https://www.stabroeknews.com/2019/news/ ... KhSOqM4VnQ

Planned to start December 18th or sooner on a daily 737.

Also planned to increase MIA-Guyana to daily and upgrade to a 737.

Nice expansion especially for AA at JFK with the recent international cuts.

Interestingly, didn’t JetBlue want to start this route?

Huh, just when we all thought AA had completely ceded JFK-Caribbean to B6...

jetBlue somehwat announced this route when they had their europe announcement. It looks like American is beating them to it.

AA has done some weird things with JFK. Didn't they announce SAT-JFK a few months back?

You know when AA is announcing this, they must have saw great traffic on JFK-MIA-GEO.

yep, AA announced JFK-DEN, cut it after a few month. Then they announced JFK-SAT and that's basically being cut over the summer. They will do well over Christmas if they can get this going by December. But once B6 enters with A321NEO, it will be just a matter of time. They've already been chased out of every other JFK-VFR outes by B6. They just won't be able to compete with B6's cost.

JFK-GEO at one point was one of DL's most profitable routes from JFK. The market was forever served by defunct charter airlines, EZjet, North American, Travelspan etc before BW started it's daily flight. The MIA flight is working however given that B6 forced AA off SDQ, SJU, STI, and PAP the most VFR heavy routes from JFK, I don't see them lasting.

I wonder if MIA will stick around if they launch JFK. NYC still is by far the largest US market from GEO. That said DL tried it and couldn't make it work, and I doubt AA can get a fare premium on DL.

asuflyer wrote:

JFK-GEO at one point was one of DL's most profitable routes from JFK.

BW must have tanked the yields when they started JFK-GEO nonstop, because DL pulled out years ago. I think the one thing going for AA here is their strength in the JFK-South America market in general. However, as others have pointed out, I would think this type of market is much more suited to B6. We'll see what happens in the long run.

At the current time, only Caribbean Airways is flying JFK-GEO, and even that doesn't seem to be daily:

https://flightaware.com/live/findflight?origin=SYCJ&destination=KJFK

Personally, I don't believe that the yields are going to be good enough to support two carriers on the JFK route, but if AA wants to give it a try, it's up to them.

Is the demand coming from the NYC area? Or is it from GEO? How much loyalty would full-fare passengers have to Caribbean Airways? How much loyalty is there to AA in Guyana?

Is at least part of the reason for this a 'backdoor' way to get to/from neighboring Venezuela? Assuming there are still scheduled Caracas-Georgetown services.

tphuang wrote:

You know when AA is announcing this, they must have saw great traffic on JFK-MIA-GEO.

Wow... if that’s the reason, then almost nobody is O/D from MIA...

Right now MIA is run daily with a 128seat 319, and they are launching JFK with a 172seat 738.
Not only they’ll have to sell those MIA-GEO seats vacated from the NYC-MIA leg, but they will also drop 42 new additional daily seats on the route...

That’s a HUGE increase of seat availability on the market.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

At the current time, only Caribbean Airways is flying JFK-GEO, and even that doesn't seem to be daily:

https://flightaware.com/live/findflight?origin=SYCJ&destination=KJFK

Personally, I don't believe that the yields are going to be good enough to support two carriers on the JFK route, but if AA wants to give it a try, it's up to them.

Is the demand coming from the NYC area? Or is it from GEO? How much loyalty would full-fare passengers have to Caribbean Airways? How much loyalty is there to AA in Guyana?

BW is flying twice a day for half of the week and once a day for the other half. There is a lot of VFR demand out of JFK. Seriously under served market. There is no loyalty for AA to Guyana.

The demand is so high that charter airlines also operate on this route.

If AA is serious about this, then there will be 3 carriers soon, since B6 has already announced intention to serve this route (most likely starting early 2020) with A321NEO at their Europe announcement event.

This is the JFK route where AA makes its stand??

Weird.

Back to B6, this is why you dont do stupid things like announce your intentions before you have the equipment in hand to follow through

yet they're dropping jfk-mco...

Sounds like another slot squatting route.

tphuang wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

At the current time, only Caribbean Airways is flying JFK-GEO, and even that doesn't seem to be daily:

https://flightaware.com/live/findflight?origin=SYCJ&destination=KJFK

Personally, I don't believe that the yields are going to be good enough to support two carriers on the JFK route, but if AA wants to give it a try, it's up to them.

Is the demand coming from the NYC area? Or is it from GEO? How much loyalty would full-fare passengers have to Caribbean Airways? How much loyalty is there to AA in Guyana?

