So it looks like both PWM and BTV will now have Saturday and Sunday service to DEN (both bookable til Sept 1....for now at least). Previously the BTV service was Saturday-only. Would've loved a RON, but oh well; this makes since given the time zones.

The PWM announcement is somewhat surprising (looks like A320 too) given than it seems that UA has been retrenching there a bit, especially mainline (when was the last mainline flight? Probably not since the fall). I would've guessed AA would expand to DFW a million years before UA expands to DEN. That suggests it has to be UA fending of F9...but I don't know. Maybe they're just trying to shift a way from ORD for California/West Coast destinations?

btvhopper wrote:

So it looks like both PWM and BTV will now have Saturday and Sunday service to DEN (both bookable til Sept 1....for now at least). Previously the BTV service was Saturday-only. Would've loved a RON, but oh well; this makes since given the time zones.

The PWM announcement is somewhat surprising (looks like A320 too) given than it seems that UA has been retrenching there a bit, especially mainline (when was the last mainline flight? Probably not since the fall). I would've guessed AA would expand to DFW a million years before UA expands to DEN. That suggests it has to be UA fending of F9...but I don't know. Maybe they're just trying to shift a way from ORD for California/West Coast destinations?

UA has year-round mainline flights on PWM-EWR. Usually an early morning A319 or 738. They were retrenching a bit at the jetport as I pointed out in an earlier post, so I am very surprised by this.

What is UA's end goal here? Do these flights only exist to push F9 out of these east coast markets? Or is this simply just an attempt to grow at DEN?

Just did two dummy bookings with UA and Frontier for 6/15 DEN-PWM. United wanted $157 one way. Frontier quoted $169. Looks like United is going to fight!

btvhopper wrote:

(when was the last mainline flight? Probably not since the fall).

Yesterday nights EWR-PWM was a 737-800.

btvhopper wrote:

Maybe they're just trying to shift a way from ORD for California/West Coast destinations?

Seems unlikely. The 8am DEN-BTV could scarcely have worse timing for West Coast eastbound connections. The only way to make it work is to take the last DEN flight of the day out of SFO/SEA/etc., say 10pm, getting into DEN at 1-2am, and then wait 6-7h. And to top it off, you wouldn't get into BTV until after 1pm in the afternoon. This is just not competitive timing for West Coast originators. Not to mention that the DEN flights are only 2x/week, compared to the ORD flights which are something like 21x/week, perhaps more.

B595 wrote:

btvhopper wrote:

Maybe they're just trying to shift a way from ORD for California/West Coast destinations?

Seems unlikely. The 8am DEN-BTV could scarcely have worse timing for West Coast eastbound connections. The only way to make it work is to take the last DEN flight of the day out of SFO/SEA/etc., say 10pm, getting into DEN at 1-2am, and then wait 6-7h. And to top it off, you wouldn't get into BTV until after 1pm in the afternoon. This is just not competitive timing for West Coast originators. Not to mention that the DEN flights are only 2x/week, compared to the ORD flights which are something like 21x/week, perhaps more.

Agreed - though, there will still be a fair amount of connecting feed from small places like COD and other mid sizers like SLC TUL and ABQ.

Definitely seems like UA has finally had enough in DEN though

I didn’t look at the timing of the DEN flights much. They must really be focused on nonstop O&D then. I think it does exist. Anyway, the timing is definitely one of the reason why I would’ve much preferred an RON, say Friday inbound to BTV (or PWM since these are essentially identical routes), outbouand to Den Saturday am, back pm, then outbound to DEN finally Sunday am.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense for an RON on a less-than-daily route?

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

btvhopper wrote:

(when was the last mainline flight? Probably not since the fall).

Yesterday nights EWR-PWM was a 737-800.

If this is the flight you’re talking about I’d definitely say it’s some weird, one-off diversion....or maybe plane switch.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KEWR/KPWM

Not seeing any scheduled mainline UA service right now at least. All RJs...mostly E145s it looks like.

Anyway, my point was it seems like UA is retrenching a bit at PWM and giving market share to AA—which as noted here has certainly been expanding at PWM, with more mainline to PHL and CLT. Just the opposite is happening at BTV. UA is doubling down, still 2x daily mainline to ORD even in winter, plus a 737-8 (or sometimes A320) to EWR and then FIVE additional daily E175’s to EWR too. Meanwhile AA is cutting back significantly at BTV. UA has close 40% market share now. So, UA’s DEN expansion at BTV could reflect that pattern, while the PWM expansion suggests that instead UA is just trying to drive out F9.

btvhopper wrote:

I didn’t look at the timing of the DEN flights much. They must really be focused on nonstop O&D then. I think it does exist. Anyway, the timing is definitely one of the reason why I would’ve much preferred an RON, say Friday inbound to BTV (or PWM since these are essentially identical routes), outbouand to Den Saturday am, back pm, then outbound to DEN finally Sunday am.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense for an RON on a less-than-daily route?

