready to go home yet). Sure didn't see lower fares on the routes I looked at.

It will be interesting to see what people who fly today report. IIRC, Sunday is one of the busiest days of the holiday weekend. People fly out early or even on Thanksgiving Day, but most folks I know still seem to consider the weekend over on Sunday and expect to be back to work on Monday.

Just as a small sample, check any remaining ORD-LAX or JFK-LAX flights tonight ( popular Thanksgiving route)

Packed.


HP

All of my flights last Wednesday and yesterday did not have a seat available.

As far as flights today, the ones I were on, as well as many that I walked past, were completely full, if not oversold. I was able to bump from one of my flights, scoring $400 in vouchers.. I did notice ORD had the backscatter turned off for most of the lanes..



+1

UA lost 50-70k miles worth of business from me this year, thanks to TSA. Hope they didn't spend that revenue.

Yep. I'm used to southwest flights with standby lists a dozen long, mostly left disappointed. On NOOD, my flight was 2/3 loaded.

The passenger load in my terminal today was a little above average for a Sunday. Tomorrow is expected to be at or near capacity.

Today (Sunday) on the MSP-SAT DL afternoon flight, there were about 4 empty seats. I was surprised considering today is supposed to be one of the busiest travel days of the year.

My flight from ORD this morning had a lot of empty seats. I had to take a morning flight as my usual 7PM flight was a thousand dollars more as of a month ago. Maybe they guessed wrong about the demand?

You mean physically right? ;) For other reasons, I'd be worried if the empty planes happen to be one of my favourite airline flying one of my favourite route with my favourite arr/dep timings.

MIL's southwest flight LAS to BUF Wednesday, empty seats.

BUF to LAS today - empty seats.

This is good for her from a financial perspective because she traveled with a companion and they purchased a third seat so no one would sit between them. When the flight isn't full, my understanding is they get a refund for that middle seat.

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All 3 of my WN flights on Friday were empty. One only had 30 people on it. LAX was a ghost town when I changed planes there. Granted I flew on Friday, but last year and the year before my flights were stuffed to the gills. My flights Monday were totally packed.

The airports had a strange feel to them this year. Much quieter and more subdued than normal. But the topic was definitely the scanners. Heard a bunch of people talking about them in PDX, SJC and LAX. Even two weeks ago at MDW they were a hot topic.

Sunday & Monday are what will matter.

All indications from Wednesday were that air travel was down, highway travel up, but we really need some numbers to confirm that.

granted, IAH-AVL on co isn't exactly a huge route, but there were five empty seats on the rj yesterday (sunday)...i really did expect it to be full, as it has been when i've taken it in the past.

Don't they cancel flights that fail to reach the required load factor?

No.

Delta actually tried to do that a few (~5) years ago. It backfired big time -- the customer reaction went off the bottom of the chart.

Strategically, yes. Tactically and operationally, usually not, as planes need to be at certain places at certain times. That, and the cargo can make up a huge portion of the difference. Though if it's a small outstation with more then one flight a day, and both in/out are empty, and there's another turn-around that day, and all segments combined won't fill the plane (both pax and cargo)... then sure, nothing stopping them from canceling a flight that's under-booked.

The numbers will be declared SSI.

I suppose one flight that goes under load factor is a small thing. If there were to be a trend, then the schedule itself would be rebalanced again to raise the load factor.

our flights are over booked...
 

The airport I work at has over booked flights daily. I see so many non-revs never make a flight all day. Friday was an off day for flying due to the holiday. Yesterday and today all flights are full.

Agreed,

IF you read what Michael Roberts posted earlier this morning in the "This is the day/the Michael Roberts Express Jet" thread, the reports he is getting from his inside contacts definetly indicate air travel was down and hopefully according to him down enough that once the numbers are all added up, enough to get the attention of even the most reluctant elected officials^

Traffic Report
 

Here's a datum point of one:

I flew "Toyota pick-up" from Northern Virginia to Upstate NY (~400 miles one way) on Wednesday and drove back Sunday afternoon. The TSA harassment completely killed any inkling of considering flying.

