Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

Re: construction at Logan, all but the last 100 feet or so of an enclosed connector between A and B are done; all that remains are the final touches on a stretch from the exterior wall at the north end of B into the departure area. Turner's sign indicates that this was done as part of the expanded garage project. It will link the west side of B into the central parking garage.

And there is a pile driver at work on the west end of E for the new gates.

Stel -- I believe that the pile driver work at the West end of E is for the extended hold room and the top-floor lounge space and the newly relocated Gate E12 [formerly E8B]

The construction work for the rest of the reconfigured Gates with new numbers: E11[old 8A], E10[old 7B] is going to mostly be just adjacent to the existing Gate structures

WcLY2mx.png

originally posted by Data

It's also possible that there is some work which is common to the so-called A-380 enhancements and also all of the possible alternatives for the new West Concourse and new gates


JfJsd7M.png

originally posted by Data
 
Last edited:
Norwegian has filed a schedule update that pushes up start dates for Boston-London Gatwick to late March and Boston-Oslo to April while increasing Boston-London to 5 weekly and Boston-Copenhagen to 2 weekly.

Unfortunately there's no Stockholm addition even though Norwegian has submitted Oakland-London Gatwick to the schedule update.

Boston-Cork looks like its on hold until the Norwegian Air International (Irish subsidiary) is given a license by DOT.
 
I cannot believe what kind of a roll Logan has been on in the last 3 years:

JAL - Tokyo Narita
El Al - Tel Aviv
Cathay Pacific - Hong Kong
Hainan Airlines - Beijing and Shanghai
Turkish Airlines - Istanbul
WOW - Reykjavik
SAS - Copenhagen
Norwegian Air Shuttle - Copenhagen, Oslo, London Gatwick
Eurowings - Cologne/Bonn
Emirates - Dubai
Qatar Airways - Doha
Thomas Cook - Manchester
WestJet Encore - Halifax and Toronto Pearson
Copa Airlines - Panama City
Aeromexico - Mexico City

Plus all of the JetBlue expansion to Central America and the Caribbean.


Hopefully Massport can get Terminal E upgraded asap to handle all of this new service and make the experience connecting through E a positive one.

The next airline I'm waiting on is Korean Air. I believe they start taking delivery of their 787s next year. One to watch.

BTW, does Alitalia only fly seasonally?

Also, more of a fantasy question, but any chance Singapore Airlines could come to Boston in the next decade?

http://centreforaviation.com/analys...th-a350-900-ulr-a-strategic-imperative-248462
 
Last edited:
The next airline I'm waiting on is Korean Air. I believe they start taking delivery of their 787s next year. One to watch.

BTW, does Alitalia only fly seasonally?
[/url]

I hope for a Korean carrier myself - Seoul has a massive population to tap into.

Alitalia take about a month and a half off in the winter (around mid Jan to March)

Norwegian keeps tinkering the schedule. The early start for London and Oslo is confirmed but Copenhagen is sticking to a weekly, with Boston-Copenhagen now leaves on Tuesdays, Gatwick appears to be 4 weekly in August.

I wouldn't book anything Copenhagen or London-Gatwick until this is straightened out. There's been rumors of Norwegian starting JFK-Paris Orly airport and it scared Air France into actually launching the route. Maybe they throw Boston in the mix as well. They will have to announce fairly quickly.
 
I hope for a Korean carrier myself - Seoul has a massive population to tap into.

Alitalia take about a month and a half off in the winter (around mid Jan to March)

Thanks for the information on Alitalia. I was wondering why it wasn't showing up in any of ticket sites for January. I wonder how Etihad's 49% stake in Atitalia will impact the airline, and in particular, any long-term effect on their service to Boston.

Korean Air has a massive and perfectly positioned hub in Seoul. Half of their traffic is connecting via China and SE Asia. Boston has to be a desirable market not just on the Boston-Seoul/South Korea O&D end, but the connecting traffic from New England to China/SE Asia.
 
http://media.norwegian.com/us/#/pre...nd-moves-forward-boston-london-launch-1272760

official press release over the changed schedule.

"Due to high demand, the airline has moved forward two of its launch dates out of Boston Logan International Airport: London Gatwick will launch on March 27, 2016, two months earlier than planned; and Oslo will launch on April 2, 2016. To meet the high demand, Norwegian has added one weekly frequency to London, bringing it to five weekly flights, until May 11. Flights to Copenhagen will launch on May 17, as originally scheduled."

