Insanely HIGH pax loads to LGW !
 

For two years I've been flying regularly to LGW out of PHL on a Sunday night about once a month.

In most cases I make my reservations only 3-5 days in advance on a B class fare, which is upgradeable to Envoy for only 10K miles each way. Since the flight is worth 7K miles each way (to a Chairman's Preferred), and US is always throwing (non-pfd) miles at me for something or another....I pretty much am assured an Envoy class flight for a full fare coach ticket of about $1,650.

Today I called in per usual and found out the Sunday night flight was sold out. SOLD OUT. That's never happened before. The Monday night flight and the Saturday night only had 4 open seats between them, all full fare $4,000+ Envoy seats.

I managed to grab the LAST seat on the CLT to LGW flight on Sunday night, but am not so sure I'll get my upgrade this time.

While I've been as pessimistic as the next guy about US's chances for survival, these passenger loads are incredible. I've NEVER seen loads like this, even in the summer. And this is just two weeks post the Christmas luggage disaster!

Hopefully this is a good sign that US may actually be a viable carrier or at least that these routes are viable. And if fuel prices continue to drop....maybe they do squeak out of CH 22?

Calling Texas Pacific.....your airline is waiting for you......with only a couple hundred million dollar equity investment required (plus a couple more in debt that you'll never collect if they go CH 33).....

Here's to hoping 2005 brings better tidings to US.

jas3

This is off season - I am suprised that the loads are this high. ^

I think the Pound/USD exchange rate is perhaps your answer why so many brits are traveling accross the pond. However it is good news if US is making a profit on these flights..

I checked, just for kicks, what the fares were a week or so out and there were some in the $300 range on fare search...that's pretty inexpensive and could be the cause of the high loads. I did not check availability of those loads though, and I don't believe that any were available on a sunday.

M

Were these B fares? If so, I'd be amazed.

I believe the point was that the planes may be full of passengers paying only $300, which would not necessarilly be such a good thing for US.

I flew back from MAD yesterday and the flight went out full. I was op-uped to envoy.

Was actually on that flight in Envoy. Upgraded with miles on a code-share ticket which is apparently illegal. Also one of the pax didnt have enough miles. I'm doubting they'll be pulled. My seat assignments were re-written by hand. Anyways - 12/28 PHL-MAD was 100% full in Envoy and Y as well.

I hope these flights are not filled with people just burning their miles.


:eek:



Jay

I was speaking to some gate agents on Wednesday in PHL, and they were telling me that the LGW flights were 100+ oversold, the CDG and other cities were 30-40+ oversold. They were apparently offering $400 cash or $600 vouchers (although I wasn't going to any of these places) for volunteers for different flights. My flight to SJU was 60+ oversold after a downgrade to 767 and they started a new A319 seperate flight leaving a few minutes later. I ended up being the sold first class passenger on the bump flight. I got the bagel and fruit plate (3.5hour flight) and a large bottle of wine all to myself.

This is US' standard offer for the Euro flights. Also includes hotel, 3 meals, phone call, transportation. I'm glad US is filling up their flights, but offering $400 cash and a hotel stay on what very likely could have been a $300 ticket doesn't seem like good business sense to me...

FWIW, the PHL-YYZ flight that I ended up on last night was also oversold (A319). Even though it was late evening, they were still offering a dinner voucher along with the hotel and domestic voucher. I offered to volunteer if they would have given me a $$ voucher instead but enough people volunteered for the other. We didn't end up making it to Toronto until about 1am due to late arriving crew and then a mechanical problem.

I was seated next to the crew rest seat in row 4. Amazing crew - ended up being offered a bottle of champaign to take home because I had had some food poisoning the night before and didn't want to eat anything so as not to upset my stomach.

Interestingly, I was offered the upgrade right at the check-in counters after I had already been processed and just as I was about to walk away. Wonder what made the agent change his mind.

Could be that mileage "burners" are putting pressure on total inventory, but on recent UK trips taken by myself, or my wife, we have both noticed a fair number of Brits onboard. Since most UK residents wouldn't know USAirways if it fell on them, I have to assume aggressive use of consolidators over there. If so, it's not bad strategy. By doing it outside the domestic market, your regulars don't pick it up, and as a current collateral benefit, the strength of the British Pound, as well as the Euro (in the case of other European destinations) produces a windfall when converted to dollars. Such activity also creates higher than average overbooking, meaning the premium cabin may be used to handle some of that. It's compression, and the effect on upgradiing is to push it to the departure gate. Just a thought.

Here in the UK, for those who use sites like Expedia, US will often come up as one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, option for transatlantic travel. (I'm travelling to Phoenix myself in a couple of weeks time on US for a mere GBP180.)

It will also be the case that those Brits who have never previously heard of US will also be unaware of their precarious financial situation, so are not going to avoid US in the way that some potential American travellers may do.

Good point. By the way, Mrs. deelmakur is British.