jsteeves3 wrote:

iyerhari wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

Denver??

B6 and WN both fly to DEN in addition to UA for sure. IAH is served only by UA - B6 and WN fly to HOU.

He stated on legacy carriers...

I don't see why any legacy airline would start it. Neither DL or AA would be flying from a hub, and B6, WN and UA fly BOS to Houston there's no need for another one.

NickolayAv wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

iyerhari wrote:

B6 and WN both fly to DEN in addition to UA for sure. IAH is served only by UA - B6 and WN fly to HOU.

He stated on legacy carriers...

I don't see why any legacy airline would start it. Neither DL or AA would be flying from a hub, and B6, WN and UA fly BOS to Houston there's no need for another one.

BOS is a DL focus city and has many non-hub routes to and from BOS.

I think if DL sees it can make more money utilizing aircraft on BOS-IAH-BOS or BOS-DEN-BOS verse other routes they will allocate planes and crews to operate the routes. That said if they want to be competitive in these markets they will need to run atleast twice daily. Early morning departures from IAH-BOS and a BOS-IAH and late afternoon or early evening departures from both IAH and BOS same with DEN or any other city pair they felt needed to be served

iyerhari wrote:

NickolayAv wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

He stated on legacy carriers...

I don't see why any legacy airline would start it. Neither DL or AA would be flying from a hub, and B6, WN and UA fly BOS to Houston there's no need for another one.

BOS is a DL focus city and has many non-hub routes to and from BOS.

I know, but I don't see DL entering a route where 3 other airlines already fly to the city especially with DL not having a large presence in Houston.

bagoldex wrote:

NickolayAv wrote:

bagoldex wrote:

Neither China Eastern nor Air China, as you mentioned earlier, have the right planes for the routes. I think the more plausible outcome is that they remain unserved and Korean jumps on Boston-Seoul.

Air China has 787-9s with 4 more seats than Hainan's 787-9 and honestly I think that BOS-PEK could easily handle a 777-300ER, China Eastern is slightly harder, but they are receiving 787-9s soon which they could use, this would be an upgauge from the 788 of HU, but it could probably handle it, especially with more connectivity through PVG than HU could offer.

From the article posted above, it seems as though Hainan's teetering on the edge. They might be filling the seats but unless you have some inside info that demonstrates Boston to be a uniquely profitable market in a network that's hemorrhaging, I don't think anyone's going to rush in after them.

If the Boston to China routes were not making money for the company and just filling the seats, then why would they continually upgauge and increase frequency on the route and add new routes?

Is DL in a position, with their A359, to pick up China if HU waved the white flag?

chrisnh wrote:

Is DL in a position, with their A359, to pick up China if HU waved the white flag?

Just to clarify, you're asking whether DL would fly BOS-PEK/PVG? They've had trouble with the routes out of SEA, which is much closer with a lot more feed, so I can't imagine a scenario where they would start any BOS-China routes. If DL doesn't think JFK-PEK/PVG can work - even considering the greater competition - there's no way a flight that is equally as long with exponentially less connecting opportunities would be on the radar.

Duplicate - please delete.

I think decently sized market is fair game for DL from BOS in the lower 48. I think they would return to DFW before HOU/IAH though.

JRL3289 wrote:

chrisnh wrote:

Is DL in a position, with their A359, to pick up China if HU waved the white flag?

Just to clarify, you're asking whether DL would fly BOS-PEK/PVG? They've had trouble with the routes out of SEA, which is much closer with a lot more feed, so I can't imagine a scenario where they would start any BOS-China routes. If DL doesn't think JFK-PEK/PVG can work - even considering the greater competition - there's no way a flight that is equally as long with exponentially less connecting opportunities would be on the radar.

It would be ICN or PVG if they were to even consider East Asia. ICN would be more likely (shorter - better hub for connections - JV etc.)

adamh8297 wrote:

It would be ICN or PVG if they were to even consider East Asia. ICN would be more likely (shorter - better hub for connections - JV etc.)

+1. I thought that BOS-ICN would have been the next logical East Asia route after NRT was established. I've been waiting for that announcement for 4 or 5 years now. It's amazing to think that there'll be a BOS-Chengdu link before ICN.

hinckley wrote:

adamh8297 wrote:

It would be ICN or PVG if they were to even consider East Asia. ICN would be more likely (shorter - better hub for connections - JV etc.)

+1. I thought that BOS-ICN would have been the next logical East Asia route after NRT was established. I've been waiting for that announcement for 4 or 5 years now. It's amazing to think that there'll be a BOS-Chengdu link before ICN.