BW is flying twice a day for half of the week and once a day for the other half. There is a lot of VFR demand out of JFK. Seriously under served market. There is no loyalty for AA to Guyana.

The demand is so high that charter airlines also operate on this route.

If AA is serious about this, then there will be 3 carriers soon, since B6 has already announced intention to serve this route (most likely starting early 2020) with A321NEO at their Europe announcement event.

The demand is there, but the yields for a non-stop haven't been mentioned. Obviously good enough for certain days of the week, but can the market sustain two carriers?

VFR doesn't always pay the bills - one must have some premium demand. If AA thinks they can tap into some, good for them. But I have some serious doubts about the feasibility of GEO from JFK for them...

AA will have to compete on price BW bagage and service are better.

Oil traffic is about to pick up like crazy. This is not a VFR route add

AA ceded the JFK-Barbados market to JetBlue several years ago. During certain times of the year, JetBlue has 4 daily flights from the NYC area. If AA couldn't make JFK Barbados work, how will it make JFK-GEO work? The government of Guyana must have paid AA a hefty sum to fly this route. I expect to see it discontinued within 6 months time.
Caribbean governments need to stop making these payments to AA.

Also Guyana isn't "a carribean country". It is part of the South American mainland.

Brickell305 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

You know when AA is announcing this, they must have saw great traffic on JFK-MIA-GEO.

yep, AA announced JFK-DEN, cut it after a few month. Then they announced JFK-SAT and that's basically being cut over the summer. They will do well over Christmas if they can get this going by December. But once B6 enters with A321NEO, it will be just a matter of time. They've already been chased out of every other JFK-VFR outes by B6. They just won't be able to compete with B6's cost.

I don't think their biggest competition will be B6. It will likely be BW, an airline well entrenched in the market and likely to fight tooth and nail for one of, if not its most profitable route.

Of course they do. B6 has chased AA out of every NYC VFR market, including JFK-PAP most recently. Markets where AA had strong foothold on for a long time are now all gone. And the reason is B6's product is better and cost is far lower. VFR traffic tend to buy y class and not pay premium for j, so those 200 seat A321s really have huge margin advantage over 172 seat B738s. VFR routes out of NYC tend to be filled with mostly O&D, which favors a O&D focused carrier like B6. The corporate travel and ffs that earn miles from corporate travel help legacies achieve higher yield vs leisure carrier like B6. Those type of traffic are very rare on NYC VFR routes. So the end result is AA has much higher cost and get lower fares and they bow out after a while. I can't see AA sticking around once B6 gets going here.

Antarius wrote:

Also Guyana isn't "a carribean country". It is part of the South American mainland.

It may be part of the South American land mass, but culturally and linguistically the Guyanese are Caribbean. They are a member of CARICOM and Georgetown is the seat of the CARICOM secretariat. To the untrained ear a Guyanese person sounds the same as one from Trinidad.

luckyone wrote:

Antarius wrote:

Also Guyana isn't "a carribean country". It is part of the South American mainland.

It may be part of the South American land mass, but culturally and linguistically the Guyanese are Caribbean. They are a member of CARICOM and Georgetown is the seat of the CARICOM secretariat. To the untrained ear a Guyanese person sounds the same as one from Trinidad.

Absolutely. I guess my reason for posting it is that Guyana isnt a VFR carribean destination, so lumping it in with PAP or POS and the ilk isnt a like for like comparison.

So AA's history with the JFK Caribbean pullback isnt really relevant here. If oil goes as bonkers as some are projecting, this route will be closer to CCS than anything in the Caribbean.

Antarius wrote:

luckyone wrote:

Antarius wrote:

Also Guyana isn't "a carribean country". It is part of the South American mainland.

It may be part of the South American land mass, but culturally and linguistically the Guyanese are Caribbean. They are a member of CARICOM and Georgetown is the seat of the CARICOM secretariat. To the untrained ear a Guyanese person sounds the same as one from Trinidad.

Absolutely. I guess my reason for posting it is that Guyana isnt a VFR carribean destination, so lumping it in with PAP or POS and the ilk isnt a like for like comparison.

So AA's history with the JFK Caribbean pullback isnt really relevant here. If oil goes as bonkers as some are projecting, this route will be closer to CCS than anything in the Caribbean.

The route in question is a legendary VFR route.

Wow it seems everyone has no idea about the JFK-GEO market. This market is controlled primarily by BW and CM and increasingly AA.