I think this is code for "the 787's are arriving quicker than expected so the flights are starting earlier"



Thanks for the information on Alitalia. I was wondering why it wasn't showing up in any of ticket sites for January. I wonder how Etihad's 49% stake in Atitalia will impact the airline, and in particular, any long-term effect on their service to Boston.

Korean Air has a massive and perfectly positioned hub in Seoul. Half of their traffic is connecting via China and SE Asia. Boston has to be a desirable market not just on the Boston-Seoul/South Korea O&D end, but the connecting traffic from New England to China/SE Asia.

Delta and KLM have inked a deal with Jet Airways who is owned by Etihad. Maybe they let the whole supposed subsidy spat go away and team up with Etihad. I though Alitalia was leaving the Joint Venture with Delta, KLM and Air France. Honestly, I don't see much changing with the Rome service.

Agreed on Korean Air having a great hub and the connections but I really think this flight would be great for Boston in terms of economic impact.
 
I wouldn't book anything Copenhagen or London-Gatwick until this is straightened out. There's been rumors of Norwegian starting JFK-Paris Orly airport and it scared Air France into actually launching the route.

Well, I hope you're wrong, I'm booked to fly from Gatwick on September 25 (going to Frankfurt on Icelandair ten days earlier and hitting the Kurpfalz, Munich, and Paris before going to London).
 
Well, I hope you're wrong, I'm booked to fly from Gatwick on September 25 (going to Frankfurt on Icelandair ten days earlier and hitting the Kurpfalz, Munich, and Paris before going to London).

You should be fine now - I saw them add and remove frequencies on their site within a matter of days.

The one change they made in all of this was moving the Tuesday Boston-Gatwick flight to Wednesday and vice versa with the Copenhagen flight.

I wonder how many people like you will fly Icelandair or WOW one way and possibly Eurowings or Norwegian the other way this summer. Mix in a couple easyjet or ryanair flights and you can pretty much go where you want for a lower fare in 2013.
 
Any chance Logan gets in on the 110 daily commercial flights to Cuba from the US announced today?
 
Any chance Logan gets in on the 110 daily commercial flights to Cuba from the US announced today?

From a USA Today article:

"That includes 20 flights a day between the U.S. and Cuba's capital city of Havana, and 10 a day between the U.S. and nine international airports spread across the island."

At first I thought Boston would be a shoe-in for a weekly Havana flight at the minimum. However, the majority of these frequencies have to be to South Florida or NYC but depending on how this agreement is written and if any embargo changes happen (i.e limited pure leisure tourism to Varadero or Cayo Coco is allowed or it goes away completely) then its possible. There's only 10000 Cubans in greater Boston compared to 1.2 million in South Florida. We may see Boston-Varadero before Havana and most likely will be on JetBlue.
 
From a USA Today article:

"That includes 20 flights a day between the U.S. and Cuba's capital city of Havana, and 10 a day between the U.S. and nine international airports spread across the island."
...There's only 10000 Cubans in greater Boston compared to 1.2 million in South Florida. We may see Boston-Varadero before Havana and most likely will be on JetBlue.
If we allocated based on straight-up "population closest to airport" from the picture below, it'd look something like:
12 MIA
2 FLL
2 TPA
1 MCO
1 LAX
1 EWR
and 1 per week to HOU, LAS, RSW, JAX, WAS, NYC, CHI

cuban.JPG


If the DOT wants to spread it a bit between airlines/alliances, and you said 1/4 to each of the Big Three and 1/4 between JetBlue (and Southwest?) I'd expect everyone to gain at AA/MIA's expense, but particularly JetBlue at FLL.

Also while being Cuban is a huge % of demand, there's going to be plenty of other demand from all ethnicities in all big population centers.

Split the South Florida Demands
5 MIA/AA (I'm sure they'd mount 1-stops to PHL, LGA, DCA, ORD, & LAX)
2 MIA/DL (As 1-stops from LGA and ATL)
1 MIA/UA
3 FLL/B6

Then spread it to the hubs (Get UA their 5)
1 LAX/UA
1 EWR/UA
1 IAH/UA
1 IAD/UA (based on "capital-to-capital" demand)

(Get DL their 5)
2 ATL/DL
1 JFK/DL

Then let Southwest (no way they'll pass and let B6 have it)
1 MCO/WN
1 TPA/WN

And then split the 10 to "the provinces" 2 per:
2 MIA/AA
2 ATL/DL (lame local demand but great connections)
2 EWR/IAH UA
2 FLL/JFK B6
2 MCO/TPA WN

So, no, I don't see BOS getting a nonstop to Cuba.
 