But I still believe that the BOS-ICN route will happen sooner(hopefully) or later, I think it's to big of an O/D route to not start at some point. Unfortunately, now they will have to rely a lot more on O/D traffic than connecting Asia, because of the BOS-Asia market being almost saturated.

JRL3289 wrote:

chrisnh wrote:

Is DL in a position, with their A359, to pick up China if HU waved the white flag?

Just to clarify, you're asking whether DL would fly BOS-PEK/PVG? They've had trouble with the routes out of SEA, which is much closer with a lot more feed, so I can't imagine a scenario where they would start any BOS-China routes. If DL doesn't think JFK-PEK/PVG can work - even considering the greater competition - there's no way a flight that is equally as long with exponentially less connecting opportunities would be on the radar.

The short answer is no, and it has nothing to do with any weakness in SEA or anywhere else. Its just that there aren't any more authorities available for US carriers to operate between the US and PVG and PEK.

The bilateral currently gives the Chinese more latitude than the US carriers, not necessarily b/c of poor negotiating from the US but because UA/DL/AA have less interest in operating to anyplace other than PEK and PVG and then they want to make sure they are running from their hub to those cities to maximize traffic and flow. Only UA does interior/secondary China with service to CTU from SFO. Therefore they are limited to the 20 slots they have I'm pretty sure UA has 10 frequencies, DL has 6 and AA has 4. If more came open, I'm guessing DL would want to add them for something like LAX-PEK (a route they wanted and lost to AA) or JFK-PVG before adding anything from BOS.

As others have stated, most likely DL move is KE code-share to ICN. People here, on FlyerTalk and other travel sites say ICN is a wonderful place to connect. I've only donethe NRT thing in Asia, so can't speak to ICN but on the surface it looks like a better way to interior China than a PVG or PEK route (if you're from BOS and trying to stay on SkyTeam and/or earn DL credit).

I had an early AM departure on B6 this week that went out of gate E3; it looked like B6 was using E1 as well (there was a Porter Q400 RON at E2). It was my first time seeing JetBlue at Terminal E for a non-international flight; is that new? I assume they can only do it for the early morning flights.

JetBlue leases Gates E1 & E3 from 12a-12p daily since December & February respectively.

jsteeves3 wrote:

iyerhari wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

Denver??

B6 and WN both fly to DEN in addition to UA for sure. IAH is served only by UA - B6 and WN fly to HOU.

He stated on legacy carriers...

WN is a legacy carrier.

So what’s the problem with BOS-ICN? What’s the wait for? If CX can make BOS-HKG work, why KE not BOS-ICN?

airbazar wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

iyerhari wrote:

B6 and WN both fly to DEN in addition to UA for sure. IAH is served only by UA - B6 and WN fly to HOU.

He stated on legacy carriers...

WN is a legacy carrier.

WN is not a legacy carrier... it's a low cost airline

jsteeves3 wrote:

airbazar wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

He stated on legacy carriers...

WN is a legacy carrier.

WN is not a legacy carrier... it's a low cost airline

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_carrier

Interesting details and i did not know the rules that constitute a legacy carrier. In addition to the US3, it also includes AS, and HA.

I think the KE issue has more to do with having the right plane. I wouldn’t be surprised to see KE use a 789. But they only have 5 and 1 on order.

jsteeves3 wrote:

airbazar wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

He stated on legacy carriers...

WN is a legacy carrier.

WN is not a legacy carrier... it's a low cost airline

How old are you? WN has been around since long before the deregulation act of 1978. Low cost or not has absolutely nothing to do with being a legacy or not. It's the age of the airline that deems it a legacy carrier or not. What's next? AS is not a legacy carrier?

airbazar wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

airbazar wrote:

WN is a legacy carrier.

WN is not a legacy carrier... it's a low cost airline

How old are you? WN has been around since long before the deregulation act of 1978. Low cost or not has absolutely nothing to do with being a legacy or not. It's the age of the airline that deems it a legacy carrier or not. What's next? AS is not a legacy carrier?

Is the attitude really necessary? How about an explanation of what makes a legacy instead of the passive-aggressive insults.

My understanding is this: Officially a legacy carrier is one that had inter-state and/or international service prior to the deregulation of 1978, meaning the Big Three as well as Alaska, Hawaiian and Southwest are all technically "legacy carriers." However, these days, many people interchange the terms "legacy carrier" and "full-service" carrier. A full-service carrier is typically one that offers at least two cabin products (including either first or business) and has a full route structure (aka international service and a regional subcarrier). This is in direct comparison to LCCs and ULCCs which generally only offer one cabin product and little if any regional services; although many do offer some international services. JetBlue, Allegiant, Frontier, and Spirit would all be LCCs. Southwest is both a legacy carrier and an LCC.

