75WFlyer wrote:

Generally speaking peak season for coach/leisure travel is low season for business demand - so this doesn’t bode well for the flight. In the Northern Winter, Argentina flights should be printing cash as its summer down south. If peak season coach fares are being discounted and sold sub $1000RT, I think that raises some red flags....

That's a true fact within the same hemisphere because is the same season in both ends of the route but I'm not so sure about this north-south hemisphere routes. The timing of "peak season for leisure travel" depends on where do you originate.

I have never checked but I won't be surprised if a US-EZE-US is priced significantly different that an EZE-US-EZE depending of seasons.

Seasonality apart, fares to Deep South America are also higher because they are more expensive to airline operate.
DL, for instance, allocate 2 shells to fly 1 daily ATL-EZE-ATL. 2 shells could fly 2 daily to Europe and generate more revenue overall. So it makes sense to charge more on a more expensive product.

upperdeckfan wrote:

75WFlyer wrote:

Generally speaking peak season for coach/leisure travel is low season for business demand - so this doesn’t bode well for the flight. In the Northern Winter, Argentina flights should be printing cash as its summer down south. If peak season coach fares are being discounted and sold sub $1000RT, I think that raises some red flags....

That's a true fact within the same hemisphere because is the same season in both ends of the route but I'm not so sure about this north-south hemisphere routes. The timing of "peak season for leisure travel" depends on where do you originate.

I have never checked but I won't be surprised if a US-EZE-US is priced significantly different that an EZE-US-EZE depending of seasons.

Point of Origin fares are most certainly different as there are a number of factors at play - demand, currency, willingness to pay, corporate traffic, etc. This would be the case in any international O&D but I think they all have the same dynamic that when peak leisure demand hits, business demand is lower as it usually represents holiday type periods or times when there is a lot of VFR/tourist traffic. I’ve personally been the beneficiary of many op ups in DEC/JAN on Brazil/Argentina/Chile flights as coach tends to sell extremely well while business has dozens of open seats.

75WFlyer wrote:

upperdeckfan wrote:

dcajet wrote:

NYC-EZE (JFK & EWR) was selling for less than $500 r/t last week on AR & UA.

These days you can book restricted Y fares for less than 500USD R/T on a lot of TATL routes. I don't think that's an indicative of how healthy a route is.

I'd suggest to take a look at J fares, I don't know about now but earlier this year a colleague of mine did UA's ORD-IAH-EZE R/T in J for 7000USD, that's not a cheap fare at all.

Generally speaking peak season for coach/leisure travel is low season for business demand - so this doesn’t bode well for the flight. In the Northern Winter, Argentina flights should be printing cash as its summer down south. If peak season coach fares are being discounted and sold sub $1000RT, I think that raises some red flags....

J/C/D fares to/from Argentina continue to be at traditional levels. We have not seen any noticeable drop in demand there. It is coach fares that are being discounted to levels unheard of up to now in the Argentina-USA market. The situation resembles much like Brazil in 2016 in terms of fares being aggressively discounted and to the best of my knowledge, it has remained that way.

Airlines are beginning to respond by cutting back on some Y capacity: Delta has pulled the A333 out of the EZE flight, and reinstated the 764, which offers exactly the same J capacity but 40 less coach seats. AA, effective June 6 is downgauging one of the MIA flights to a 77E from the 77W (the 77W will be redeployed to MIA-LAX-HND) and the DFW flight goes from the 77E to the 788. Have not heard of any changes from AR or UA.

On a related note, and from a very good source at AA in Argentina, bookings on the LAX flight are well ahead of the airline's expectations and they believe the flight will be a keeper. COR-MIA is a bit softer, but well within expectations for the market. AA is reintroducing next month the day time flight from/to MIA for the peak summer travel season, until March. 4x w with the 77E.

Just want to correct one point - the DL 764 has 39 sellable J seats while 333 has 34 J seats - so putting the 764 on the route actually represents a fairly significant premium cabin capacity increase. On the coach side it loses 53 seats (764 has 206 C+/Y seats while 333 has 259 C+/Y seats)

On AA’s adjustments, they are going completely the opposite direction as taking a 77W off the route that has 60 F/J seats and putting a 77E with 37J seats is a huge decrease in capacity. Once the 788s are modded to 20 J cabin, that will represent an even further decrease (almost 50%!!!). Additionally, it’s a common misconception that the 77W has WAY more coach seats than the 77Es. W/Y/MCE seat count on 77W is 244 while W/Y/MCE seat count on 77E is 236 - a difference of only 8 seats. The biggest difference is in the premium cabin size for AA. I would say this suggests AA is not seeing much strength and/or demand in the premium cabin on their Argentina flights.