Could this be partly a case of having some extra aircraft capacity on the weekends? It looks like Friday is one of DEN's busiest days so they might not have anything to spare for a RON to BTV. Perhaps this also explains why they are using the A320 instead of the A319.

btvhopper wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

btvhopper wrote:

(when was the last mainline flight? Probably not since the fall).

Yesterday nights EWR-PWM was a 737-800.

If this is the flight you’re talking about I’d definitely say it’s some weird, one-off diversion....or maybe plane switch.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KEWR/KPWM

Not seeing any scheduled mainline UA service right now at least. All RJs...mostly E145s it looks like.

Well, Thursday-Sun this week is/will be mainline on that last flight of the day.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KEWR/KPWM

We're going into winter vacation season. Plus, I imagine UA is also trying to offer more seats in First Class to accommodate buisness demand to PWM. Even if there empty seats in coach, if there's enough demand for premium seats and they can fill the front of the plane, the revenue gained of the extra premium seats makes up for empty seats in the back of the plane.

There isn’t a ron Btv-Den because BTV DOESNT HAVE CATERING. Also if UA starts Ron a den flight we can welcome back mainline employees. See BTV UA is run
By UGE. So United mainline employees do not work at BTV. UA mainline will come back of planes operate for 6 months or more. This is per there union contract. So UA changes the flight numbers every 6 months. This way they get cheaper labor from UGE. This will change soon as the union is getting a whiff of this. Also BTV could use real UA crewmebers who know what they are doing.

Nice to see PWM get DEN on UA... This route has been talked about for like 10 years.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

Well, Thursday-Sun this week is/will be mainline on that last flight of the day.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KEWR/KPWM

We're going into winter vacation season. Plus, I imagine UA is also trying to offer more seats in First Class to accommodate buisness demand to PWM. Even if there empty seats in coach, if there's enough demand for premium seats and they can fill the front of the plane, the revenue gained of the extra premium seats makes up for empty seats in the back of the plane.

Ah, I see what you're saying here. It looks like this is a recent development. Good for PWM. Doesn't look like there was any PWM-EWR mainline last month--that's what I was referring to.

Blueknows wrote:

There isn’t a ron Btv-Den because BTV DOESNT HAVE CATERING. Also if UA starts Ron a den flight we can welcome back mainline employees. See BTV UA is run
By UGE. So United mainline employees do not work at BTV. UA mainline will come back of planes operate for 6 months or more. This is per there union contract. So UA changes the flight numbers every 6 months. This way they get cheaper labor from UGE. This will change soon as the union is getting a whiff of this. Also BTV could use real UA crewmebers who know what they are doing.

What's the requirement to provide catering? What do they do for the RON ORD mainline flights; is it too short in duration?

The flight number change seems like a weird work around, but it doesn't really surprise me. Quite frankly for a market our size, BTV is very fortunate to get the year-round mainline service we get from UA, so I'm not concerned about UGE vs UA labor for the ground crew. Whatever UA needs to do to keep the A320's and 737-900's coming year-round...I agree that they could be better but the contractor is the least of my worries.

btvhopper wrote:

Blueknows wrote:

There isn’t a ron Btv-Den because BTV DOESNT HAVE CATERING. Also if UA starts Ron a den flight we can welcome back mainline employees. See BTV UA is run
By UGE. So United mainline employees do not work at BTV. UA mainline will come back of planes operate for 6 months or more. This is per there union contract. So UA changes the flight numbers every 6 months. This way they get cheaper labor from UGE. This will change soon as the union is getting a whiff of this. Also BTV could use real UA crewmebers who know what they are doing.

What's the requirement to provide catering? What do they do for the RON ORD mainline flights; is it too short in duration?

The flight number change seems like a weird work around, but it doesn't really surprise me. Quite frankly for a market our size, BTV is very fortunate to get the year-round mainline service we get from UA, so I'm not concerned about UGE vs UA labor for the ground crew. Whatever UA needs to do to keep the A320's and 737-900's coming year-round...I agree that they could be better but the contractor is the least of my worries.

It looks like UA flights over 3 hours get additional food options, so ORD would not qualify.

So BTV UGE is currently short over 15 employees. If they would go mainline the station would get a huge upgrade. I see BTV Changing to mainline very soon. The contract jobs just can’t do it like the mainline guys/girls. Also mainline pays better and would help attract more people to apply.

