Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

adamh8297 said:
That's a half truth --- in proportion to its O+D its small but I've read that up to 33% of passengers on International flights are connecting (depends on flight- A JetBlue Boston-Aruba flight has a lot less connections than a Boston-Paris flight on Delta/AirFrance). There were a lot of international connections during American's peak at Logan as well.
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The IcelandAir / JetBlue relationship is driving a lot of connections.

Every time I come in on IcelandAir, there are a significant number of connecting passengers trying to figure out how to get to Terminal C after Customs.
 
On my last pass through Logan I noticed a few things mostly for our best photogs:
  • the highest available vantage point in Logan is the top floor [#10] of the new addition to Central Parking -- some excellent views with relatively few obstructions in any direction
  • the A380-related project is Big and moving along quickly
  • missed opportunity to put a roof [with solar panels ?] on top of the section of the garage closest to Terminal C and then there could be a covered connection through Central Parking amongst all the terminals
    img_logan_international_airport_parking_garage_aerial_view_md.jpg
 
whighlander said:
the highest available vantage point in Logan is the top floor [#10] of the new addition to Central Parking -- some excellent views with relatively few obstructions in any direction
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Quite a nice view

z336NH4.jpg
 
What share of BOS traffic is going to Acela markets? From time to time the case had been made that the cheapest way to add long haul capacity at BOS may be to swap short haul flying to rail.
 
Arlington said:
What share of BOS traffic is going to Acela markets? From time to time the case had been made that the cheapest way to add long haul capacity at BOS may be to swap short haul flying to rail.
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Pretty sure United has, or at least had as Continental, codeshare with Amtrak at some point.
 
Texasian said:
Pretty sure United has, or at least had as Continental, codeshare with Amtrak at some point.
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Yes, United still offers the following connections at EWR:
  • ZFV – Philadelphia 30th Street
  • ZTF – Stamford, CT
  • ZVE – New Haven, CT
  • ZWI – Wilmington, DE

That's sort of illustrative of my point, but more on the prop operating cost side...for years now, this has been a better way for UA (and CO before that) to offer short-haul connections than to actually fly puny beechcraft 1900Ds (or whatever) on this. (there was also a time c. 1997 when either EWR-AVP or EWR-ABE was actually a bus). The *airline* could decide that these small-and-short markets were a waste of a slot & gate, but the airport couldn't do much to encourage such thinking.


But I'd still be interested in %NEC at BOS, and, as a matter of public policy, whether Massport would be better off promoting/speeding Acela trips.

It's also a "bad thing" that Congress forbade using PFCs for any off-airport projects (like intercity rail) but somehow WMAA managed to spend IAD/DCA money on WMATA's DC Metro Silver Line
 
Philly is probably the sweet spot for shifting share. My hunch is that almost anyone flying to lga or Nyc is doing it because they have a connecting flight - departing from Westwood and arriving in Manhattan on the train is just that much more competitive. Anyone else must have a 9am meeting north of 34th street.

Dca on the other hand is still pretty far away on the train. I wonder if connections at PHL are declining now also given the Usair - I.e operators at both ends of BOS-PHL are interested in shifting share to rail.
 
Arlington said:
Yes, United still offers the following connections at EWR:
  • ZFV – Philadelphia 30th Street
  • ZTF – Stamford, CT
  • ZVE – New Haven, CT
  • ZWI – Wilmington, DE

That's sort of illustrative of my point, but more on the prop operating cost side...for years now, this has been a better way for UA (and CO before that) to offer short-haul connections than to actually fly puny beechcraft 1900Ds (or whatever) on this. (there was also a time c. 1997 when either EWR-AVP or EWR-ABE was actually a bus). The *airline* could decide that these small-and-short markets were a waste of a slot & gate, but the airport couldn't do much to encourage such thinking.


But I'd still be interested in %NEC at BOS, and, as a matter of public policy, whether Massport would be better off promoting/speeding Acela trips.

It's also a "bad thing" that Congress forbade using PFCs for any off-airport projects (like intercity rail) but somehow WMAA managed to spend IAD/DCA money on WMATA's DC Metro Silver Line
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Honestly, as a frequent traveler I think the Logan to Amtrak is the worst from a convenience and time standpoint. Imagine flying in from overseas, going through customs and then gathering your bags, taking a cab or the silver line while lugging your bags to south station to board an amtrak that takes 3.5hrs at best to NYC and 5 hours to Philly on a good day and that's if everything works perfectly. It's a niche product at best that would have expanded if there were demand. Maybe if Logan and South Station were connected or walkable and Amtrak had faster more reliable and more frequent train service it might be plausible to some select destinations. You could make the case for Providence, New Haven or maybe even Stamford but then again you'd be much better off renting a car or getting a driver.

