Superguy

Well, I shouldn't have trusted wikipedia right off. They referred to the 747 tech spec sheet herehttp://www.boeing.com/boeing/commerc..._400_prod.page, but I think their math is off a bit.

Boeing says the 747 has a range of 7260 nm. Using the 416 person 3 class config and 57,285 gallon fuel capacity, that allocates about 137 gallons per person for the entire trip. Divide the 7260 by the 137 gallons and you get about 53 nmpg, or about 60 mpg per person.

Not as good as initially claimed, but still more efficient than a car.

But again, we were trying to figure out how much fuel would cost when compared to a transcon. In looking at this and the A320's figures, it looks like fuel consumption can vary quite a bit depending on the method of calculation, with guestimates as low as around 25 gallons to 42 gallons.

Interesting to see how much the fuel costs to get you somewhere, and how that factors into the ticket price.

Thanks for making me think about it some more. ^

Fanjet

Wrong. Last Fall, I flew PDX-LAS OW for $67 on an AS 3-day adv purchase fare. You seriously think that was not because Spirit began flying the route? The majors also do it on LAS-LAX, albeit slightly higher. And like I've said before, an airline is a business, not an entitlement program. If all carriers want to race to the bottom, sobeit. Maybe the government can step into the airline business with their own carrier. They can call it Air Amtrak or USPS International Airlines.

Fanjet

Spirit will fly you from BWI. But F9 seems to be pretty low compared to other carriers on the DCA-SAN route. The options are there, and they still will be after the merger. It's just that a lot of people here don't want to use those options: no valuable FF program, no free upgrades. But I see no reason why F9 is going to jack up their fares if AA and US merge. Moreover, Spirit seems to be on a growth plan. So a market that has its fares marked up to the DOJ's anticipated levels seems like a ripe target for them to enter.

IADCAflyer

I tried Spirit's option www.spirit.com and BWI-SAN was not available.

Fanjet

You're right. They offer BOS-SAN service. However, I just checked OW fares a month from now DCA-SAN. And both F9 and B6 offered the lowest fare on that route. Which was $20 cheaper than US and everyone else. Now, how is it that an AA/US merger is going to make F9 and B6 start charging more on that route?

FWAAA

Allegiant isn't an airline, at least not the way most people think of them; it's a vertically-integrated seller of vacation packages that also has a few old former AA MD-80s that fly schedules geared to those vacation packages.

I recently read an article that pointed out that residents of Orlando, Las Vegas and other vacation spots have learned that they can fly out of their cities for cheap and, of course, they aren't in the market for a week of cheap rooms in their home city. These "wrong-way" passengers threaten to cut into Allegiant's earnings by crowding out the residents from Hooterville.

hillrider

Hmmm, how does exactly AS fit in the "4 majors + WN/VX/B6" that's the basis of my statement?

But this notwithstanding, today's lowest fares on that market are 39++ for NK, 78++ for AS/UA/AA/DL. If you filter by 7 days or less advance purchase, then it's 61++ for NK, 115++ for US, 133++ for VX, 151++ for many; AS' lowest fare is 186++, or 3 times NK's fare.

Irrespective of this, can you show me a market where AS is currently matching NH?

eponymous_coward

Considerably bigger and more profitable than VX.

PWMTrav

Yup, ALK is one of two airline stocks I'd bother to hold - they know their market, haven't overexpanded and seem to keep their customers happy. The other is LCC, though, because they're massively oversold at this point. I don't care what happens with this merger, trading at 5x earnings is low for a profitable airline that fills its seats and has its labor costs under control.

BoeingBoy

FWIW, fuel burn varies depending on the flight - a given type plane burns more per hour on a short haul than a long haul. That's because a short haul spends a greater percent of the flight in t/o and climb than a long haul. Really short hauls - less than a few hundred miles cruise lower than long hauls also, burning more fuel as a result. Even ATC comes into play - at some airports you descend further from the airport than at other airports, burning extra fuel. Then there's routing - some flights fly longer routes than others of the same straight line distance. Even the same route will burn different amounts of fuel on different days - winds aloft variation and different runways are in use. There's also the fact that all the fuel load is not burned - reserve, alternate, holding and contingency fuel should remain at landing for most flights.

A ballpark figure is that burn per hour for that twin engine narrowbody is 5% of the total fuel burn. That averages out the effect of the above factors and gives that ballpark figure for a given fleet type. It is about what you'd get if you took the fuel burned in a month/year and divided it by the hours flown in that month/year.

FWAAA, the one thing you're missing in your comparison of 1980 and 2012 is that the airline fleet has gotten more efficientll in that 32 years. An A321 burns less fuel per hour, all other factors equal, than a B737-200 yet carries almost 50% more seats. So the fuel burn per hour is a lot lower for the A321 today.

Jim

CenterWaters

will US end up without membership in any airline alliance?

UAPremExecflyer

All in the realm of speculation. Try looking in here - right at the top of the page. No search needed. All the conversation you ever wanted on this topic.

inthemix

I'm very curious if US still plans on joining OW now that the merger has hit a brick wall. If they make the move, without the merger- I'm already thinking about status match to UA to keep *A options.

I'd certainly hope they would delay exit from *A until any government issues are quashed.

tommyleo

It seemed that the only reason why US was leaving *A was because of their planned merger with AA. If the merger fails, it's very likely that US stays in *A.

IADCAflyer

I assume there is a protocol within each of these alliances for excommunicating a member. Wonder if US's actions mean that it will have to switch to 1W - regardless of if a merger takes place or not.