I could have some of the details wrong but I think that's the basic idea.

WN is both a legacy and a low cost carrier depending on the market. If there is little to incentive, their fares are significantly higher.

WN wanted nearly $700 r/t for the lowest priced PVD-LAS flights. They are still riding on years of having created the illusion of lower fares and since they don’t participate in GDS, many people go book with them assuming it will be the lowest.

They were be an LCC in markets where they need to be, and a legacy in markets where they can be.

airbazar wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

airbazar wrote:

WN is a legacy carrier.

WN is not a legacy carrier... it's a low cost airline

How old are you? WN has been around since long before the deregulation act of 1978. Low cost or not has absolutely nothing to do with being a legacy or not. It's the age of the airline that deems it a legacy carrier or not. What's next? AS is not a legacy carrier?

14 bc ur asking... U might want to read this article before u make these assumptions (as with all the other articles stating that the legacies are the big 3). Low cost is actually the opposite of a legacy carrier and does have a direct comparison to each other. Alaska is neither a low cost airline nor a legacy (same thing with Hawaiian). These airlines are too small to be a legacy airline. Age has nothing to do with the grouping titles of airlines...

jsteeves3 wrote:

airbazar wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

WN is not a legacy carrier... it's a low cost airline

How old are you? WN has been around since long before the deregulation act of 1978. Low cost or not has absolutely nothing to do with being a legacy or not. It's the age of the airline that deems it a legacy carrier or not. What's next? AS is not a legacy carrier?

14 bc ur asking... U might want to read this article before u make these assumptions (as with all the other articles stating that the legacies are the big 3). Low cost is actually the opposite of a legacy carrier and does have a direct comparison to each other. Alaska is neither a low cost airline nor a legacy (same thing with Hawaiian). These airlines are too small to be a legacy airline. Age has nothing to do with the grouping titles of airlines...

Size has nothing to do with being classified as legacy or not. I sent across the Wiki link on the classification of legacy carrier and it is solely based on the definition of operating prior or during the timt of deregulation. There are many carriers who no longer exist as they were taken over by the primarly US3 carriers. Hence AS and HA are legacy carriers. The only exception is WN and there was a thread that Chris from our thread has asked why WN is not classified as a legacy carrier. You can google it and see the thread sometime from 2004.

iyerhari wrote:

jsteeves3 wrote:

airbazar wrote:

How old are you? WN has been around since long before the deregulation act of 1978. Low cost or not has absolutely nothing to do with being a legacy or not. It's the age of the airline that deems it a legacy carrier or not. What's next? AS is not a legacy carrier?

14 bc ur asking... U might want to read this article before u make these assumptions (as with all the other articles stating that the legacies are the big 3). Low cost is actually the opposite of a legacy carrier and does have a direct comparison to each other. Alaska is neither a low cost airline nor a legacy (same thing with Hawaiian). These airlines are too small to be a legacy airline. Age has nothing to do with the grouping titles of airlines...

Size has nothing to do with being classified as legacy or not. I sent across the Wiki link on the classification of legacy carrier and it is solely based on the definition of operating prior or during the timt of deregulation. There are many carriers who no longer exist as they were taken over by the primarly US3 carriers. Hence AS and HA are legacy carriers. The only exception is WN and there was a thread that Chris from our thread has asked why WN is not classified as a legacy carrier. You can google it and see the thread sometime from 2004.

More over, Low Cost and Legacy are NOT mutually exclusive. WN is unique in that their vision for the LCC model was unique in a time when full service was the norm. They basically invented the LCC but that doesn't make them any less of a legacy carrier than AA, UA, or DL. In fact today one can argue the term Low Cost make little sense as most legacy carriers have brought their operating costs down enough to similar levels as those of the so called low cost carriers.

And WN’s costs have increased as they’ve grown. Most industry analysts stopped considering southwest to be a LCC about half a decade ago.

Here is an article from Bloomberg on that topic (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ost-leader) and you can find many others.

tlecam wrote:

And WN’s costs have increased as they’ve grown. Most industry analysts stopped considering southwest to be a LCC about half a decade ago.

Here is an article from Bloomberg on that topic (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ost-leader) and you can find many others.

