Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

Omaja -- I call your attention to my post under

my reply included this tidbit from the FY20111 CAFR


From the FY 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR):
http://www.massport.com/massport/Doc...Y2011_CAFR.pdf



400,000/365 =about 2.5 747's per day if my head math is still any good

The 400K figure is all of Asia, not BOS-NRT; not to mention you won't see anywhere near 100% of any market take the non-stop. To put that into perspective, Boston-Paris saw almost as many passengers in 2010 as all of BOS-Asia (392K) and it only sees one daily nonstop (two in the summer) on A340/747/777 equipment.

As I said earlier, Boston's biggest issue with service to Asia is the myriad of efficient connecting opportunities offered via DTW/EWR/IAD/JFK/ORD/YYZ and, to a much lesser extent, inefficient routings via ATL/LAX/SFO/LHR/CDG/AMS/FRA/etc. Why is that so difficult to believe?
 
Boston never sees 777 service to Paris. Air France may send in a 772 as an irregular sub.

I agree that 100% of any market will never take the non-stop. But having a non-stop will increase stimulation and be a popular option, especially for business travelers. That 400k number, which is surely higher given the fact that the data is dated, will sure increase with a non-stop flight.
 
Boston never sees 777 service to Paris. Air France may send in a 772 as an irregular sub.

The 772 is set up as their default in the scheduling for BOS-CDG and it seems that they've been sending it regularly for the past few weeks if not longer. Though, yes, the A343 is used more frequently. Looks to be switching to the 747 next week.

You're absolutely right about the nonstop being a very convenient option for everyone--most of all business travelers--and it will certainly make a variety of BOS-secondary Asian cities more accessible. But a nonstop BOS-NRT won't do much to the 400K BOS-Asia numbers overall; that will come through organic growth to/from each destination.
 
Air France 777's, never, really? I saw two in the last ten days. Thanks for playing.
 
The 400K figure is all of Asia, not BOS-NRT; not to mention you won't see anywhere near 100% of any market take the non-stop. To put that into perspective, Boston-Paris saw almost as many passengers in 2010 as all of BOS-Asia (392K) and it only sees one daily nonstop (two in the summer) on A340/747/777 equipment.

As I said earlier, Boston's biggest issue with service to Asia is the myriad of efficient connecting opportunities offered via DTW/EWR/IAD/JFK/ORD/YYZ and, to a much lesser extent, inefficient routings via ATL/LAX/SFO/LHR/CDG/AMS/FRA/etc. Why is that so difficult to believe?

Ohmaja -- None of those connections are really very convenient except ORD. For the others if I'm going to go and sit in lounge somewhere it might as well be on the West Coast and at least break-up the long durataion. That's one of the reasons that FRA is so good going to the middle east or India - 7 hours to FRA, couple hours in the Lufthansa lounge enjoying some good beer then 7 hours to Dehli, Almaty, etc.

But nothing beats a non-stop to a major connecting point such as Tokyo -- having what will be one-stop service to many cities in Japan, Korea and China will boost the total number of people who are flying to BOS from Asia. Especially if someone is stopping in several northeast cities -- today they might fly to JFK and then drive to Boston or even fly (but not be counted as the ticket wouldn't link them to Asia) -- next week they might fly to Bos and then head south.
 
Ohmaja -- None of those connections are really very convenient except ORD.

Are you kidding? ORD is the most out of the way of the ones in my convenient list. The number of onward BOS-Asia connections over those hubs shows how strong they are as Asia gateways.

For the others if I'm going to go and sit in lounge somewhere it might as well be on the West Coast and at least break-up the long durataion. That's one of the reasons that FRA is so good going to the middle east or India - 7 hours to FRA, couple hours in the Lufthansa lounge enjoying some good beer then 7 hours to Dehli, Almaty, etc.

It really depends where you are going. Europe is good for southern and western Asia because it is close to the great circle route. BOS-West Coast is a significant detour for BOS-East Asia when you have DTW, ORD, et. al. much closer with service to the biggest destinations. But honestly if the connection is offered, someone will definitely take it no matter how out of the way it may be.

But nothing beats a non-stop to a major connecting point such as Tokyo -- having what will be one-stop service to many cities in Japan, Korea and China will boost the total number of people who are flying to BOS from Asia. Especially if someone is stopping in several northeast cities -- today they might fly to JFK and then drive to Boston or even fly (but not be counted as the ticket wouldn't link them to Asia) -- next week they might fly to Bos and then head south.

