jlemon

I remember when People Express began flying nonstop between Newark and California. PE operated 747 service EWR - OAK besides EWR - LAX.

And that engenders a bonus quiz question....

What was another domestic nonstop route operated by People Express with the 747? ANSWERED

WHBM

People Express became quite prominent on London (Gatwick) to New York (Newark) in the 1980s, working up to twice daily 747s. They started on the route a few months before Virgin Atlantic opened up, initially on the same route. One survived and one didn't. One of Virgin's extraordinary achievements was making so many think it was an LCC for price when in fact, both in service style and fares, it wasn't - it was far closer to an established carrier. Now more than 25 years later there's still some of that belief around.

People Express, despite finance issues at the time, was looking at London to Miami when it merged into Continental, a route which strangely for some years had almost a different carrier every year, and it started this operation shortly after the merger. Within a few months they had what must be one of the nearest misses ever, at London Gatwick on takeoff, when they got an engine failure at rotation. The early generation, onetime Alitalia, 747, which had spent some previous years in storage, was fully loaded and right up at maximum weight, and had flightplan-filed only as far as Washington Dulles, expecting when approaching there to have sufficient fuel reserves to continue to Miami. The incident report shows a somewhat middle-experience crew for a 747, likely ex-PE, and some mishandling had it fly on missing trees and buildings quite some miles west of the airport, in a cloud of fuel dumping vapour. The Gatwick tower controller saw it drop below their field of vision, and pulled the crash alarm. The aircraft was still in full People Express livery at the time, probably to the relief of Continental when it appeared in the television news after return to Gatwick, and seemed to have been dispatched by the onetime PE centre at Newark rather than mainstream Continental - the latter then promptly sent in engineering resources to the enquiry from their LAX maintenance base..

jlemon

I definitely remember this incident as I believe it was reported in Aviation Week & Space Technology at the time. Thank goodness the flight crew was able to recover from the engine failure.

And years later, when I had business with Continental and was meeting with some of their management folks at the CO corporate headquarters in Houston, this incident came up in a friendly conversation (I was attempting to set up a scheduled code share feeder service with Sikorsky S-76 rotorcraft for CO at the time and they were inquiring about the reliability of this helicopter type). The CO folks indicated the inherited 747 equipment from People Express were in absolutely deplorable condition and at that time they were moving as quickly as possible to replace them with DC-10-30 aircraft.

moondog

I'll go with EWR-DEN (shortly after they bought the first iteration of Frontier).

moondog

The idea behind question 4 was that PE put Newark on the map. It was a truly disgusting place during the 80s, but PE proved that it was actually pretty close to NYC. CO took that baton and rolled with it.

WHBM

Recovery generally felt to be more by chance. On the engine failure the captain unaccountably pulled the aircraft exceptionally nose high, which not only reduced speed in itself but reduced the engine effectiveness, and another engine started to show signs of surging, which would have been it for them. They were getting stall warning for more than 30 seconds. I believe the captain never flew for Continental again. Here's the official report :

4-1989_N605PE.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

jlemon

Bonus: Correct!

The cover of the May 1, 1986 People Express system timetable proclaimed "WE'RE FLYING THE WIDEST PLANE TO THE HIGHEST PLACE"....

People Express

jlemon

That was my understanding as well. The airplane did not crash in spite of the Captain.....

jrl767

time to help our intrepid consultant, who has finished cycling along the Côte d’Azur, to get back to the work site

1983(b)- The first of your three flights back to Guam departs on Thursday afternoon. Since you nearly missed the interline connection to the long-haul flight on the outbound trip, you’ve decided to backtrack a bit to facilitate an online connection to the long flight on your return journey.

This trip also involves three different aircraft types; you have 1+20 for the online connection and 5+15 for the interline connection. One of the flights is a nonstop, one makes one stop, and one makes two stops. One airport and one aircraft type are repeats from your outbound itinerary.

