Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion
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czsz
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Saying El Al is a safe airline is like saying you have a greater chance of being assassinated than the president because he has the Secret Service. Yeah, you could try and trust this technology, and whatever other security measures they have in place, or you could fly your choice of European airline and probably save money, be able to shop amenities, and not have to worry about being as much of a symbolic target to begin with, the only downside being you might have to hang out in Frankfurt or wherever for an hour.
atlantaden
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My original post was in regards to the cost of starting up a direct flight out of Logan, not the effectiveness of that security (which seems pretty damn effective, however)...my point was only that the high cost of security that EL Al pays to fly each of it's international flights, that the security cost would be one more negative against any positives that flying out of Logan would have! It's all about the bottom line, baby!
dirtywater
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I'm not sure about the potential of this route and there's no way its daily.
I heard of PDEW of 75 for boston-tel aviv and still you would only get 120 per day if you assumed 4 weekly flights.
-The only connections are Eliat, Bangkok, Mumbai, Anman, Jordan (via Royal Jordanian if allowed) and though a bit long but Beijing and Hong Kong
-Non stop flights do stimulate travel BUT its Israel and people do have reservations about going there.
-There is plenty of 1 stop competition that satisfies the United US and Delta frequent fliers though you could earn on American.
-If Turkish jumps into BOS-IST then its another 1-stop option that could be a thorn in the side of EL Al. One of the top 5 connecting destinations for people flying New York-Istanbul on Turkish is Tel Aviv
Delusional.
I find it fascinating that no matter which airline or which city people are talking about, when it comes to Israel flights someone inevitably mentions the area's large Jewish population as justification for a nonstop flight to the holy land. It's like saying BOS-FCO is a no-brainer because of Boston's Catholic ties. Yet, despite having an absolutely massive Catholic population (more than 10x the size of its Jewish contingency), Boston sees mostly less-than-daily Rome service on Alitalia. And that's with a significantly larger hub at FCO and a local market nearly double that of BOS-TLV.
Even accounting for whatever institutional and business ties there might be between Massachusetts and Israel, they most definitely are not enough to sustain meaningful nonstop service. Which, I'm sure, is why the are going for El Al.
There's no need for BOS-TLV when AMS, CDG, FRA, LHR, MUC, ZRH, et. al. exist with plenty of connecting opportunities. If something like BOS-TLV were to really work, El Al would have to provide unique connections to all of Israel's neighbors... all of which (except Egypt) they are prohibited from serving.
Even accounting for whatever institutional and business ties there might be between Massachusetts and Israel, they most definitely are not enough to sustain meaningful nonstop service. Which, I'm sure, is why the are going for El Al.
There's no need for BOS-TLV when AMS, CDG, FRA, LHR, MUC, ZRH, et. al. exist with plenty of connecting opportunities. If something like BOS-TLV were to really work, El Al would have to provide unique connections to all of Israel's neighbors... all of which (except Egypt) they are prohibited from serving.When one of the Gulf carriers comes to Boston, it will be a much bigger feather the cap for Massport and Boston. Emirates offers a much larger amount of onward connections to Central Asia, namely India, and Southeast Asia.
Ron Newman
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I'm surprised that El Al had a safety rating downgrade in 2008 -- any idea why? I don't recall them being involved in any recent accidents.
I don't think Massport, the governor, and the city will deserve credit. Those airlines WANT to serve Boston.
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So which Mideast city gets a BOS nonstop first? So far its been said not TLV because they don't have enough feed (does AA codeshare + B6 interline change that?), and so far none of the Gulf airlines have started service (despite huge regional/Asian feed but weak alliances).
So is Turkish's opportunity the slim gap between the two made up of:
- Being able to connect to TLV as a non-Arab connection
- Having a large "local" population (13m in IST, 73m in Turkey) compared to 2m in Dubai and 8m in all of the UAE.
- Greeks, Jews, and Armenians in Boston, who, though they have no love for the Turks, might still connect on the airline?
If I were a betting man, it would be Emirates with Dubai (DXB) and eventually IST though I do not consider Turkey as part of the Middle East.
Dubai hub claim to fame is feeding to the Indian subcontinent especially up and coming tech secondary destinations like Bangalore. The Indian population in the Boston area doubled from 2000-2010. There will be a small tourism bump as well plus Southeast Asia and even China/Australia connections are possible since Dubai is becoming a major player in the Kangaroo Route (UK to Australia/NZ) now. Though it overflies many Middle East destinations people will still connect to these.
Granted Turkey and Istanbul have much larger populations than Dubai but you need to look at the Turkish Airlines slogan? It's "Globally Yours" They want to cover the world.
Turkey-Boston will have a bump in tourism/business/vfr traffic on both ends (already over 40 people a day each way) and the Istanbul hub can feed to Middle East, primary Indian markets, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Most of Africa. There will be people who may take Turkish to get to Eastern Europe as well especially if the price is right.
More info about what I alluded to earlier with JFK-IST-TLV is listed here: http://www.anna.aero/2012/12/12/the...turkish-airlines-route-network-shopping-list/
Its a good quick read with an informative chart. Tel Aviv is actually the #1 destination that is connected to for those transferring in Istanbul from NYC.
You're forgetting one key difference between Emirates and Turkish: Emirates doesn't need to make money. Like Al Jazeera, it's a place to dump excess oil/gas money while building international influence. If the UAE feels it can increase geopolitical influence by sending new, impressive, shiny Emirates planes to another US city, it will do so regardless of the economics. Turkish Airlines are bound by economics.
The final nail in the coffin for BOS-TLV is that El Al has such a tiny widebody fleet that is stretched as it is on routes to Beijing, Toronto, New York-JFK, Newark, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and Bangkok. But if they're going to add back service to the US, I think they'll go for Chicago, Miami or Washington since each is an important hub located in a larger metropolitan area than BOS.
As for Middle East service from BOS, I think in order of likelihood, we're looking at:
1. Emirates to Dubai (for all the obvious reasons...),
2. Turkish to Istanbul (they've been publicizing the idea for quite a while now),
3. Qatar to Doha (second largest Gulf carrier, joining Oneworld soon so they may be able to work off AA/BA/IB's transatlantic strengths at BOS), or
4. Etihad to Abu Dhabi (may be tempted to be the first Gulf carrier in the market similar to entering Chicago ahead of its competitors).
I would add San Francisco to the list of cities destined to see service to Israel ahead of Boston. Like Miami and Chicago, it is a considerably larger market. As an aside, looking at the numbers from the Brookings report mentioned a few pages ago, it's quite remarkable how much stronger of a market San Francisco is in nearly all parts of Europe and civilized South America.
Ron Newman
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Can El Al's fleet fly nonstop from SFO to Israel? (Would the flight go westbound instead of east?)