True, though I wouldn't expect the overall number to jump significantly from one daily 787--we're only talking 186 seats daily each way.
 
Dubai, Doha. It's a Middle Eastern city starting with a D, so I'll take it.

I wonder if someone in Istanbul is kicking themselves after Turkish Airlines's CEO announced the desire to serve all these cities within the near future yet no concrete plans were ever made. Now it looks like Qatar will be eating their lunch.

Personally, I think Turkish would be a better option given there's a modicum of a Turkish community in the Greater Boston Area, which tends to provide more stability to a route. Can't say I've met too many Qataris over the years. This flight will be strictly for connections to South Asia.
 
Ethnic ties rarely make an ounce of difference. Alitalia struggles at Logan half of the year and the Italian community here is far ahead of the Turkish community in terms of size and wealth, not to mention the business ties(which really matter) are much more significant.
 
Has anyone heard the "trial Balloon"? that American is going to be bought by US Airways?
 
Has anyone heard the "trial Balloon"? that American is going to be bought by US Airways?

Airliners.net is abuzz with the rumors. We shall see if it actually happens.

Personally, I would rather an American-JetBlue-Alaskan Airlines merger than AA and US Airways.
 
^^ Why would you want to destroy Jet Blue by having it merged with AA?

If I'm wrong on this, I'd defer to kmp1284 and others who have more experience than I do in the airline industry, but in my experience Jet Blue is actually fairly well-run. As a passenger, I do not despise everything about the Jet Blue customer experience.

American, on the other hand, is, in my experience, a mess. This is an unfortunate historical fact, given that the legacy airlines (Delta, AA, United, US Airways, plus the now-acquired Continental and Northwest) have a huge fixed-cost base and terrible union and other (e.g., airport) contracts they can't get out of. They're typically basketcases, whereas Jet Blue, Southwest and the other low-cost carriers that came about after deregulation of the industry can actually make intelligent business decisions without being hamstrung by antiquated capital equipment (e.g., airplane fleet), airport agreements or, most importantly, unfortunate agreements with unions.

Unless I'm wrong on something, seems like you'd be killing one of the few decent air options for travelers by merging Jet Blue with AA, no?
 
Airliners.net is abuzz with the rumors. We shall see if it actually happens.

Personally, I would rather an American-JetBlue-Alaskan Airlines merger than AA and US Airways.

Mass:
Jet Blue works
Alaskan works
American -- is bankrupt for a reason -- it doesn't work

Let's see when I first flew from Logan circa 1970 there were:
Eastern
Northeast
Allegheny
Republic
American
TWA
United
Northwest
Branniff
Pan Am

+ some Internationals & the Eastern Shuttle

what happened:
Eastern -- gone
Northeast -- merged into Delta
Allegheny -- merged into US Airways
Republic - merged into US Airways
American -- teetering on the brink
TWA -- merged into American
United -- survivor
Northwest -- merged into Delta
Branniff --- gone
Pan Am -- gone

subsequent to the first list the following came and in some cases went:
Alaska -- survivor
Hughes Airwest -- gone / merged ?
Continental -- merged into United
Southwest -- survivor
AirTrans -- merged into Southwest
Frontier -- gone / merged?
NY Air -- gone
Wold Airways -- gone
Trump Shuttle -- gone
Jet Blue -- Big winner
Virgin US -- ?


My expected list in 2015:

United
Delta
Jet Blue
Southwest
Something else -- merger of American, etc?

+ handful of small US and the Internationals
 
Frontier, the name, is still around, and subsumed Midwest You forgot Mohawk. Can't remember if Air Florida or Piedmont ever flew from Logan.
 
New York Air merged into Continental.
Trump Shuttle became either USAir Shuttle or Delta Shuttle - I don't remember which. (Eastern Shuttle became the other one.)
 
JetBlue merging with AA or Alaska doesn't make sense. JetBlue has a different business model than AA and Alaska.

If AA-US merge, what impact do you see on the Boston market? I'm guessing AA (which would be the name of the merged airline) would stay in OneWorld and leave Star? With AA's and OneWorlds's relationship with JetBlue growing closer, and rumors of Lufthansa selling it's JetBlue stake, could we see US Airways pull-down at Logan?
 

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