Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

the best tracker of how quickly/slowly airline passenger traffic is responding to COVID cases, vaccinations, etc. is the TSA daily count which compares 2021 with 2020 and 2019.

I think domestic travel will bounce back quicker than Massport's estimate in January, if only because the pace of vaccinations is accelerating.. California has announced that nearly all restrictions end on June 15. However, because Europe lags badly on vaccinations, I also think the number of passengers crossing the pond will be depressed until 2022.

FWIW, Jamie Dimon, head of JP Morgan Chase, issued his annual letter yesterday. He expects an economic boom through at least 2023..
Airline CEOs are saying that domestic leisure travel has already recovered to 2019 levels. Business and international travel still remains depressed though.
 
Boutique Air announces new daily flights from Logan to Burlington VT from April 29th.
Surprised jetBlue, Delta or American never hopped on this very obvious hole in the market.

Boutique has a very clean, simple to use website. $79 one way.. pretty neat!

 
Boutique Air announces new daily flights from Logan to Burlington VT from April 29th.
Surprised jetBlue, Delta or American never hopped on this very obvious hole in the market.
Boutique has a very clean, simple to use website. $79 one way.. pretty neat!
Boutique is a dang funky airline; they fly mostly EAS routes on what are basically biz charter configured PC-12s. And they tend to run those EAS routes to more destinations that are strictly necessary, and they've got a sideline in car rentals apparently too at those airports. BOS-BTV I think is an excellent choice for them though; there's a lot of Mass students up at UVM, and connecting it to Boston area research definitely can't hurt them. Its also a far enough drive that enough people who do make that trip will choose to fly, given that that's basically Cape Air's model to get to the Vineyard, and the onboard product is lux enough to attract biz travelers who might otherwise charter an air taxi. I suspect they'll do quite well connecting it to Boston. Don't know if the legacy carriers could fill a 50 seat CRL/ERJ though. I think an 8 seat PC-12, or even a 19 seater 1900 would be where you're at here. That said, if this takes off for Boutique, I wouldn't be surprised if a legacy notices and shivs in a 50 seater.

Overall, I'd love to see more of these old-school regional <19 seat turboprop routes. BOS-Quebec, Albany, etc,

Edit: didn't look at the scheduled times. A single daily with a 12:45 arrival & 1:15 return isn't the most useful for business travellers, though would probably be good enough for tourists, students and academics who would probably spend at least a night.
 
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Boutique Air announces new daily flights from Logan to Burlington VT from April 29th.
Surprised jetBlue, Delta or American never hopped on this very obvious hole in the market.

Boutique has a very clean, simple to use website. $79 one way.. pretty neat!

They're competing with Megabus (or Greyhound) which does downtown to downtown in 3hr 45m for $5-$60. In terms of comfort they'll probably win but time wise with getting to and from Logan and security I'm not convinced.
 
They're competing with Megabus (or Greyhound) which does downtown to downtown in 3hr 45m for $5-$60. In terms of comfort they'll probably win but time wise with getting to and from Logan and security I'm not convinced.

It's been a few years since I've done this trip and it looks like it's Megabus now (was Greyhound when I did it and the bus continued to Montreal) and I'm only seeing fares for $60+. It's also running what looks to be twice per week (9:30 departures from Boston). 3:45 is optimistic for a bus that makes 3 stops as traffic can get pretty bad coming/going from Boston and between the Hookset Tolls and 89 split during peak seasons. When I did it, it was closer to 4.5/5 hours.

I flew Boutique once to get to a wedding in the Thousand Islands region of New York. It's not a normal airline experience by any stretch of the imagination. The check-in process is a breeze since even when they're running 3 flights in a day, that's a grand total 24 passengers to process if all of those flights are full. Granted, you're still subject to the TSA screen, but everything about checking in, boarding, closing the cabin doors, and then deplaning is a lot faster. It's blocked at an hour flight time (likely less in practice) and on the BTV side, getting from the curb to the plane is even faster. This has significant advantages to the bus on almost all fronts. The only real downside is security as getting to South Station is comparably convenient/inconvenient to Logan depending on whether you're starting from/arriving to the city or the 'burbs.
 
Burlington is close enough where most people with cars will just drive, so the market is small.
 
It's been a few years since I've done this trip and it looks like it's Megabus now (was Greyhound when I did it and the bus continued to Montreal) and I'm only seeing fares for $60+. It's also running what looks to be twice per week (9:30 departures from Boston). 3:45 is optimistic for a bus that makes 3 stops as traffic can get pretty bad coming/going from Boston and between the Hookset Tolls and 89 split during peak seasons. When I did it, it was closer to 4.5/5 hours.