I just researched Northern New England 's big three for the amount of mainline destinations available via each airport throughout the year including seasonal markets/routes. This is scheduled service and does not include random equipment changes or diversions.

MHT: (8) PHL, ATL, DTW, BWI, MDW, MCO, TPA, FLL

BTV: (7) PHL, ATL, DEN, MCO, JFK, ORD, EWR

PWM: (15) PHL, CLT, ATL, DTW, LGA, MCO, DEN, RDU, TPA, RSW, JFK, BWI, MDW, EWR, IAD

If I missed anything I'm sure it will be caught by the experts on here! Burlington's transformation has been impressive during the past few years and the shift in mainline options and enplanements between Portland and Manchester is stunning. If we took the same snapshot a decade ago it would look totally different and stacked heavily in MHT's favor.

BTV has mainline to IAD too. Not right now, but one daily A319 started in the summer and continued through October or so. The PHL route is still "mainline" in terms of ownership of the plane/staffing....but still almost always E-190.

You might want to sort out legacies from ULCC's and WN/B6 too since they signal very different things.

Doesn't MHT sometimes, or maybe seasonally at least, see mainline to CLT?

^ Research was based on the current calendar year through December. If BTV has mainline to IAD later this year I missed it and I apologize. Mainline for this purpose is aircraft with 100 plus seats regardless of airline status. Did not see any MHT-CLT mainline scheduled for later this year, looks like 3X CRJ 900's which is pretty good.

Also, airlines that are currently serving each airport: PWM (7), BTV (5), MHT (4)

Portlander wrote:

Also, airlines that are currently serving each airport: PWM (7), BTV (5), MHT (4)

There are actually 8 airlines serving PWM. don't forget about Elite Airways. They fly PWM -MLB and SRQ in. Florida

Airlines Serving PWM (7)
AA-CLT, LGA, ORD, PHL, DCA
B6-JFK
UA-DEN, IAD, EWR, ORD
F9-MCO, TPA, RSW, RDU, DEN
DL-LGA, JFK, ATL, DTW
Elite-SRQ, MLB
SWA-MCO, MDW, BWI

Airlines Serving MHT (4)
AA-ORD, PHL, CLT, DCA
UA-EWR till 3/30 IAD after 3/30
DL-LGA, ATL, DTW
SWA-MCO, TPA, BWI, MDW

Airlines Serving BTV (5)
B6-JFK
F9-DEN, MCO
UA-DEN, ORD, IAD, EWR
DL-ATL, LGA, DTW, JFK
AA-PHL, CLT, ORD, DCA

I was looking at SWA to BWI this summer(August) for flights. In the past years, SWA has flexed between 3-4 flights to BWI. They are now at 5 flights a day to BWI. MHT at 6., PVD at 6...I didnt think I would see this at PWM being almost even with MHT....SWA continues to show no more luv at MHT....at some point if PWM adds more flights on SWA, SWA will have to have to switch from FSS to SWA ground support crew. Does anyone know the union contract ?

paysonmt77 wrote:

I was looking at SWA to BWI this summer(August) for flights. In the past years, SWA has flexed between 3-4 flights to BWI. They are now at 5 flights a day to BWI. MHT at 6., PVD at 6...I didnt think I would see this at PWM being almost even with MHT....SWA continues to show no more luv at MHT....at some point if PWM adds more flights on SWA, SWA will have to have to switch from FSS to SWA ground support crew. Does anyone know the union contract ?

Still waiting to see WN make PWM-MDW a seasonal daily. There's plenty of demand. Are they trying to route as much New England traffic as possible through BWI??

Fex180, I counted Elite to get to 7, who's the 8th?

Delete - duplicate

Visiting my folks in Maine this weekend...the front page of today's Portland Press Herald notes an article about the new PWM-DEN service with a Dreamliner as the teaser photo.

btvhopper wrote:

You might want to sort out legacies from ULCC's and WN/B6 too since they signal very different things.

By my counts:
# of mainline destinations at each airport based on the airports listed:
Legacies (incl. AA/DL/UA, excl. B6, F9, WN): BTV 4 MHT 3 PWM 7
B6/WN: BTV 1 MHT 4 PWM 4
ULCC (F9): BTV 2 MHT 0 PWM 5

Flying to LAX in April on Delta. Taking a 717 outbound from PWM to DTW and an A320 from ATL to PWM on the way home. Gotta love mainline!

AA has upgauged a lot of equipment at PWM through spring. PWM - PHL has gone from mostly E-190's and ERJ-145's to A320's and ERJ-175's . PWM-DCA is up to 5 x daily with 4 frequencies using ERJ-175's. They've also started using ERJ-175's on PWM-LGA, upgrading from almost exclusively ERJ-140's.

