Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

Now that Hainan flights from China are cancelled, will they leave Logan permanently?
 
Cape Air’s proposal for Boston-New York seaplane service is finally cleared for takeoff. The Boston Planning & Development Agency board on Thursday amended its licensing agreement with Boston Waterboat Marina to allow for docking of seaplanes at the marina’s Long Wharf location for a one-year trial period. The amendment comes with several conditions: Cape Air would be limited to four daily flights, for example, and would not be able to dock overnight at Long Wharf or to refuel there. Planes would also need to yield to ferry traffic
 
AA announced SEA-LHR and SEA-BGL ... Mostly due to its partnership with Alaska. But this is good news, because it may mean we will see more Boston routes going forward. Some common speculated ones are, SEA, SFO, SJC, CDG, SAN. Maybe UA adding BOS TATL wouldnt be so crazy anyway? Cool to see...
 
Cathay Pacific reducing Boston service to five weekly flights from seven as part of systemwide adjustments.

 
Now that Hainan flights from China are cancelled, will they leave Logan permanently?

We'll see what happens with the routes (and who serves them), but the Chinese government is taking over the HNA group and will likely sell off airline assets to China Eastern and China Southern. I imagine that one or both of the PVG and PEK routes will be served by a Chinese carrier, but who and when are the questions. If it actually is the end of Hainan, it's a shame. I've enjoyed flying them more than any other Mainland Chinese carrier I've flown.
 
We'll see what happens with the routes (and who serves them), but the Chinese government is taking over the HNA group and will likely sell off airline assets to China Eastern and China Southern. I imagine that one or both of the PVG and PEK routes will be served by a Chinese carrier, but who and when are the questions. If it actually is the end of Hainan, it's a shame. I've enjoyed flying them more than any other Mainland Chinese carrier I've flown.

China-US have a set amount of Tier I frequencies (any US City to PEK/PVG/CAN)

Hainan had SEA-PEK/PVG, ORD-PEK, SJC-PEK, BOS-PEK/PVG and LAS-PEK - not all daily but I'm sure BOS/SEA combine for almost 3 daily frequencies.

There could be some major route shuffling. For all we know it could wind up being BOS-Beijing Daxing on China Southern after Hainan's fate is sealed and CoVID-19 is contained.
 
Id like to see Air China in on PEK, China Southern on CAN and China Eastern on PVG.

I’m not sure there’s going to be any eagerness to take on most of the routes Hainan will no longer be operating never mind a new route like Guangzhou. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Beijing return in relatively short order but I wouldn’t count on Shanghai.
 
There will be a lag for traffic to China to rebound. This isn't an issue unique to Boston; it'll be the case everywhere. My money would be on China Eastern starting service to Shanghai sometime in late 2021. They have a vast network throughout China and Asia and are a member of SkyTeam.
 
I’m not sure there’s going to be any eagerness to take on most of the routes Hainan will no longer be operating never mind a new route like Guangzhou. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Beijing return in relatively short order but I wouldn’t count on Shanghai.

There definitely is demand, I just think a better equiped airline could handle CAN PEK PVG better than Hainan. Almost like how VS was meh with man
 
Any numbers to back that up?

Airliners.net you can retrieve all that information, their numbers run via OAG. Or you can use the DOT T-100 data. I can give you statistics on current routes and 2017/2018 loads, but the 2019 ones are not fully matriculated yet.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p_PuNk0i4yqsZNsfYCIYGibqjKZTjLHB/view Here is 2017-2018 data, you can play around with it. Pretty neat data here. If I find more cool and sizable data I will post it here as well.
 
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Airliners.net you can retrieve all that information, their numbers run via OAG. Or you can use the DOT T-100 data. I can give you statistics on current routes and 2017/2018 loads, but the 2019 ones are not fully matriculated yet.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p_PuNk0i4yqsZNsfYCIYGibqjKZTjLHB/view Here is 2017-2018 data, you can play around with it. Pretty neat data here. If I find more cool and sizable data I will post it here as well.

So that seems to back up my assertion that Shanghai is a relatively weak performer with sub-75% loads on fewer than three roundtrips per week. I also can't imagine that Guangzhou is a larger market than Shanghai and at least Hainan had the 787-8 whereas China Southern and China Eastern’s smallest route-capable plane is the 787-9 with 60+ more seats.
 
So that seems to back up my assertion that Shanghai is a relatively weak performer with sub-75% loads on fewer than three roundtrips per week. I also can't imagine that Guangzhou is a larger market than Shanghai and at least Hainan had the 787-8 whereas China Southern and China Eastern’s smallest route-capable plane is the 787-9 with 60+ more seats.

I think it would perform stronger on AC or China Eastern. Especially if there was a *A appearance to China. PEK Daily, PVG 4x a week, CAN 3x a week seasonally would work great. It could happen, there is (according to OAG) about 110 daily passengers between BOS - CAN. CAN is also a huge biotech hub. You would be filling the J seats tremendously
 
I think it would perform stronger on AC or China Eastern. Especially if there was a *A appearance to China. PEK Daily, PVG 4x a week, CAN 3x a week seasonally would work great. It could happen, there is (according to OAG) about 110 daily passengers between BOS - CAN. CAN is also a huge biotech hub. You would be filling the J seats tremendously
CAN is a short hop from HKG.
 