Even in Europe where you've got a lot of rail there are few places it would make sense to switch from plane to train for anything over 3hrs drive away unless they don't have air service (a la Zurich and take the train to St Anton) but here on the East Coast where you could fly direct or you've got plenty of regional flights. Then you have the whole rental car convenience at the airport and Amtrak looks even less appealing.
 
^ Sorry we've gotten sidetracked. My proposal/question is not that the train should offer connections at BOS. (we merely noted that it does at EWR, partly as a way of saying "even airlines themselves understand that trains can be a better way of making certain trips" and "airlines understand that the economics of short trips sometimes price such trips out of airports. We also see this at DAL, where Southwest is naturally trimming short trips in order to devote more resources to semi-transcon trips now that the latter are legal there (since 2014))

In my case, I'm musing on the question of whether Massport should disfavor short O&D trips from BOS and whether there's any way to systematically favor O&D Amtrak trips from Boston.

Frankly, the TSA's "arrive 2 hours before domestic flights" is kind of a test of this, too: a policy that makes short trips relatively more "expensive" (in terms of people's time).
 
My experience with southbound Acelas is that 85-90 percent of the train empties at Penn Station; most of the boardings are from Back Bay, Westwood, and South Station in that order. Very few board at Providence, New Haven, or Stamford, and those typically take the seats of passengers leaving the train.

The 'problem' with your suggestion is that AMTRAK's frequency between NYC and BOS is capped, F-line to Dudley could explain far better than I whether there is potential in the future to increase capacity.

Also, longer trainsets would increase the number of seats, and that will occur with the replacement trains for the current Acelas.

I can't speak to the Regionals, but I expect they do not offer competition to shuttle flights.

Finally, I believe the number of flights at Logan has dropped in recent years.
 
Arlington said:
^ Sorry we've gotten sidetracked. My proposal/question is not that the train should offer connections at BOS. (we merely noted that it does at EWR, partly as a way of saying "even airlines themselves understand that trains can be a better way of making certain trips" and "airlines understand that the economics of short trips sometimes price such trips out of airports. We also see this at DAL, where Southwest is naturally trimming short trips in order to devote more resources to semi-transcon trips now that the latter are legal there (since 2014))

In my case, I'm musing on the question of whether Massport should disfavor short O&D trips from BOS and whether there's any way to systematically favor O&D Amtrak trips from Boston.

Frankly, the TSA's "arrive 2 hours before domestic flights" is kind of a test of this, too: a policy that makes short trips relatively more "expensive" (in terms of people's time).
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Why should Massport discourage passengers from traveling (and carriers operating) short stage length flights? The airlines are their tenants, they provide usage of a facility and can do as they please so long as they comply with FAA, DOT, and other authorities. No regular experienced traveler arrives two hours early for a domestic flight unless they have to check-out of a hotel room, meeting ended early, traffic wasn't as bad as they anticipated, etc. With Pre-Check I can arrive 45-60 mins before departure on AA B-2 (30-36) and have no issues.
 
Arlington said:
In my case, I'm musing on the question of whether Massport should disfavor short O&D trips from BOS and whether there's any way to systematically favor O&D Amtrak trips from Boston.
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Keep in mind that with Logan, you can't necessarily trade one for the other given the limitations/restrictions on the various runways.

You can't get rid of GA flights, Cape Air, the regional operations, etc and have a bunch of slots for larger aircraft, because in many configurations those aircraft aren't really competing for slots.
 
CSTH said:
Philly is probably the sweet spot for shifting share. My hunch is that almost anyone flying to lga or Nyc is doing it because they have a connecting flight - departing from Westwood and arriving in Manhattan on the train is just that much more competitive. Anyone else must have a 9am meeting north of 34th street.

Dca on the other hand is still pretty far away on the train. I wonder if connections at PHL are declining now also given the Usair - I.e operators at both ends of BOS-PHL are interested in shifting share to rail.
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Last year I flew one way to Philly- cheaper and faster than Amtrak... took Amtrak to NYC from Philly, and flew out of JFK to BOS, once again cheaper and faster. And I may have not used Acela, but we weren't even out of Philly before our train stopped for 2 hours to rescue passengers from a disabled train. Amtrak needs some serious upgrades before I see it as being viable.
 