AA will be using E-175s from PWM to ORD during the summer.

paysonmt77 wrote:

AA will be using E-175s from PWM to ORD during the summer.

Wasn't aware of that upgrade! Wouldn't be surprised if that route went year round, maybe with CRJ 7's or ERJ-145's in winter.

During the summer and fall AA will have 16-17 daily departures from PWM. 5-6 of those as mainline. Not too bad.

During the summer DL will have 13 daily departures from PWM with 5 being mainline (ATL, DET, LGA) for the Silver medal. UA grabs the Bronze with 13 daily departures with 3 being mainline (EWR, ORD). So PWM's three largest airlines will contribute a total of 43 daily departures with 13/14 mainline options during the summer. Frontier is too difficult to figure out on a regular basis! JetBlue and Southwest should add up to 8 additional (counting Saturday MDW) mainline flights daily.

Guess I could have added UA's Saturday mainline to DEN which starts in June. So if we pick a Saturday during the summer PWM could have around 23 mainline flights which is the most I can ever recall. Maybe hopper would know historically because there were quite a few mainline flights in the late 90's with DL having at least 7 of their own.

Just noticed on the OAG thread Allegiant adding PVD-SAV seasonally June through October. Did I miss this news? Allegiant's website also shows PVD-SAV on the route map.

G4 PVD-SAV JUN 0>0.3[0] JUL 0>0.3[0] AUG 0>0.3[0] SEP 0>0.3[0] OCT 0>0.3[0]

Allegiant seems to be everywhere with the most interesting business model of any airline! At least Savannah is a great destination choice from Providence and should work well.

DELETE

Portlander wrote:

Allegiant seems to be everywhere with the most interesting business model of any airline! At least Savannah is a great destination choice from Providence and should work well.

I agree, lets see if G6 sticks with it. I was just looking at BDL's route map yesterday and thinking JAX/SAV is a huge hole. You may get a few JAX area flyers using the route from PVD.

I think Jacksonville is too far (140 miles) but I do agree that there is potential from the Brunswick/Golden Isles area which is at the halfway point and the former hometown of my ex wife!

Portlander wrote:

Guess I could have added UA's Saturday mainline to DEN which starts in June. So if we pick a Saturday during the summer PWM could have around 23 mainline flights which is the most I can ever recall. Maybe hopper would know historically because there were quite a few mainline flights in the late 90's with DL having at least 7 of their own.

On the December 1989 timetable for PWM I count 24 mainline flights on weekdays, including 3(!) 757s. 20 for BTV at that time.

[threeid][/threeid]

Portlander wrote:

Guess I could have added UA's Saturday mainline to DEN which starts in June. So if we pick a Saturday during the summer PWM could have around 23 mainline flights which is the most I can ever recall. Maybe hopper would know historically because there were quite a few mainline flights in the late 90's with DL having at least 7 of their own.

The peak was during mid-late 1990s. PWM had roughly 25-30 mainline flight per day. All of the then existing gates had a mainline jet RONd on it overnight. DL had three to four mainline jets on the ramp each morning. USair 3-4. United, two. Additional mainline aircraft were parked where the current day deice pad is. Of course Continental, and later NW and TWA also had mainline jets each morning. Then there would have been about a dozen turboprops, too. With BEX, US Express, United Express, Co Express,

There's more daily flights these days, but there were more mainline jets on a regular basis then.

In regards to DL specifically. During the 1980s, they use to predomintently serve PWM via BOS and LGA with 727s, DC-9-30, and 757s. CVG was added sometime in 1983 or 1984 using 727/757. There was also a long running early morning PWM-ALB-ATL (reverse late at night) But in 1999, this flight was dropped, and PWM-ATL was first introduced Non-stop with MD-80s. (All service to BOS and LGA became DL connection.) From that point, until 2006is, DL flew exclusively from PWM 2x day to ATL and 3x CVG using nothing but MD-80s for close to a decade. CVG eventually got dropped and ATL remained the only maineline DL city from PWM until the NW merger when service to DTW was switched to DL.

Thanks guys, the good ole days for Portland and Burlington! Hopper, I think we only had 6 loading bridges back then and I recall USAir using the ones at the western end of the terminal. I hated filling the deice trucks outside of Delta's old cargo building during the winter but liked being able to park our personal vehicles on the back side of it.

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

[threeid][/threeid]

Portlander wrote:

Guess I could have added UA's Saturday mainline to DEN which starts in June. So if we pick a Saturday during the summer PWM could have around 23 mainline flights which is the most I can ever recall. Maybe hopper would know historically because there were quite a few mainline flights in the late 90's with DL having at least 7 of their own.