I flew Boutique once to get to a wedding in the Thousand Islands region of New York. It's not a normal airline experience by any stretch of the imagination. The check-in process is a breeze since even when they're running 3 flights in a day, that's a grand total 24 passengers to process if all of those flights are full. Granted, you're still subject to the TSA screen, but everything about checking in, boarding, closing the cabin doors, and then deplaning is a lot faster. It's blocked at an hour flight time (likely less in practice) and on the BTV side, getting from the curb to the plane is even faster. This has significant advantages to the bus on almost all fronts. The only real downside is security as getting to South Station is comparably convenient/inconvenient to Logan depending on whether you're starting from/arriving to the city or the 'burbs.
Pre-covid I did it once a month, they impressively kept to schedule, in fact they were often early. They also used to do tickets as low as $1, and ran two buses a day every day. Looks like COVID has changed that.
 
Burlington is close enough where most people with cars will just drive, so the market is small.

This. Those who don't have their own vehicle may be better off in terms of time and money renting a car depending how long your trip is.
 
This. Those who don't have their own vehicle may be better off in terms of time and money renting a car depending how long your trip is.

Yep, most just do the drive. But for some people (I’m occasionally in this camp and we are up there at least once per month), it’s long enough to look for someone else to do the driving. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of people traveling between Boston/Burlington each day. Boutique Air is betting that 8 of them (each way) may opt to fly instead. I don’t think it’s a huge reach. Certainly not as huge as JetBlue trying to fill 100 seats on an e190.
 
Has anyone been tracking Breeze Airways' launch this year? They will be a hub-busting carrier looking at undeserved routes and undeveloped airports. The company has said that they will be focusing on routes in Southeast US and Northeast US, and maybe the Southern Plains. While it looks like Charleston maybe be a hub, I wonder if Boston would have a chance at having a route for them in the next couple years and if Boston would be an airport for an undeveloped route.

The founder of Breeze is the same as Westjet and Jetblue and it would be interesting to see Boston as a destination. In understand the use of a gate in Boston may be hard and/or expensive.
 
Has anyone been tracking Breeze Airways' launch this year? They will be a hub-busting carrier looking at undeserved routes and undeveloped airports. The company has said that they will be focusing on routes in Southeast US and Northeast US, and maybe the Southern Plains. While it looks like Charleston maybe be a hub, I wonder if Boston would have a chance at having a route for them in the next couple years and if Boston would be an airport for an undeveloped route.

The founder of Breeze is the same as Westjet and Jetblue and it would be interesting to see Boston as a destination. In understand the use of a gate in Boston may be hard and/or expensive.
I'd probably expect to see them launch PVD services, as that's an airport that lost a lot of destinations over recent years.
 
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Per Massport regulations: "No person, including an air carrier or a foreign air carrier, shall conduct at Hanscom an operation in commercial air passenger service in an aircraft with a seating capacity of greater than 60 seats."
 
Per Massport regulations: "No person, including an air carrier or a foreign air carrier, shall conduct at Hanscom an operation in commercial air passenger service in an aircraft with a seating capacity of greater than 60 seats."

so what im hearing is AA needs to get those CrJ 50 or 44 seaters to PHL?? Lol
 
Per Massport regulations: "No person, including an air carrier or a foreign air carrier, shall conduct at Hanscom an operation in commercial air passenger service in an aircraft with a seating capacity of greater than 60 seats."
What I'd actually like to see is a Logan Express terminal in Concord or near that 2/95 confluence to fill the gap between the Woburn and Framingham terminals. Where exactly you could put it though is a problem.
 
Per Massport regulations: "No person, including an air carrier or a foreign air carrier, shall conduct at Hanscom an operation in commercial air passenger service in an aircraft with a seating capacity of greater than 60 seats."

Ah, that explains it. The rule would need to be 76 pax for it to make any sense these days.
 
If you can stay in T5 LHR is great, the second you have to transfer terminals it's a nightmare. The BOS-LHR BA flights all use T5 so I don't mind them, but most other carriers including AA don't use T5 so it becomes a transfer nightmare.

Due to COVID and LHR closing T3, AA has moved to T5 as of July 2020. The move is permanent, and actually for those of us originating in London with oneworld status the move to T5 is a loss with less attractive lounge options (overcrowded BA vs. superior partner offerings at Cathay Pacific and QANTAS). But yes this does make connections between AA<>BA more seamless although if it were me even as a oneworld Emerald Exec Plat if I needed to connect in a European gateway Id avoid LHR whenever possible for all the queues, document checks, etc. The experience in Barajas (Madrid) or the Star Alliance hubs is much less cumbersom.
 
Big Expansion by JetBlue and Amercian in their new-ish partnership.

JetBlue Note many of the Jetblue flights are being phased in by Summer 2022.

San Antonio
Kansas City
Milwaukee
Asheville

and their first Canadian destination Vancouver!!!!!


Most of these are 2022 except San Antonio which is set for October.

American

Start dates are unclear.

St. Louis (resumption)
Toronto (resumption)
Cincinnati
All Boston-Los Angeles flights to have flagship service A321's. by 11/2

 

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