We’re looking for the major airport from which you’ll depart, both connecting airports, and of course the airline, equipment, and intermediate stop/s for each flight.

moondog

Thank you for your kind and encouraging words. Here's another easy (and mostly subjective) question set that pertains to Delta Airlines.

1. Delta had three hubs (maybe more?) during the 1980s that no longer enjoy hub status today. What were these? What are the reasons each of them were "de-hubbed"?
2. I'm most curious about their West Coast hub. What unique destinations could you fly to on Delta from that city that have had no US service since?
3. Delta didn't serve this West Coast hub nonstop from many east coast cities, but they had direct flights that stopped in a single airport. Which airport was this?
4. However, they encouraged (e.g. 12,000 bonus miles per round trip) their frequent flyers to connect in a different city (one of the answers to question 1). What is the city/airport?
5. Circa 2010, many FTers got into Thank You Points because they had many promotions that needed stress testing (i.e. they were poorly thought out); the deal I'm thinking of here was that 20k points could fetch a roundtrip ticket between any two North American destinations as long as seats were available for sale. We kept these discussions private for the most part, but now that a decade has elapsed, I think it's safe for us to talk about it in general terms now. We identified a Delta route that was reliably within $10 of the $2600 price cap. Any guesses? Also, why was this particular route so expensive?
6. Delta currently operates hourly BOS-LGA "shuttle" flights. This has been a prestigious route ever since I was born (and, presumably long before). Typically, only 2 airlines at a time were permitted to fly it. I'm curious to see a comprehensive list of airlines and airplane types. I have a pretty good idea about this one, but there actually isn't a wiki for "BOS-LGA shuttle" (e.g. need to search for each airline, assuming you know the airline).

WHBM

Not, unfortunately, a onetime Pan Am trip, but a round-the-world yacht expedition, some 11 of them, on the "Clipper Round the World race", which ended up yesterday in a grand finale in London, in the big dock right alongside the London City runway - which a couple of the regulars on here know well. A notable spectacle on arrival. I know also some here are into deep sea sailboating as well. One of the 11 was named Seattle, team seemed to come from there, and from the group on the dockside it seemed quite a number of supporters had flown over from there for the finish. 40,000 nautical miles all round; for us it was a half mile walk over to see them. Here they are - with the BA Embraer 190s laying over at London City visible behind them (I do try and keep things here on topic, you know, I really do ... ).



Here's all about it :

About the Clipper Round The World Race

jlemon

Excellent post! And one of these fine days I'd love to have lunch at the Chinese restaurant on the water that has a great view of LCY (which I think is located behind you with regard to your photo). Dim sum and airplane viewing! Is the name of that restaurant Yi-Ban? I remember we tried to get in there during my last trip over but they were hosting a big private party so we weren't allowed in. Next time....

jrl767

good set of question; thanks for joining in!
1-

• Cincinnati/CVG — drawn down to “Focus City” status as being too close to Detroit/DTW
• Dallas/DFW — couldn’t compete with AA
• Portland/PDX — never generated enough TPAC traffic to be sustainable

there’s probably more to each reason

3- Salt Lake City/SLC

4- thinking this may have been DFW

WHBM

You are correct, it's directly behind. Now as we walked over Mrs WHBM envisaged looking at the vessels, and then after a brief viewing, just strolling nonchalantly in to to said Yi-Ban for lunch, on their little outdoor balcony. As we got closer, it became apparent that there might be a little problem with this ...

moondog

These were indeed the three I was thinking of when I posed the question. PDX is the most confusing to me. I used to live in Portland and therefore get the fact that it has a large Japanese community + semi-conductor companies. Still, Portland is a small market, so why?

The following article explains it
https://www.travelcodex.com/de-portland/
Don't read this if you want to answer the other question about Portland.

Yes, thanks to the Western Airlines merger.

Quote:

4- thinking this may have been DFW

Yes, those bonus miles were sufficient to compel my mom's boyfriend to fly from BOS to PDX via DFW. Apparently, the BOS-SLC flight was a cash cow for DL. At the same time, they were having a tough time taking on AA at DFW.