The peak was during mid-late 1990s. PWM had roughly 25-30 mainline flight per day. All of the then existing gates had a mainline jet RONd on it overnight. DL had three to four mainline jets on the ramp each morning. USair 3-4. United, two. Additional mainline aircraft were parked where the current day deice pad is. Of course Continental, and later NW and TWA also had mainline jets each morning. Then there would have been about a dozen turboprops, too. With BEX, US Express, United Express, Co Express,

There's more daily flights these days, but there were more mainline jets on a regular basis then.

If I'm not mistaken, there were a few years in the mid-late 2000's where PWM had NO mainline flights from legacy carriers, at any point during the year. Jetblue and Airtran were bringing in A320's and 717's maybe 5-6 times a day, but other than that it was entirely ERJ's and CRJ's, with the occasional Dash-8.

Fex180 wrote:

pwm2txlhopper wrote:

[threeid][/threeid]

Portlander wrote:

Guess I could have added UA's Saturday mainline to DEN which starts in June. So if we pick a Saturday during the summer PWM could have around 23 mainline flights which is the most I can ever recall. Maybe hopper would know historically because there were quite a few mainline flights in the late 90's with DL having at least 7 of their own.

The peak was during mid-late 1990s. PWM had roughly 25-30 mainline flight per day. All of the then existing gates had a mainline jet RONd on it overnight. DL had three to four mainline jets on the ramp each morning. USair 3-4. United, two. Additional mainline aircraft were parked where the current day deice pad is. Of course Continental, and later NW and TWA also had mainline jets each morning. Then there would have been about a dozen turboprops, too. With BEX, US Express, United Express, Co Express,

There's more daily flights these days, but there were more mainline jets on a regular basis then.

If I'm not mistaken, there were a few years in the mid-late 2000's where PWM had NO mainline flights from legacy carriers, at any point during the year. Jetblue and Airtran were bringing in A320's and 717's maybe 5-6 times a day, but other than that it was entirely ERJ's and CRJ's, with the occasional Dash-8.

There was a very short time where ASA took over flights to ATL using CRJ2. I think right after CVG got dropped? Want to say 2004-2005 sometime? (In fall 2009, one of the daily ATL also briefly went CRJ7) Mainline was back quickly though. It was far less than a few years. JetBlue didn't arrive until Spril 2006, Air Tran the next year.

A319 on AA's PHL-PWM tonight. Must be the first time in a while PWM has seen a (excluding E190s) mainline plane from PHL, I believe the US 733s back in the day (2004 or so) were the last ones.

Edit: Has been a 319 for the past few days...either way, must be among the first ops described above in a while!

33lspotter wrote:

A319 on AA's PHL-PWM tonight. Must be the first time in a while PWM has seen a (excluding E190s) mainline plane from PHL, I believe the US 733s back in the day (2004 or so) were the last ones.

Edit: Has been a 319 for the past few days...either way, must be among the first ops described above in a while!

They've been using 319's and 320's for about a month now for PHL. I believe the E-190s are being phased out of the AA mainline fleet so the schedule going forward will be entirely Airbus and ERJ-175's

The DEN flights - while less than daily - are indeed an exciting development for BTV. As others have noted, it is unfortunate that UA’s leave DEN so early. How great it would be to connect from, say, SBA to BTV with one connection. It is also great to have year round mainline flights, with aircraft as large as 737-800s.

On the AA side, it’s nice to have mainline flights again, even if with just 190s. But it’s too bad that they’ve pulled down a bit. The lack of an 0600ish PHL flight can make it hard to get to a place like LAX or SFO before mid to late afternoon.

BTV going after service to BOS.
http://wmur.com/article/burlington-airp ... 30?src=app

tomaheath wrote:

BTV going after service to BOS.
http://wmur.com/article/burlington-airp ... 30?src=app

DL seems like the best candidate for this one, I could see 1-2 daily CRJs. B6 is a possibility too but I feel like an E190 might be too much capacity

As the article notes, there were once a great many BOS-BTV flights, on several carriers. But each of those carriers apparently found the market to be less than profitable. What has changed to make it potentially better?

Unless roads are bad, the drive is not much than three hours.

802flyguy wrote:

As the article notes, there were once a great many BOS-BTV flights, on several carriers. But each of those carriers apparently found the market to be less than profitable. What has changed to make it potentially better?

Unless roads are bad, the drive is not much than three hours.

I would assume the growth of BOS as a connecting point for TATL and Caribbean / Latin America flights might have something to do with it.