Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

Heathrow has incredibly high taxes/fees so a rock bottom fare still ends up costing around $400
Heathrow landing fees aren't *quite* that onerous at $30 or so, and it usually isn't broken out as a separate charge. (for example, if you book award tickets, they normally still charge fees.) it's the departures that are expensive. Specifically, It's the air passenger duty and passenger service charged on outbound trips. The APD at £84 for economy (~110USD) is all but unavoidable on transatlantic flights, given it's charged on final destination, and applied UK wide. the Heathrow passenger service charge is another ~£32, (~45USD) - Gatwick is much more reasonable at £9.

Here's a sample breakdown for a United Nonstop roundtrip from Boston to LHR next month, compared to a one way. In short, you're about guaranteed to pay about $250 in tax on a roundtrip, where a one way from BOS to LHR would only have about $30 in US side taxes and fees. And yes, the fare before taxes is identical for one-way and roundtrip. That is too much to unpack here, but this is pretty close to as cheap of a transatlantic crossing as you'll find.

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Keep in mind that unlike the US, many prominent major UK and European airports while rate regulated, are actually privately operated, for profit companies. LHR, CDG, FRA, AMS, just to name a few are operated for shareholder returns, not to boost air travel and the local economy. This is one of the *very* few areas where US governments have been less prone to privatization than European ones, where the government actually operates the public good, albeit through nominally independent state owned enterprises / authorities. Think MassPort, PANYNJ, MWAA. They might contract out the passenger experience through terminal operator concessions, but they retain control over the actual airport and airfield operations and the fees charged.
 
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JetBlue's CEO was at Logan today to announce their firm plans to launch non-stop service to London. They will fly to both Heathrow and Gatwick.

Gatwick service begins on July 19 - flights depart Boston at 6:37 pm and land in London at 6:30 am. On the return leg, flights depart London at 12:15 pm and land in Boston at 3:02 pm
Heathrow service begins on August 22 - flights depart Boston at 6:32 pm and land in London at 6:30 am. On the return leg, flights depart London at 8:25 am and land in Boston at 11:13 am pm

Both routes will operate with their new A321LR planes.

Also on the same day they have made an offer to purchase Spirit Airlines. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out.


JetBlue should give up on London and Spirit and spend the next year getting their house in order. My flight was 4 hours late on Friday and they parceled delays out hourly. I am Mosaic on JetBlue and will not longer fly them. They have become a high fare, terribly run airline. Wild expansion and buying other airlines smells like Peoples Express and you know how that ended.
 
JetBlue should give up on London and Spirit and spend the next year getting their house in order. My flight was 4 hours late on Friday and they parceled delays out hourly. I am Mosaic on JetBlue and will not longer fly them. They have become a high fare, terribly run airline. Wild expansion and buying other airlines smells like Peoples Express and you know how that ended.
Feel like there's some FOMO after they lost their bid on virgin america a few years back.

Virgin America would have been a much more natural fit from a branding and product perspective. Spirit is odd.

Though from a route perspective, there's lots of competition between JetBlue and Spirit, especially in Florida and the Caribbean.
 
JetBlue cutting summer flight schedule by 10 percent.
The airline — Logan International Airport’s largest carrier — announced Tuesday that it will be cutting as many as one in 10 flights starting in May, according to WBZ. The culprit? Staffing shortages, coupled with a robust demand for travel as the country emerges from the pandemic.

“Given we anticipate continued industry challenges and heavy demand into the summer, we are planning more conservatively and trying to be proactive where we can with cancellations due to disruptive weather and air traffic control events,” JetBlue said in a statement to WBZ-TV.

 
Does anyone know why Delta moved international departures to Terminal E? Other airlines have international departures out of B and C. As usual for Boston, the Terminal E signs says Delta, not Delta International and I'm sure has confused many visitors.
 
Isn't the fast ferry about 80-90 min? I am not sure this will save too much time door to door and I will imagine it will cost significantly more than the ferry.

Looks like the starting fares are around $275 each way. The ferry is $59. So someone would have to value that 45-55 minutes saved at about $216 (minimum, assuming fares will be higher on some days). There aren't a ton of people who are going to make that switch. I think the real competition here is between Tailwind and Cape Air, not Tailwind and the ferry. Cape Air has flown between Boston and P-Town for some time and fares start at around $119 each way. It might be worth the price difference for a Cape Air flyer to pay the premium to avoid Logan (and arrive right in the heart of P-Town). We'll see. I didn't have high hopes for the Boston-Manhattan flights launching during the pandemic, but those are apparently still going.