I personally find it very hard to call WN a LCC. Their prices are rarely SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the US3, at least from BOS. Service wise they offer a snack like the US3, and let you check luggage for free on domestic flights, unlike the US3. They only ways WN is a LCC, is it seat assignment policy, not having a first/business class and flying to secondary airport, MDW vs. ORD, HOU vs. IAH. As the US3 continue introducing "basic economy" practices it will continue to blur the line of how a "Legacy airline" should be defined.

tlecam wrote:

I think the KE issue has more to do with having the right plane. I wouldn’t be surprised to see KE use a 789. But they only have 5 and 1 on order.

Pretty sure KE ordered 10 787-9s

FromCDGtoSYD wrote:

tlecam wrote:

I think the KE issue has more to do with having the right plane. I wouldn’t be surprised to see KE use a 789. But they only have 5 and 1 on order.

Pretty sure KE ordered 10 787-9s

Per the Boeing Order book, they ordered 1 787-8 (delivered) and 10 787-9's of which 5 have been delivered thus far.

Side note, it's interesting that in the 787 program, per their last update from January, Boeing were almost exactly 1/2 way through their deliveries. 1,294 ordered, 644 delivered and 650 left to go. I suspect that may switch in Feb or March.

I wonder if JetBlue will ever start (seasonal) BOS/JFK-PVR. Seems there is plenty demand

Dieuwer wrote:

I wonder if JetBlue will ever start (seasonal) BOS/JFK-PVR. Seems there is plenty demand

I agree. Honestly, it surprises me that BOS has only 2 destinations in Mexico, I think another destination such as PVR could do very good from BOS.

Dieuwer wrote:

I wonder if JetBlue will ever start (seasonal) BOS/JFK-PVR. Seems there is plenty demand

I don't think there's much demand from Boston. PVR is much more popular with folks from the west coast of the US.

NickolayAv wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

I wonder if JetBlue will ever start (seasonal) BOS/JFK-PVR. Seems there is plenty demand

I agree. Honestly, it surprises me that BOS has only 2 destinations in Mexico, I think another destination such as PVR could do very good from BOS.

Add SJD as well. The numbers are there for either route to be served weekly from BOS. PVR/SJD had bigger numbers in 2011 than UVF/POP/BGI (slightly higher than PVR) /LIR and are now all served.

When B6 BOS-LIR was announced I thought B6 BOS-SJD was going to happen sooner rather than later since its a 2300mi niche route. The extra 200 miles must be a turn-off to B6 - that's the only way I can explain it.

For the legacies - better off going 1400-2000 miles to Caribbean destinations - better RASM by far.

Besides distance there's another problem with SJD - late December and January is somewhat a cooler time there. Its not as warm as the Caribbean both air/water.


EDIT: Also out of the top 10 CSA's in the USA, BOS/PHL/MIA do not have SJD/PVR service. WAS only has SJD but at both IAD and BWI.

United does EWR-PVR Sa-only in regular season, multiple weeklies during high season. Not sure why JetBlue can't do it (from JFK that is in this case). In fact, they ought to be able to steal traffic from UA.

Dieuwer wrote:

United does EWR-PVR Sa-only in regular season, multiple weeklies during high season. Not sure why JetBlue can't do it. In fact, they ought to be able to steal traffic from UA.

Agreed - but instead of stealing from UA, B6 would stimulate a lot of traffic. There's a variety of package deals for PVR for all types of travelers (luxury, backpacker, all-inclusive, ecotourism, LGBT-friendly, etc). I found it to be highly underrated as a resort destination.

Dieuwer wrote:

United does EWR-PVR Sa-only in regular season, multiple weeklies during high season. Not sure why JetBlue can't do it (from JFK that is in this case). In fact, they ought to be able to steal traffic from UA.

It's incredibly cheap to fly via IAH. It think that is the problem. Most people traveling to these places are very price conscious and are not willing to pay more to fly non-stop.

Interesting comments from B6 about TATL service:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... od-446738/

They're primarily interested in the 321LR for now - "The markets in Boston that [would] give us relevance are ones that can be served with the A321LR," Hayes says. "It's the right airplane for those missions."

This confirms a suspicion that B6 is going to target the UK and Ireland for TATL ops. The northern/Western European cities - LIS, CDG, AMS etc.. could be in play as well.

It's interesting to think that B6 could make BOS a TATL hub similar to DL's TPAC hub at SEA. Even leaving room for fuel reserves and westbound winter headwinds, 4000nm brings most of western-Europe into range from BOS. I think that even BOS-FCO is feasible, at least on a summer-seasonal basis.

tlecam wrote:

Interesting comments from B6 about TATL service:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... od-446738/

They're primarily interested in the 321LR for now - "The markets in Boston that [would] give us relevance are ones that can be served with the A321LR," Hayes says. "It's the right airplane for those missions."