Arlington said:
^ Sorry we've gotten sidetracked. My proposal/question is not that the train should offer connections at BOS. (we merely noted that it does at EWR, partly as a way of saying "even airlines themselves understand that trains can be a better way of making certain trips" and "airlines understand that the economics of short trips sometimes price such trips out of airports. We also see this at DAL, where Southwest is naturally trimming short trips in order to devote more resources to semi-transcon trips now that the latter are legal there (since 2014))

In my case, I'm musing on the question of whether Massport should disfavor short O&D trips from BOS and whether there's any way to systematically favor O&D Amtrak trips from Boston.

Frankly, the TSA's "arrive 2 hours before domestic flights" is kind of a test of this, too: a policy that makes short trips relatively more "expensive" (in terms of people's time).
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Gotcha - I see what you were saying. I think it's a broader discussion on resource allocation. There's a whole debate you could have about diverting air related funding to build a true high speed network on the east coast corridor so that the service becomes compelling enough to take market share from the regional flights to free up space. In hypothetical world, if you had Boston to DC in Japanese style high speed rail, you'd be bananas to want to fly to NY, Philly or DC. Obviously that would clear a massive amount of slots for take off and landing that could be allocated to other destinations not serviced by train. The problem has always been the insane land acquisition costs to make this happen and the fact that our only regional rail service is probably the most poorly managed in the western world. People always underestimate the land acquisition costs (we have eminent domain but you still have to pay "fair" value).

Hmmm....maybe that Hyperloop running on top of 95 would do the trick!
 
LH421 said:
Why should Massport discourage passengers from traveling (and carriers operating) short stage length flights?
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There are two reasons:
1) PFCs that the airport collects are per-capita, and short trips tend also to operate on smaller aircraft but still use 1 gate and 1 slot (or are certainly less gate-efficient and slot-efficient than bigger planes) Short prop trips make a low-return use of the airport's capital based on per-passenger fees.
2) Landing fees are collected per-weight of aircraft, meaning that GA and small stuff (short) pay low fees despite needing (roughly) the same amount of admin & ATC and taxiway space. So Short trips make a low-return use of the airport's capital based on per-pound landing fees.

In the mid 1990s (and the heyday of Business Express) Logan was the poster child for how the fee structure based on weight and passengers effectively subsidized congestion by not making small planes (Cape Air & BizEx) pay fees that was actually proportionate to the facilities they were using.

The non-solution solution was to shunt the small stuff to the new Runway 14-32. This didn't end the net subsidy, but it at least lessened the congestion costs which the small planes on short flights had imposed on the rest of the airport.

Short trips and small planes go together because short trips must be served frequently in order to compete with the automobile. While a short market may have a large number of passengers, they demand lots of frequency or otherwise travelers think "why am I waiting 3 hours to board a 1 hour flight in order to save 3 hours of driving?" This results in the short markets being chopped up into small planes so as to cover as many hours of the day as possible.
 
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Boston did not get any Cuba flights. The emphasis has clearly been on Cuban populations. Of the 20 available r/t they went:

14 (70%) to Florida
6 Miami
6 Fort Lauderdale
2 rest of Florida (MCO & TPA)​

3 to NYC (2 JFK & 1 EWR)
1 each to LAX, ATL, & CLT (and a Saturday IAH)

Earlier, the DOT had announced the "not Havana" awards, which mostly went to Fort Lauderdale (JetBlue, Silver, & Southwest) and Miami (American), with Frontier and Sun Country getting MSP, ORD, and PHL routes.
 
TAP has joined Aer Lingus and Emirates in departing from Terminal C at Logan and not from Logan Terminal E. A Business Class lounge has been built to accommodate passengers near the international gates. JetBlue occupies most of the other gates in that terminal. JetBlue has a code-sharing agreement with TAP and a number of other international carriers for connecting flights.

A new passenger connector is expected to open next month [July] for passengers using the two terminals.
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article dated 6/15/2016
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/06/...-neeleman-mr-airline-tap-airline-of-portugal/
 
Rumors are flying that JetBlue plans to return to Atlanta in September of 2017. If that does indeed happen, it's pretty much a guarantee that Logan will see flights. Someone over on airliners.net posted this article: http://www.ajc.com/news/business/jetblue-plans-atlanta-flights-in-17/nrts2/

Talking about 16 daily flights which I would guess get spread between Boston, JFK, DCA, FLL and MCO to start.
 
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