First of all Guyana is completely different than Barbados. BGI is a high end tourist market with a small VFR market. There is a huge Guyanese diaspora in the NYC area. Sure Guyana is trying to promote Ecotourism, in the interior of the country, but GEO is still a very dangerous place and definitely not a tourist destination. Richmond Hill in Queens, NY is often called Little Guyana. However few in NYC /US will know about the Guyanese in New York as they are rarely in the headlines. The last time that happened was when a Guyanese NYPD cop was killed a few years back.

BW's service is at best on par with AA's. Their aircraft all have mismatched, dated interiors, there are many people from now T&T/Guyana who prefer AA. Once they receive their MAX's they are planning on revamping their product.

Guyana is not a Caribbean country geographically, however culturally it shares many ties to the Caribbean most closely to Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados. It is a member of Caricom, the Caribbean Community. AFAIK, The government of Guyana does not subsidize international routes anymore. They were given the opportunity to bail out FlyJamaica and decided against it.

luckyone wrote:

Antarius wrote:

luckyone wrote:

It may be part of the South American land mass, but culturally and linguistically the Guyanese are Caribbean. They are a member of CARICOM and Georgetown is the seat of the CARICOM secretariat. To the untrained ear a Guyanese person sounds the same as one from Trinidad.

Absolutely. I guess my reason for posting it is that Guyana isnt a VFR carribean destination, so lumping it in with PAP or POS and the ilk isnt a like for like comparison.

So AA's history with the JFK Caribbean pullback isnt really relevant here. If oil goes as bonkers as some are projecting, this route will be closer to CCS than anything in the Caribbean.

The route in question is a legendary VFR route.

It isnt a big tourist destination and it has a population of 700k. So I highly doubt AA is more than doubling capacity on pure VFR alone.

Lets just call a spade for what it is. AA is trolling B6 as usual, they did the same in CLT with NK.

They have the money to waste for now but when the fuel goes up they’ll be crying...

santi319 wrote:

Lets just call a spade for what it is. AA is trolling B6 as usual, they did the same in CLT with NK.

They have the money to waste for now but when the fuel goes up they’ll be crying...

I have to agree. It was my first thought. AA could have added this route ages ago, but chose not to. As others have said, this route has been operated by a number of Charter carrier/Public Charter Operations. Including Dynamic.

Swift bought Dynamic and Eastern and has since put the Eastern name on Dynamic's 767 fleet. They applied for authority on the JFK-GEO route to start in May.

https://www.stabroeknews.com/2018/news/ ... na-market/

They also applied for JFK-GYE as well as JFK-ANC-Jiang, China

However, since Eastern doesn't have a functioning web site and Swift Air doesn't mention anything on their page, I imagine none of this is moving as quickly as they'd like.

AA is picking up some low hanging fruit in an underserved market and giving B6 a little jab in the ribs just for fun.

There is plenty of VFR from the New York area and the rest of the country and NY overflow can move through Miami

santi319 wrote:

Lets just call a spade for what it is. AA is trolling B6 as usual, they did the same in CLT with NK.

They have the money to waste for now but when the fuel goes up they’ll be crying...

no it's completely different. Not everything has to go back to NK. CLT is a fortress hub for AA, so they have to defend it. AA is much weaker than B6 at JFK, especially in the VFR market. They have done nothing but cut back at JFK. Just another attempt to find a way to utilize slots for a few months until they figure out a strategy (which they wont' be able to at this point).

JFK-GEO will become a bloodbath with BW AA and B6. AA should stick with MIA-GEO and leave JFK to BW and B6 to battle it out.

tphuang wrote:

santi319 wrote:

Lets just call a spade for what it is. AA is trolling B6 as usual, they did the same in CLT with NK.

They have the money to waste for now but when the fuel goes up they’ll be crying...

no it's completely different. Not everything has to go back to NK. CLT is a fortress hub for AA, so they have to defend it. AA is much weaker than B6 at JFK, especially in the VFR market. They have done nothing but cut back at JFK. Just another attempt to find a way to utilize slots for a few months until they figure out a strategy (which they wont' be able to at this point).

Errrr and where do you think the connections to their Miami flight to GEO are comming from???

They literally almost withdrew from all caribbean markets from JFK, but add GEO the moment B6 wants to do it???

AA just stop trying to be relevant in JFK. BA is so afraid of B6. They will do anything to B6 through any code share. They are shaking thank B6 is coming to LONDON in 2021. They also are freaking out because ROBIN HAYES used to work for them. He has seen behind the curtain and BA is going to use AA as there bi;(h to squeeze B6.

santi319 wrote:

Lets just call a spade for what it is. AA is trolling B6 as usual, they did the same in CLT with NK.

They have the money to waste for now but when the fuel goes up they’ll be crying...

