Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

How cool! Boston is 3rd highest in BA's most popular route for business class.


The premise of the article, that Boston is one of BA’s strongest business class markets, doesn’t come as a shock but the passenger numbers for Boston and all of the US routes seem very low.
 
There are also approximately 1,000 students from New England states who attend UW-Madison.
...and then you do this for 10 years, and you've got 10,000 families and 10,000 employers (and probably several hundred academics with connections) and a lot of people with the $ and reasons for travel.
 
Theres a file out there by the FAA or someone that tracks how many trips are made daily between every city in the US with an airport.

So you can see, for example, that 17 people every day make the trip between Boston and Mobile Alabama (made up example).

That answers current demand. Then an airline like spirit can say "we can create demand by offering the trip for $39"
 
The premise of the article, that Boston is one of BA’s strongest business class markets, doesn’t come as a shock but the passenger numbers for Boston and all of the US routes seem very low.
KMP -- the key is the numbers refer to point to point passengers traveling at business class fare
So for Boston Logan to London Heathrow - 18,574 passengers originated in Boston and terminated in London this doesn't count people who arrived via some flight to BOS and continued on by some flight from LHR. For example someone who started a journey in Burlington VT arriving at BOS by flying like a ping pong ball:

  1. 5:48am to 7:44am 1h 56m Burlington Intl. (BTV) to Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)
  2. Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) to Greater Rochester Intl. (ROC)
  3. 1:46pm to 3:09pm Greater Rochester Intl. (ROC) to Logan Intl. (BOS)
  4. and then boarding the overnight to LHR
  5. and then upon arrival in London continuing on to Lerwick [on Shetland Island] from LHR 6:50 AM Heathrow Airport LHR 8:25 AM Aberdeen Airport ABZ
  6. 10:30 AM Aberdeen Airport ABZ 11:30 AM Sumburgh Airport LSI Shetland Island

That flight doesn't count because the origin was BVT and the termination point was LSI
now of course if you arrived at BOS and spend the night in a hotel room and did the same in London before continuing -- then you would have had a BOS-- LHR flight and you would have counted

Or if you boarded a bus in Downtown Burlington VT for Boston South Station Bus Terminal then walked to the Silver Line and took SL1 from South Station to Terminal E then flew BOS - LHR then boarded a Train to Paddington Station followed by a Tube to Victoria Station then walk to the Victoria Bus Terminal board a bus to Aberdeen and then via a ferry to Shetland Island with a final bus to Lerwick -- might take a mite longer but it would count

Somewhat useless statistics
 
KMP -- the key is the numbers refer to point to point passengers traveling at business class fare
So for Boston Logan to London Heathrow - 18,574 passengers originated in Boston and terminated in London this doesn't count people who arrived via some flight to BOS and continued on by some flight from LHR. For example someone who started a journey in Burlington VT arriving at BOS by flying like a ping pong ball:

  1. 5:48am to 7:44am 1h 56m Burlington Intl. (BTV) to Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)
  2. Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) to Greater Rochester Intl. (ROC)
  3. 1:46pm to 3:09pm Greater Rochester Intl. (ROC) to Logan Intl. (BOS)
  4. and then boarding the overnight to LHR
  5. and then upon arrival in London continuing on to Lerwick [on Shetland Island] from LHR 6:50 AM Heathrow Airport LHR 8:25 AM Aberdeen Airport ABZ
  6. 10:30 AM Aberdeen Airport ABZ 11:30 AM Sumburgh Airport LSI Shetland Island

That flight doesn't count because the origin was BVT and the termination point was LSI
now of course if you arrived at BOS and spend the night in a hotel room and did the same in London before continuing -- then you would have had a BOS-- LHR flight and you would have counted

Or if you boarded a bus in Downtown Burlington VT for Boston South Station Bus Terminal then walked to the Silver Line and took SL1 from South Station to Terminal E then flew BOS - LHR then boarded a Train to Paddington Station followed by a Tube to Victoria Station then walk to the Victoria Bus Terminal board a bus to Aberdeen and then via a ferry to Shetland Island with a final bus to Lerwick -- might take a mite longer but it would count

Somewhat useless statistics

No kidding Dr. Obvious. I read the article and fully understand what type of passenger is being counted. All I’m saying is that based on my experiences on this route and other routes on that list those numbers don’t seem accurate.
 
No kidding Dr. Obvious. I read the article and fully understand what type of passenger is being counted. All I’m saying is that based on my experiences on this route and other routes on that list those numbers don’t seem accurate.
How do you based on your experiences on this route know how many people are making flight connections at either end?
 