This confirms a suspicion that B6 is going to target the UK and Ireland for TATL ops. The northern/Western European cities - LIS, CDG, AMS etc.. could be in play as well.

Logical comments by B6, given that the LR is going to be released soon and B6 have options next year and the Boeing MOM is still on the drawing board. The thing about getting the 321LR is that if TATL doesn't work out for any reason, they can utilize the model elsewhere in the network and not be stuck with a white elephant given the commonality they will already have, a re-fit would probably need to be done, unless they wanted to take a crack at deeper South America with it first. Going for the 797 might happen down the road if one of those was a success and they could use the increased capacity, or shock/horror could we see a return to the 330 discussion that died a while ago.

In other news T-100's should be out today for September.

Will B6 get into any beef with their TATL partners if they start service? For example, will they fly to DUB and SNN and piss off EI? Or avoid those routes all together? Or perhaps make a JV a la DL and VS?

Seems really bad to turn their back on their partners after such a long time together.

mikegigs wrote:

Will B6 get into any beef with their TATL partners if they start service? For example, will they fly to DUB and SNN and piss off EI? Or avoid those routes all together? Or perhaps make a JV a la DL and VS?

Seems really bad to turn their back on their partners after such a long time together.

https://www.jetblue.com/airline-partners/

B6 has codeshare in Europe with EI, LH, SN, FI, SP to quote a few. If they chose to not antagonize their codeshare partners, they would have very few destinations to serve. I believe it maybe DUB, LGW, MAN etc. I think at some point if B6 were to grow they would end up antagonizing their codeshare partners (some of them). I do not think B6 has an appetite to serve Canada - I know it is a crowded market with AC and WS but no US based carrier serves Canada from BOS anymore on their metal (excluding DL and WS codeshare for YYZ, YUL, YHZ).

mikegigs wrote:

Will B6 get into any beef with their TATL partners if they start service? For example, will they fly to DUB and SNN and piss off EI? Or avoid those routes all together? Or perhaps make a JV a la DL and VS?

Seems really bad to turn their back on their partners after such a long time together.

EI might dump them first. They recently advertised a role which included responsibility for overseeing inclusion in the AA/BA/IB/AY Joint Venture. Can't see AA wanting to share feed with B6 (or UA for that matter)

tlecam wrote:

This confirms a suspicion that B6 is going to target the UK and Ireland for TATL ops. The northern/Western European cities - LIS, CDG, AMS etc.. could be in play as well.

Actually it suggests that they are looking at a major expansion in Europe because they don't need the LR to serve Ireland and the UK. A plain NEO will do for that. If they are waiting for the LR that means they plan to fly deeper into Europe,

Not necessarily BOS related. But I saw this yesterday. Looks like its finally time for the B6 320s to get the makeover they badly needed. This is going to improve the passenger experience for so many B6 routes out of BOS. Although it does mean the leg room is going to shrink on these planes.

https://twitter.com/PhilipStewartNY/sta ... 7062060032

pitbosflyer wrote:

Not necessarily BOS related. But I saw this yesterday. Looks like its finally time for the B6 320s to get the makeover they badly needed. This is going to improve the passenger experience for so many B6 routes out of BOS. Although it does mean the leg room is going to shrink on these planes.

https://twitter.com/PhilipStewartNY/sta ... 7062060032

honestly if it ends up being similar to their all economy 321's that ply BOS-MCO, I think the slight reduction in leg room will not be an issue. The 321's have 32 and if memory serves even with the extra 12 seats, the use of the new slimline options means that the new legroom will be around 32-33. I happen to like the B6 321 and having also flown the DL version, there's very little difference and frankly a little more room.

"Slimline" equals "Medical Injuries" to me...

Dieuwer wrote:

"Slimline" equals "Medical Injuries" to me...

I had a recent encounter with a slimline seat on a AA 737max. Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was more distracted by the crazy small legroom.

Boston Business Journal article states BOS-CTU to start in 2019 according to Massport.

This is behind a paywall - but I was able to read it with google cache - Hint: hit stop loading button on browser once you see text.

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news ... on-to.html


Also Delta to resume 1x daily BOS-LAS as mentioned in this weeks OAG with 738 aircraft.

BOS-LAS 8:15-11:10
LAS-BOS 11:15-19:20

There’s a Royal Jordanian jet at BOS now. Any idea why?

hisham wrote:

There’s a Royal Jordanian jet at BOS now. Any idea why?

Diversion from JFK ...

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/RJA ... /OJAI/KBOS