NK adding CLT is a way bigger threat than this add by B6 imo. Especially with how much AA has been downsizing in JFK.

santi319 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

santi319 wrote:

Lets just call a spade for what it is. AA is trolling B6 as usual, they did the same in CLT with NK.

They have the money to waste for now but when the fuel goes up they’ll be crying...

no it's completely different. Not everything has to go back to NK. CLT is a fortress hub for AA, so they have to defend it. AA is much weaker than B6 at JFK, especially in the VFR market. They have done nothing but cut back at JFK. Just another attempt to find a way to utilize slots for a few months until they figure out a strategy (which they wont' be able to at this point).

Errrr and where do you think the connections to their Miami flight to GEO are comming from???

They literally almost withdrew from all caribbean markets from JFK, but add GEO the moment B6 wants to do it???

The rumours of B6 jumping on JFK-GEO has been going on for years. It's not a recent thing. AA on the other hand sees the demand here and it has lack of places to use JFK slots so it's giving this a shot. It's going to get pushed out of here like every other Caribbean market, but worth a try. They've also tried DEN recently, didn't work out. SAT is not working out. Not much is working out. There is no similarity to CLT, where it's far and away the dominant carrier. AA at JFK is a 3rd place. It's not capable of dictating other airlines.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

At the current time, only Caribbean Airways is flying JFK-GEO, and even that doesn't seem to be daily:

https://flightaware.com/live/findflight?origin=SYCJ&destination=KJFK

Personally, I don't believe that the yields are going to be good enough to support two carriers on the JFK route, but if AA wants to give it a try, it's up to them.

Is the demand coming from the NYC area? Or is it from GEO? How much loyalty would full-fare passengers have to Caribbean Airways? How much loyalty is there to AA in Guyana?

BW serves JFK GEO 9x with an additional flight during the peaks. Connections are also available via POS. Dynamic used to operate the route with up to 5x weekly. so the route can support 2 carriers. Guyanese are the 5th largest immigrant group in NYC most living either in Queens or Brooklyn with some in LI as well, so JFK is the ideal airport.

At least 80% of the demand is from the US side with the vast majority of this being VFR. Fares to GEO have always been much higher than on similar routes to POS so Guyanese have a higher tolerance for high fares.

And yes I do believe that AA saw good sales out of the NY area and to protect this they are attempting to pre-empt AA. I suspect that Guyanese will prefer B6 though as many already use them on trips to FL where there is already a decent sized Guyanese population.

AAs MIA route will be sturdy as it will get the oil generated traffic out of IAH, plus also feed from cities like ATL and the DC area where these is also a VFR market, though not large enough to justify service.

What this will mean as that people currently travelling via MIA, PTY and POS will now fly on the nonstop routes. I dont see this being a 3 carrier route though, as being VFR loads can seriously drop in soft periods. Maybe AA is hoping that B6 changes their minds.

And yes the issue with BWs cabins has been noted. They had planned to revamp with Maxes starting in December. We will see if that works out but now that they have to compete on JFK GEO, which is their best route, I can see fares dropping.

I do agree that people over estimate oil related travel as POS has a more mature industry and also a more diversified and developed one. Guyana lacks the infrastructure to support activities beyond the drilling so it isnt going to generate the activity that POS does. Plus its a smaller and poorer market than POS so there will be less outbound travel.

Blueknows wrote:

AA just stop trying to be relevant in JFK. BA is so afraid of B6. They will do anything to B6 through any code share. They are shaking thank B6 is coming to LONDON in 2021. They also are freaking out because ROBIN HAYES used to work for them. He has seen behind the curtain and BA is going to use AA as there bi;(h to squeeze B6.

Is this a joke? April 1 was 18 days ago. What does a thread about GEO have to do with BA?
AA is clearly drawing a line in the sand and telling B6 that it is willing to defend, even fight, for Caribbean services going forward. It's certainly going to be an interesting battle, perhaps one with no winners.

Guess you dont work for an airline. Its not AA trying defend anything. See the legacy airlines have this thing called ALLIANCES. So sometimes other airlines in that ALLIANCE. Get someone else to do the route and take the hit. Meanwhile the partner puts a codeshare number on it and reaps the benefits. It happens all the time

B6 is the least profitable of the major US carriers and its costs are rising. Don't rule out a takeover. AA has knocked out a competitor several times before by buying them (then subsequently shrinking their network). AirCal, Reno Air, TWA....B6 is not in the same league as those three former airlines, but of the Big 3 US carriers, AA is the only likely one to take over B6. It can happen...