No kidding Dr. Obvious. I read the article and fully understand what type of passenger is being counted. All I’m saying is that based on my experiences on this route and other routes on that list those numbers don’t seem accurate.
Kmp -- If you think that the numbers are questionable there are two alternatives:
1) they are being deceptive intentionally -- Why
2) they don't know how to count their own passengers -- That's their business

So if neither of those -- then the problem is one of our perception

Here are a couple of tests of the numbers:
#1
How many business class seats are there available between BOS and LHR for each type of aircraft BA is flying on the route?
How many flights per year are there of each of the aircraft types
the rest is arithmetic to get an upper bound assuming all the passengers are point to point
If this number is about 2X the quoted number -- then I'd trust the quoted number

#2
How many total passengers flew the BOS - LHR last year -- that should be an easy number to get
What fraction of the each type of plane's capacity is business class seating -- get some kind of average for the different aircraft types
multiply
once again compare this number to the quoted one
 
Kmp -- If you think that the numbers are questionable there are two alternatives:
1) they are being deceptive intentionally -- Why
2) they don't know how to count their own passengers -- That's their business

So if neither of those -- then the problem is one of our perception

Here are a couple of tests of the numbers:
#1
How many business class seats are there available between BOS and LHR for each type of aircraft BA is flying on the route?
How many flights per year are there of each of the aircraft types
the rest is arithmetic to get an upper bound assuming all the passengers are point to point
If this number is about 2X the quoted number -- then I'd trust the quoted number

#2
How many total passengers flew the BOS - LHR last year -- that should be an easy number to get
What fraction of the each type of plane's capacity is business class seating -- get some kind of average for the different aircraft types
multiply
once again compare this number to the quoted one

From this report about the viability for Long-Haul to Stansted.

O+D from Boston to all London Airports was 1.085 million which is almost 1500 PDEW each day.
Total Business/First class traffic is 42,800 almost 60 PDEW a day. Seems light as Kmp1284 posted above.

The other J/F seats are getting connecting traffic. One market, albeit small, that BA gets some high yielding passengers is Boston-Geneva. See page 4 of this study by a French-Swiss Consulting firm for Boston/Chicago-Geneva viability:

There is also great information on how certain markets have grown over the past few years from the 2011 Brookings report - notably London, Barcelona and Lisbon. The O+D data for London is smaller than the Stansted. I know some MIDT data sources only contain tickets purchased on Global Distribution Systems and not direct with airlines.
 
JetBlue is finally adding another frequency to Phoenix, a morning flight.

BOS - PHX Dep 9:29 am Arr 12:07 pm
PHX - BOS Dep 12:59 pm Arr 9:00 pm

Looks like a very tight turnaround in Phoenix.

Some other changes for their summer 2020 schedule:

Portland increases to 2 daily
Sacramento increases to 1 daily
Oakland increases to 1 daily
San Diego increases to 3 daily
San Jose increases to 2 daily
San Francisco increases to 6 daily
Los Angeles increases to 5 daily
Denver increases to 3 daily
Seattle increases to 3 daily

Between San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, they'll have 9 flights a day to the Bay Area.
 
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For the most part, yes. Oakland and Sacramento were both less than daily. Everything else got an additional daily frequency.

One correction San Diego is up to 4 on some days. Adding to that Alaska is 2 daily as well on the route.

Before 2001 - there was never more than a daily on the route. What a difference 20 years makes.
 
One correction San Diego is up to 4 on some days. Adding to that Alaska is 2 daily as well on the route.

Before 2001 - there was never more than a daily on the route. What a difference 20 years makes.

San Diego is one route Delta is sure to add. Based off of numbers a user on airliners.net posted, Boston to San Diego is one of JetBlue's most profitable routes. Some healthy biotech traffic flies it and it would be a logical add for Delta.

I was also surprised to see Portland go to 2 daily. Summer season is going to see 3 daily flights between JetBlue and Alaska.
 
Austrian to launch Boston-Vienna in April. Article in German. It will go to six weekly by summer. They are still studying this route to be seasonal or not.

 
Do our runways make us a better all-winds/all-weather airport than JFK? (And EWR?)

Seeing all the TATL and JetBlue's new Transcons make me think it is a real pity that so much Boston capacity is wasted on local flying to Greater NYC/PHL (stuff that could be shunted to HSR...because New York and Philadelphia already have plenty of transatlantic capacity of their own)
 
Lol I keep finding myself saying it always comes back to the rail network. I totally agree that the market for shuttle flights between NEC destinations is burgeoned by the expense and reliability (or lack-thereof) of Acela.
 
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If only the people in the flyover states would realize that building a WAS-BOS bullet train is the best way to get themselves the flights from their city to WAS/PHL/NYC/BOS that they are constantly asking for.

And frankly that should be the funding deal: ability to use Air PFCs to build HSR in exchange for a mandate that intra-NEC flying will be reduced by law and the slots re-mandated for flights more than 100 miles any Acela station.
 
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Nice addition here.

With VIE gap filled, all remaining is MXP, ATH, BER/TXL, WSW and BRU ... and we would have a very solid Euro market.
 

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