Airline Fanatic

Well news from JetBlue hasn’t been so great of late, what with their stock hitting all time lows, and the departure of long time CFO John Harvey.  But all is not lost thankfully as today they’ve put out a press release announcing new service between Orlando and Santo Domingo, DR.

This newest route is the latest in a slew of new service announcements from Florida.  It seems that with the delicate political situation around schedules at JFK, JetBlue doesn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire.  The beneficiaries of this have been Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando, which will see six other routes added as well in the coming months.

Also of note in this announcement is the fact the route will be operated using the E190, the first time that aircraft will be used outside the US by JetBlue.  It certainly makes sense to use a smaller aircraft for what will probably be a low volume route for JetBlue, but also indicates they are now more confident in their new aircraft.

Here are the nitty gritty details: service starts on March 6th of next year, with introductory fares starting at $79 each way, then raising to between $99 and $349 each way under normal operation.  For now the flight will operate once daily between MCO and SDQ.

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.

United just announcednew nonstop service between San Francisco and Guangzhou, China, to start on June 18th of next year.  The route will be operated once daily on one of United’s 777 aircraft, nicely equipped with 10 first class “suites” and 45 business class seats.  This should be a fairly lucrative route for United as most Pacific routes are – there should be plenty of business travelers with expense accounts and corporate travel programs who will pony up for business and first class comfort.

United already has good reach into Asia, especially in China.  The new service to Guangzhou is complemented by existing service from San Francisco to Beijing and Shanghai, Chicago to Beijing and Shanghai, and Washington to Beijing.  There are plenty of other US carriers vying to get the rights to enter the Chinese market, but United remains leaps and bounds ahead for now.

More JetBlue news keeps winging its way this direction with some more new service announcements.  After its surprising quarterly earnings, the low cost carrier announced it was adding service between Buffalo, NY (BUF) and Ft. Myers, FL (RSW) as well as between White Plains (HPN) and Ft. Myers.  This service will run during the winter high season and then be discontinued come April, 31st.  JetBlue has been doing quite a few of these announcements recently, which is a departure from their traditional investment in year round markets.  Why the change?

Well I see it more as testing the waters with seasonal service before they make the major announcement of year round service.  This way they can gauge demand for the route, as I’m sure JetBlue knows the change in seasonality in North – South traffic; they do make their living that way after all.  If they project service could be maintained even in the off season, then I’m sure you will see service continue.  If not, then it will be pulled and it can be claimed it was part of the plan all along.

I am actually somewhat confident JetBlue might be able to make the White Plains to Ft. Myers service stick.  HPN is in their home town New York area and RSW’s area is growing like wild fire.  Buffalo would be a stretch though, just in strict terms of the number of people there with access to the airport.

Delta Airlinesannounced today that they are going to expand their transatlantic partnership with Air France next spring with new flights across the pond.  Passengers will now be able to fly nonstop between Atlanta and London Heathrow, JFK and Heathrow, JFK and Paris-Orly, and JFK to Lyons, France.  The routes start operating and the end of March, and fares seems pretty standard.

You can see the official press release here.

This is one of many announcements we will see in the transatlantic department now that the Open Skies agreement has been signed.

I have to say I didn’t see this one coming.  According to the South Florida Sun Sentinal, JetBlue has filed for approval to provide service between Bogota, Colombia and Orlando, FL beginning April 1st, 2008.  This service would be followed by seven weekly flights between Bogota and Ft. Lauderdale, FL beginning October 1st, 2008.  The new service isn’t a sure thing however, as American Airlines currently holds the authority for the 14 slots JetBlue would like to use.

American has of course not used these 14 slots for more than five years, and why would they?  They hold the monopoly on flights between Florida and Colombia, and so it’s in their interests to keep seat inventory low, and prices high.  Now that doesn’t seem very fair to me, plus who actually likes flying American anyway?  I hope regulators give JetBlue the chance to compete on this route and drive down costs while increasing frequency.  International travel, particularly in the less competitive Latin American market, has lagged far behind domestic competition for a while.  Its about time it caught up, even just a little bit.

This filing is also an interesting departure in strategy for JetBlue.  Their international exposure to date has been restricted to Caribbean islands and holiday destinations.  Now I’ve never been to Bogota, but I’m pretty sure its no Aruba.  I guess they see a consistent flow of business traffic, which makes sense as Miami is very Latin America focused.

Lastly and certainly least, Spirit Airlinesis also in the running for these flights, and they have a greater preexisting exposure to Central America.  I’m not bullish on their chances at all though, what with their internet inept CEO and poor customer experiences.  In my opinion having no flights at all would be better than letting Spirit start new service.

I’ll keep an eye on this and see how it plays out.

The St. Maarten Daily Herald is reporting that JetBlueAirways is to begin service from New York to the Carribbean island paradise beginning in January, so long as the current negotiations conclude as planned.  According to the Herald, the flights would commence on January 17th, running on a daily basis between the carrier’s New York JFK hub and St. Maarten for a round trip price of around $350.  An official announcement could come as early as Thursday.

St. Maarten will pay for some of the marketing costs to fill seats on the new flights, a standard practice when JetBlue enters a new market.  Roy Marlin, the head of the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Associate (SHTA), said “As the success of low-cost, low-fare carriers expands, and as major airlines continue to both respond to the challenge and operate profitably – as they are doing – St. Maarten-bound travellers will benefit from this competition through increased service and lower fares.”  Marlin also pointed to JetBlue’s success in lowering seat prices to Aruba, and suggested St. Maarten would probably see a similar effect.

JetBlue would be the first discount carrier to service St. Maarten from New York.