Wednesday was normal-to-heavy in spots.

Sunday night was total gridlock out in the middle of nowhere around the intersection of I-78 and I-81. The gridlock started about 10 miles before I-78 ends at I-81 and continued another 15 miles south on I-81 towards Harrisburg. This was 40 miles from Harrisburg -- not Los Angeles.

.......

That's not really out of the ordinary on a holiday. The stretch of I-81 between I-83 & I-78 often gets very congested for holiday travel.

I suppose this depends on which airports your talking about.

HP

the I90 east bound was also gridlocked for MILES this has never ever happened in the over 25 years I have lived in the area.

Same goes for west bound on the 90 as well. Friends have told me that traffic began to slow to a crawl just outside of Rochester, and never resumed til after the Williamsville tolls, thats like 40+ miles... for no accident?

traffic was EXCEPTIONALLY heavy

Edit: I geuss I should note that the Buffalo Airports short term parking ramp was empty, and none of the local news bothered to report the grid locking on the local thruways... (normally theyd be all over it)

Came back from PA on the Turnpike and on I70 headed back into Maryland. Breezewood was busy and I left early in the day, hitting Breezewood shortly after noon. Usually, there are at least 2 EZPass lanes open, especially for a holiday. This year, the 2 dedicated EZPass lanes were cash or EZPass ... pretty much unheard of. Guess they were expecting a lot more cash cars (was annoying considering I had an EZPass and still got bogged down).

A coworker went to his GF's family's outside of Cleveland for the weekend and came back Sunday evening. He said a normally 5.5 hour drive (about right when I've done it) took close to 9. He told me Breezewood was an absolute CF and they ended up stopping to eat there to hope congestion would ease (which it didn't).

Holidays can suck, but it seems like this year was unusually heavy.

Today, Monday, BNA-LAX on WN Full flight. LAX-SJC 20 empty seats. SJC-PDX 20+ empty seats. Lots of families but the CA flights were no where near sold out. The BNA-LAX is often full on a normal day.

FWIW our system load factor Mo. was no more or less than any other Mo.

Flew BOS-JFK-ORD Monday morning (DL).

6 stand-bys cleared for BOS-JFK (this is usually a full flight)

4 empty seats (out of 12) in first class and I don't know how many in coach for JFK-ORD - NEVER seen that many open first class on a 'business' route.

Both BOS and JFK seemed lighter than normal for a Monday - let alone Monday after Thanksgiving.

NoS operational on 1 of 2 CP at BOS - FF line was roped off. Kettles surrendering their 4th amendment at the other.

Would economic conditions have an effect on holiday travel?

Two friends I chatted with today said they were pretty amazed at how serene the airports were today (one doing an HOU to PHX flight and the other doing an ORD to LAX flight). Both said it was completely different than last year and they both had worried it would be a repeat today.

But, it never materialized and both said there were seats open on both flights.

The Friday after Thanksgiving is not a busy travel day. I traveled on Thanksgiving (95 percent full) and on Sunday (100%). This is a big increase from last year on my routes when it was much less crowded. In any case, I managed an upgrade both ways.

I don't think the average traveler cares about the NoS. I brought it up during Thanksgiving with family and some of their friends that I was meeting for the first time. What I got was that only a few people think that it is wrong, and none of them were willing to opt out. One is actually former LEO/doghandler/soldier and now in the medical field, and he said he'd do it for convenience but had a very low opinion of TSA.

I brought up all the TSA employees suing in 15 years as well as the revolving door/Chertoff payout and this changed most minds (doctors, lawyers, and one guy from financial services industry). People will accept privacy violations in the name of security in a confined tube but if you tell them that there's essentially corruption in the process (chertoff), that it is not more effective or cost effective than the alternative (dogs/puffer), and that TSA will get a major payout for increased cancer risk within 15 years, then their opinion changes. I think that's where the real potential for derailing this lies.