*edit* The Globe has an article about this on the home page right now. It said the following which I was sure was a mistake: "With the addition of Provincetown, Tailwind now serves four destinations from the Boston Harbor base: Plymouth, Manhattan, and East Hampton." It's not an error. I checked the website and you can actually fly between Boston and Plymouth with one-way fares at about $75.
 
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Isn't the fast ferry about 80-90 min? I am not sure this will save too much time door to door and I will imagine it will cost significantly more than the ferry.

Website says 90-95 minutes.
 
Looks like the starting fares are around $275 each way. The ferry is $59. So someone would have to value that 45-55 minutes saved at about $216 (minimum, assuming fares will be higher on some days). There aren't a ton of people who are going to make that switch. I think the real competition here is between Tailwind and Cape Air, not Tailwind and the ferry. Cape Air has flown between Boston and P-Town for some time and fares start at around $119 each way. It might be worth the price difference for a Cape Air flyer to pay the premium to avoid Logan (and arrive right in the heart of P-Town). We'll see. I didn't have high hopes for the Boston-Manhattan flights launching during the pandemic, but those are apparently still going.

*edit* The Globe has an article about this on the home page right now. It said the following which I was sure was a mistake: "With the addition of Provincetown, Tailwind now serves four destinations from the Boston Harbor base: Plymouth, Manhattan, and East Hampton." It's not an error. I checked the website and you can actually fly between Boston and Plymouth with one-way fares at about $75.
My understanding is most of the people on Cape Air flights are connecting from other flights into Logan. (Provincetown is not just a local destination.) Tailwind does not really have much utility as a connecting option.
 
My understanding is most of the people on Cape Air flights are connecting from other flights into Logan. (Provincetown is not just a local destination.) Tailwind does not really have much utility as a connecting option.

That's a great point.
 
Also, don't you have to take a boat to the Tailwind plane? That adds some time to the seaplane even if only 5-10 min additional. I don't see a huge time savings here over the ferry.
 
Also, don't you have to take a boat to the Tailwind plane? That adds some time to the seaplane even if only 5-10 min additional. I don't see a huge time savings here over the ferry.

This article details the Boston to New York route. The person who wrote the article noted it took 6 minutes to get to the floating pier.

While the time savings are not massive, there are some that will view saving more than an hour round trip worth it.
 
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Also, don't you have to take a boat to the Tailwind plane? That adds some time to the seaplane even if only 5-10 min additional. I don't see a huge time savings here over the ferry.

Probably not. The plane basically is a boat. In most places it lands, pulls up to a dock and passengers disembark or embark.
 
Probably not. The plane basically is a boat. In most places it lands, pulls up to a dock and passengers disembark or embark.

Except the dock is floating out in the harbor. You need to take a ferry boat from land to reach it.
 
Except the dock is floating out in the harbor. You need to take a ferry boat from land to reach it.

Yeah, and it's actually on the East Boston side, right around where the red circle is below (I think the aerial view is actually barges installing the floating dock). I believe Tailwind has advocated to be able tie up directly at the dock in the Seaport, but to my knowledge, there still hasn't been progress on that front.
floating airport.png
 
Sharing the post by BosDevelop in the Logan Capital Projects thread:

JetBlue will not be launching non-stop service to Vancouver that was planned to commence this summer. Instead, they will offer connecting service via JFK. Who knows if they will give it a shot in 2023? They also will not bring back the seasonal service to Montrose/Telluride.

To expand on the original post, they will also be suspending a number of routes including non-stop service across their network. Boston to San Jose (SJC) will no operate through the summer and Boston to Rochester will see a reduced schedule.

JetBlue has been struggling a bit as of late across their network. As it relates to Boston, Delta has to view this as a chance to steal some business traffic. Anecdotally, my company has shifted all flying away from JetBlue and onto Delta in the last 6 months.
 
Sharing the post by BosDevelop in the Logan Capital Projects thread:

JetBlue will not be launching non-stop service to Vancouver that was planned to commence this summer. Instead, they will offer connecting service via JFK. Who knows if they will give it a shot in 2023? They also will not bring back the seasonal service to Montrose/Telluride.

To expand on the original post, they will also be suspending a number of routes including non-stop service across their network. Boston to San Jose (SJC) will no operate through the summer and Boston to Rochester will see a reduced schedule.

JetBlue has been struggling a bit as of late across their network. As it relates to Boston, Delta has to view this as a chance to steal some business traffic. Anecdotally, my company has shifted all flying away from JetBlue and onto Delta in the last 6 months.

My understanding was that all Montrose/Telluride service is toast, not just Boston. Is that accurate? The YVR loss is unfortunate, but understandable considering what they're experiencing. SJC isn't a shocker considering their presence in elsewhere in that market combined with the lagging demand for business travel. But I agree, it has to be seen as a golden opportunity for Delta.
 

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