Thanksgiving is upon us, and The Weather Channel is just in time with their Airport Impact Map. While you may not want to look for fear of knowing how late your flight might really be, general airport delay information is always a plus. Also remember the FAA has a great map of the biggest airports nation wide and their delays at fly.faa.gov. Here is a preview of both reproduced below:
Yes you read that headline correctly, US Airways has a GOAL this holiday season of having 60% or its flights leave the gate on time. Of course that means a full 40% of flights wont leave within 15 minutes of their schedules departure. And that is just was US Air EXPECTS to happen.
This depressingly low goal was circulated in the Arizona based carrier’s employee newsletter as a background for their Holiday Hustle incentive program. The 60% ontime departure rate was one goal for which employees can be rewarded, the other is if only 7 bags per 10,000 passengers get lost. If both goals are completed employees will get a $100 bonus, if only one is completed they all get $50. Unfortunately for the employees, and given last year’s number, I have a feeling they wont be getting anything this year. Besides, I don’t think the $100 will motivate those in the position to actually influence whether those planes leave on time and those bags find the right way.
[Via Business Week]
Virgin America came out with a new destination announcement today – they will fly three daily non stops from San Francisco to San Diego starting on February 18th of next year (increasing to five flights on March 9th). [Via Jaunted] While its great to see a new airline expanding to new cities, one has to wonder about the wisdom of VA’s decision to pick some of the busiest airports in the country.
Serving primary airports in each city they serve is actually a stated priority for VA CEO Fred Reid, as he discussed in his interview with Fast Company magazine. This is both good and bad for travelers. Its good for the obvious reason that you will actually fly to the airport you want to go to, unlike Skybus Airlines which sells tickets to “New York” while it actually flies to Newburgh, NY. On the other hand, Skybus wont have to worry about any delays coming out of Newburgh, whereas JFK is one of the most delayed airports in the country. In fact, Virgin operates out of several of the most delayed airports, including its home hub of San Francisco, Washington Dulles and New York JFK (though they aren’t as bad as JetBlue, which flies to 10 of the top 14 delayed airports).
Now when you handle only a handful of flights every day, this may not be such a big deal. As Virgin America grows however they will have to think more and more about the utilization of their aircraft on more than one route per day, and in the low cost carrier world that means quick turn around times at some of these busy airports. Every time a VA plane touches one of these delayed airports, there is a 30% chance (roughly) they wont get back off the ground again in time to make their next scheduled connection. Over time, this will continue to add up. And when your entire network consists of these heavily delayed airports, as Fred Reid would have us believe, the chance of massive delays across the airline increase with every flight.
In theory it’s nice to say you fly to each city’s primary airport, but when you consider the delays and additional headaches that come along with these big boys, you may want to think twice. Virgin has plenty of time to consider their growth strategy, and avoiding delays on their network should be on their list of top priorities.