Last edited:
So, no, I don't see BOS getting a nonstop to Cuba.

I don't know, I mean, who would have thought that we'd have non-stop service to Martinique and Guadeloupe on Norwegian Airlines of all things, plus non-stops to about every other Caribbean Island destination there is via Jet Blue. Even if it's only one or two non-stops per week, I think it's bound to happen. Frankly, the hold-up for Americans to get back to Havana and Cuba in general as tourists is the lack of high end hotels and resorts. Once the Marriott's, the Hiltons, the Sheratons, etc. set up shop, Cuba will once again become a major tourist destination. Just my two cents worth.
 
who would have thought that we'd have non-stop service to Martinique and Guadeloupe on Norwegian Airlines of all things
Don't confuse un-reglated/lesser-regulated markets with Cuba. Sure, eventually, we'll get Cuba flights just like we've got other Carib flights, but not when slots are so rare as now. [EDIT: OK, maybe JetBlue will throw us a weekly Wednesday beach nonstop, but we're not a good use of a rare slot]

BOS' international growth has been the product of "Open Skies" treaties that the USA has signed with most big economies which impose few or zero limits on who can fly where.

Trips to Cuba are, for now, old-style frequency-limited, and looks much more like how similarly-rare capacity is allocated by the DOT, such as slots at Tokyo Haneda or slots at DCA and gates at DAL.

In those, the DOT looks very carefully at:
1) local O&D sizes
2) promoting competition in onward connecting markets
3) promoting/preserving "national"-level competition
4) (lesser consideration) not re-enforcing fortress hubs (which is often unavoidable given 1, 2, & 3)

For this round of 20/10, its going to feel like the process I sketched above, even if I'm wrong on what it ultimately looks like. And so will the next 20/10. Its going to be a long time before flying to Havana is as freely competitive as flying to Europe or Asia, so it'll be a while before the DOT moves beyond big connecting hubs and Cuban enclaves.
 
If we allocated based on straight-up "population closest to airport" from the picture below, it'd look something like:
12 MIA
2 FLL
2 TPA
1 MCO
1 LAX
1 EWR
and 1 per week to HOU, LAS, RSW, JAX, WAS, NYC, CHI

cuban.JPG


If the DOT wants to spread it a bit between airlines/alliances, and you said 1/4 to each of the Big Three and 1/4 between JetBlue (and Southwest?) I'd expect everyone to gain at AA/MIA's expense, but particularly JetBlue at FLL.

Also while being Cuban is a huge % of demand, there's going to be plenty of other demand from all ethnicities in all big population centers.

Split the South Florida Demands
5 MIA/AA (I'm sure they'd mount 1-stops to PHL, LGA, DCA, ORD, & LAX)
2 MIA/DL (As 1-stops from LGA and ATL)
1 MIA/UA
3 FLL/B6

Then spread it to the hubs (Get UA their 5)
1 LAX/UA
1 EWR/UA
1 IAH/UA
1 IAD/UA (based on "capital-to-capital" demand)

(Get DL their 5)
2 ATL/DL
1 JFK/DL

Then let Southwest (no way they'll pass and let B6 have it)
1 MCO/WN
1 TPA/WN

And then split the 10 to "the provinces" 2 per:
2 MIA/AA
2 ATL/DL (lame local demand but great connections)
2 EWR/IAH UA
2 FLL/JFK B6
2 MCO/TPA WN

So, no, I don't see BOS getting a nonstop to Cuba.

Why does everyone think that non-stops to Cuba are about Cuban Americans traveling?

The flights from Europe are about TOURISTS visiting a large Caribbean island!
 
Why does everyone think that non-stops to Cuba are about Cuban Americans traveling?
Because that's how near-every other international market has been pioneered.

Sorry, but expat communities and affinities are a *big* driver of US International demand, whether you're a US carrier deciding where to go, or a European carrier deciding where to come. The route networks of El Al, or LOT, or Alitalia, or [even Iceland Air to MSP], or Aer Lingus are all, basically, each picking off their biggest ethnic enclaves/affinities.

JetBlue's Carib services from JFK were ideal ethnic-affinity markets that happened to be in range of an A320 from a big concentration of their expats...and had beaches for pasty New Yorkers as a bonus.