MIA-COR start isn’t until June 2019 so at this point I can’t imagine there would be much of a gauge on early bookings. I don’t think there will be much of a pulse on how the market will come in until we get to about 60-90 days before service begins. It is a bit surprising that they plan to start the flight in the Northern Summer however - I’d think the frame would be better used doing Europe summer seasonal flying. The flight I’m sure will do well in December/January but curious to see how it’ll do rest of the year.

MalevTU134 wrote:

keesje wrote:

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American Airlines will be the first airline to operate flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Buenos Aires

.
3 Million Inhabitants.. First airline? amazing..

Metro area of 15 million, actually...

Maybe first American airline to do so, but Aerolíneas Argentinas served NS with A340's. So no not the first!

75WFlyer wrote:

MIA-COR start isn’t until June 2019 so at this point I can’t imagine there would be much of a gauge on early bookings. I don’t think there will be much of a pulse on how the market will come in until we get to about 60-90 days before service begins. It is a bit surprising that they plan to start the flight in the Northern Summer however - I’d think the frame would be better used doing Europe summer seasonal flying. The flight I’m sure will do well in December/January but curious to see how it’ll do rest of the year.

Actually the flight was due to start on the first week of April but due to delays with the main runway construction @ COR (18-36) it was delayed until June 6th. So there are already some booking trends.

rbavfan wrote:

MalevTU134 wrote:

keesje wrote:

.



.
3 Million Inhabitants.. First airline? amazing..

Metro area of 15 million, actually...

Maybe first American airline to do so, but Aerolíneas Argentinas served NS with A340's. So no not the first!

Pan Am and Braniff served LAX from EZE with same plane service in the 70s and 80s, AR started back in the 60s. When AR imploded in 2001 it stopped serving LAX and has never returned (and doubt it will). When AA and UA took over Eastern and Pan Am's services, the US airlines have flown to their hubs and distribute traffic to, in this case, California, from there.

Saying that AA will be the first US airline to serve EZE non stop from LAX is an accurate statement.

dcajet wrote:

75WFlyer wrote:

MIA-COR start isn’t until June 2019 so at this point I can’t imagine there would be much of a gauge on early bookings. I don’t think there will be much of a pulse on how the market will come in until we get to about 60-90 days before service begins. It is a bit surprising that they plan to start the flight in the Northern Summer however - I’d think the frame would be better used doing Europe summer seasonal flying. The flight I’m sure will do well in December/January but curious to see how it’ll do rest of the year.

Actually the flight was due to start on the first week of April but due to delays with the main runway construction @ COR (18-36) it was delayed until June 6th. So there are already some booking trends.

April is still over 4 months away. I’m not aware of any international route where a carrier can have a great pulse this far in advance. At the 4 month before departure point, I’d imagine booked load factor to be ~20% so again this would be way too soon to say it’s booking well or in line with expectations. Most international routes seem to lose money in coach (or be close to breakeven) and then make their money in business class. For business class traffic, 4 months from departure wouldn’t give us any idea of the demand and willingness to pay. I hope MIA-COR is a success - just think it’s quite premature to even analyze.

787-9 N829AN is on its way to LAX from HND and is scheduled to leave again at 2:35PM PST as AA991 to EZE. First flight is almost sold out (95%) and so is the return from EZE. As a way to celebrate the inaugural, both the captain (a female) and one of the international first officers are originally from Argentina. Flight time is expected to be a tad shy of 12 hours. This is the first time an American carrier will fly nonstop to EZE from LAX (AR has done it in the past). Good luck to AA on this route!

Nobody does SA like AA. Hopefully we'll see more routes from LAX.

dcajet wrote:

787-9 N829AN is on its way to LAX from HND and is scheduled to leave again at 2:35PM PST as AA991 to EZE. First flight is almost sold out (95%) and so is the return from EZE. As a way to celebrate the inaugural, both the captain (a female) and one of the international first officers are originally from Argentina. Flight time is expected to be a tad shy of 12 hours. This is the first time an American carrier will fly nonstop to EZE from LAX (AR has done it in the past). Good luck to AA on this route!

Interesting that they’re recycling the flight number from the discontinued MIA-CNF service.

A month into AA's new LAX-EZE-LAX service, word from AA is that the route's performance is very good. Not ready for daily yet, but it is looking very good.

A direct connection between California and Argentina was sorely lacking.