So that seems to back up my assertion that Shanghai is a relatively weak performer with sub-75% loads on fewer than three roundtrips per week. I also can't imagine that Guangzhou is a larger market than Shanghai and at least Hainan had the 787-8 whereas China Southern and China Eastern’s smallest route-capable plane is the 787-9 with 60+ more seats.

I think the problem is the airline more than the markets. The fact that BOS-NRT/HKG/ICN are all successful routes speaks to strong Boston-Asia demand, much of which is driven by China. But if I'm a loyalty flyer trying to get the Chengdu, for example, will I pick Hainan or an alliance carrier? Even if my final destination is PEK or PVG, it would be hard to turn down a convenient one-stop option (of which there are many) on an alliance carrier. Not to mention Hainan offered next to no connections in PVG.

Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern would all be smart to launch PEK, PVG, and CAN, respectively, once coronavirus blows over and these routes are available again. The O&D market is there, and they would also be able to capitalize on connections and loyalty flyers in a way that Hainan never could.
 
I think the problem is the airline more than the markets. The fact that BOS-NRT/HKG/ICN are all successful routes speaks to strong Boston-Asia demand, much of which is driven by China. But if I'm a loyalty flyer trying to get the Chengdu, for example, will I pick Hainan or an alliance carrier? Even if my final destination is PEK or PVG, it would be hard to turn down a convenient one-stop option (of which there are many) on an alliance carrier. Not to mention Hainan offered next to no connections in PVG.

Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern would all be smart to launch PEK, PVG, and CAN, respectively, once coronavirus blows over and these routes are available again. The O&D market is there, and they would also be able to capitalize on connections and loyalty flyers in a way that Hainan never could.

Exactly ^ Hainan had a weak alliance and connection options. Honestly, 71-75% on PVG/PEK with Hainan, with virtually no connections or mutualistic partnerships is pretty solid.
 
The China-US bilateral allows an amount of Tier I frequencies between Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou and the US. Both US and China carriers get an equal share. The US Carriers have never used up their frequencies while Chinese carriers maxed them out. There is known "Subsidized tourism" with many China-US flights on the China originating side.


So that seems to back up my assertion that Shanghai is a relatively weak performer with sub-75% loads on fewer than three roundtrips per week. I also can't imagine that Guangzhou is a larger market than Shanghai and at least Hainan had the 787-8 whereas China Southern and China Eastern’s smallest route-capable plane is the 787-9 with 60+ more seats.

Hainan threw around 787-8, 787-9, and A350-900 on the Boston routes at times. PVG was up to 4 weekly beginning last summer. Hainan swapped a Tier I SEA-PVG frequency for BOS-PVG

I think the problem is the airline more than the markets. The fact that BOS-NRT/HKG/ICN are all successful routes speaks to strong Boston-Asia demand, much of which is driven by China. But if I'm a loyalty flyer trying to get the Chengdu, for example, will I pick Hainan or an alliance carrier? Even if my final destination is PEK or PVG, it would be hard to turn down a convenient one-stop option (of which there are many) on an alliance carrier. Not to mention Hainan offered next to no connections in PVG.

Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern would all be smart to launch PEK, PVG, and CAN, respectively, once coronavirus blows over and these routes are available again. The O&D market is there, and they would also be able to capitalize on connections and loyalty flyers in a way that Hainan never could.

BOS-NRT exists due to a strong Boston-Tokyo Origin and Destination market - not because of China. Boston-Seoul had a lot of untapped O+D potential with strong South Korean economy and propensity to travel.

The carriers US-originating business travelers like the most for travelling to China are United/American/Delta and Cathay Pacific and the latter has a quite a strong market from its own hub to Boston too. If anyone benefits the most from Hainan's end its Cathay Pacific.

Exactly ^ Hainan had a weak alliance and connection options. Honestly, 71-75% on PVG/PEK with Hainan, with virtually no connections or mutualistic partnerships is pretty solid.

Hainan had JetBlue and Alaska (basically useless on the BOS end but better on the SEA end) interline agreements. Hainan had plenty of connecting opportunities in PEK. PEK is not fun to connect in. Hainan went out of business because of HNA group and coronavirus pushed them off the cliff.

Here's my prediction - when everything blows over and airline traffic recovers it will be China Eastern flying to Shanghai and China Southern flying to Bejing-Daxing airport. This may take up to 3 years to get the service though and it is up to a regulatory body callled the CAAC in the People's Republic of China giving the carrier the route authority. They could do something insane and give Air China the route authority for BOS-PVG too.
 
In some good travel related news: Memphis!


This one seems popular on Twitter...
 
Damn, really like this pic of Boston posted on the Memphis International Airport website which includes part of Fan Pier. It’s shows a different aspect of the city from the usual harbor view.
8C78D92C-23BF-4F70-894A-2DE36C0FF899.jpeg
 

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