Plain old "I speak the language" counts for a lot, too. Its what makes London so vastly preferred by average Americans. Ergo, expect that being native speakers of Spanish is going to make somebody clearly more likely to go to Cuba. That puts Houston and LA and "in play" before, say, Minneapolis or St Louis.

The flights from Europe are about TOURISTS visiting a large Caribbean island!
Europe's planes (from countries that aren't Spain), if they are to fill at all, ever, must fill completely with tourists because there *isn't* an expat or business market (except to/from Spain).

Sure everyone from everywhere likes "the beach" but that's the place you go last, not first. Airlines will always prefer to serve "must fly" markets like business and want-to-see-cousin-Maria-before-we-die. Then comes things like Emirates hauling BOS lobster to Dubai, and hauling priority Asian freight back.

Flights to Cuba will always go to "the highest bidder" and that's going to be driven by (1) expat businesses (2) expat family and then secondary factors like (3) Big hub in big metro and (4) Spanish-speaking businesses & tourists. My analysis incorporates that.

Until the market is free enough to trade on pure "doing business" and "going on vacation", BOS isn't going to be a priority. Note too that what made BOS desirable from a lot of the world was tech-trade-edu stuff--an affinity we aren't going to have with Cuba in the short term.

[Oh, and "tourist" travel is still illegal. If you're a carrier applying for a right to fly to Cuba, you have to pitch one of these are the reason your people are flying:
Travel-related transactions are permitted by general license for certain travel related to the following activities, subject to criteria and conditions in each general license:
• family visits;
• official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations;
• journalistic activity; professional research and professional meetings;
• educational activities;
• religious activities;
• public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions;
• support for the Cuban people;
• humanitarian projects;
• activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes;
• exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials; and
• certain authorized export transactions.

Looking at the list above, the "government" and "foundation" and "journalist" stuff tend to favor WAS, NYC, and LAX for nonstops and then big hubs for this "generalized' Cuba demand. Only "education" screams "Boston" and I'd say that the airlines will be happier accommodating it as connections over their hubs. Sorry, Boston, I just don't see it being our turn]
 
Last edited:
If the DOT wants to spread it a bit between airlines/alliances, and you said 1/4 to each of the Big Three and 1/4 between JetBlue (and Southwest?) I'd expect everyone to gain at AA/MIA's expense, but particularly JetBlue at FLL.

Also while being Cuban is a huge % of demand, there's going to be plenty of other demand from all ethnicities in all big population centers.

Split the South Florida Demands
5 MIA/AA (I'm sure they'd mount 1-stops to PHL, LGA, DCA, ORD, & LAX)
2 MIA/DL (As 1-stops from LGA and ATL)
1 MIA/UA
3 FLL/B6

Then spread it to the hubs (Get UA their 5)
1 LAX/UA
1 EWR/UA
1 IAH/UA
1 IAD/UA (based on "capital-to-capital" demand)

(Get DL their 5)
2 ATL/DL
1 JFK/DL

Then let Southwest (no way they'll pass and let B6 have it)
1 MCO/WN
1 TPA/WN

And then split the 10 to "the provinces" 2 per:
2 MIA/AA
2 ATL/DL (lame local demand but great connections)
2 EWR/IAH UA
2 FLL/JFK B6
2 MCO/TPA WN

So, no, I don't see BOS getting a nonstop to Cuba.

I think Spirit and Silver Airways will be at the table on this as well but DOT may not give any departures to a prop carrier like Silver.

American Airlines will push hard for Los Angeles-Havana. United may prefer higher frequencies at Newark as well.

Also on airliners - someone posted that United owns a lot of Havana-US rights. I have no idea if those will be grandfathered in.
 
Also on airliners - someone posted that United owns a lot of Havana-US rights. I have no idea if those will be grandfathered in.
These are ancient Eastern Airlines rights by way of Texas Air and Continental, yes? Obviously, Continental has done a good job of sitting on ancient rights (like they did keeping 2 gates at DAL Love Field for "offices" for ~25 years). So if you're UA, you're going to make a big deal of these, but I can't see the DOT wanting to center its thinking on CAB / Eddie Rickenbacker era rights, nor on any transactions that'd be of credit to Frank Lorenzo--the Unions would discover afresh how much they hate(d) Lorenzo and would want Obama to kill this tiny legacy. Maybe a Bush woulda but I can't see Obama's DOT going for that. It'd basically mean that Pan Am (AA) and Eastern (UA) would be the only guys flying to Cuba. Yuck.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top