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... -dec-2019/

Officially applied for and noted in the OAG thread.

Cointrin330 wrote:

B6 is the least profitable of the major US carriers and its costs are rising. Don't rule out a takeover. AA has knocked out a competitor several times before by buying them (then subsequently shrinking their network). AirCal, Reno Air, TWA....B6 is not in the same league as those three former airlines, but of the Big 3 US carriers, AA is the only likely one to take over B6. It can happen...

To be honest, I have had dreams about this happening.

Cointrin330 wrote:

B6 is the least profitable of the major US carriers and its costs are rising. Don't rule out a takeover. AA has knocked out a competitor several times before by buying them (then subsequently shrinking their network). AirCal, Reno Air, TWA....B6 is not in the same league as those three former airlines, but of the Big 3 US carriers, AA is the only likely one to take over B6. It can happen...

entirely untrue. AA and AS were definitely less profitable than B6 this quarter. And last quarter, they had a higher margin than all except NK and WN. And they have a better balance sheet than all except WN. You must have mistaken one time special items related to pilot contract and A220 replacing E90 with actual performance.

richierich wrote:

Blueknows wrote:

AA just stop trying to be relevant in JFK. BA is so afraid of B6. They will do anything to B6 through any code share. They are shaking thank B6 is coming to LONDON in 2021. They also are freaking out because ROBIN HAYES used to work for them. He has seen behind the curtain and BA is going to use AA as there bi;(h to squeeze B6.

Is this a joke? April 1 was 18 days ago. What does a thread about GEO have to do with BA?
AA is clearly drawing a line in the sand and telling B6 that it is willing to defend, even fight, for Caribbean services going forward. It's certainly going to be an interesting battle, perhaps one with no winners.

no it's not. AA has started and stopped quite a few routes recently out of JFK. It has not shown the willingness to defend/fight it's caribbean service out of JFK. If it were, then it wouldn't have fled every other market that B6 entered. It's just find a place to part a slot profitably until B6 starts the service. If it cares about its Caribbean service, it would still be around in those large markets like STI, SDQ, SJU and PAP. All markets where AA had dominated at one point before B6 pushed them out.

tphuang wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

B6 is the least profitable of the major US carriers and its costs are rising. Don't rule out a takeover. AA has knocked out a competitor several times before by buying them (then subsequently shrinking their network). AirCal, Reno Air, TWA....B6 is not in the same league as those three former airlines, but of the Big 3 US carriers, AA is the only likely one to take over B6. It can happen...

entirely untrue. AA and AS were definitely less profitable than B6 this quarter. And last quarter, they had a higher margin than all except NK and WN. And they have a better balance sheet than all except WN. You must have mistaken one time special items related to pilot contract and A220 replacing E90 with actual performance.

richierich wrote:

Blueknows wrote:

AA just stop trying to be relevant in JFK. BA is so afraid of B6. They will do anything to B6 through any code share. They are shaking thank B6 is coming to LONDON in 2021. They also are freaking out because ROBIN HAYES used to work for them. He has seen behind the curtain and BA is going to use AA as there bi;(h to squeeze B6.

Is this a joke? April 1 was 18 days ago. What does a thread about GEO have to do with BA?
AA is clearly drawing a line in the sand and telling B6 that it is willing to defend, even fight, for Caribbean services going forward. It's certainly going to be an interesting battle, perhaps one with no winners.

no it's not. AA has started and stopped quite a few routes recently out of JFK. It has not shown the willingness to defend/fight it's caribbean service out of JFK. If it were, then it wouldn't have fled every other market that B6 entered. It's just find a place to part a slot profitably until B6 starts the service. If it cares about its Caribbean service, it would still be around in those large markets like STI, SDQ, SJU and PAP. All markets where AA had dominated at one point before B6 pushed them out.

AA doesn't need the huge Caribbean network it once had from JFK. It has MIA for that. NYC to the Caribbean is leisure traffic, and except for a few routes with premium demand, the margins aren't amazing and AA can't keep up with B6, which drove AA out of most Caribbean markets from JFK.

Blueknows wrote:

AA just stop trying to be relevant in JFK. BA is so afraid of B6. They will do anything to B6 through any code share. They are shaking thank B6 is coming to LONDON in 2021. They also are freaking out because ROBIN HAYES used to work for them. He has seen behind the curtain and BA is going to use AA as there bi;(h to squeeze B6.

Blueknows wrote:

Guess you dont work for an airline. Its not AA trying defend anything. See the legacy airlines have this thing called ALLIANCES. So sometimes other airlines in that ALLIANCE. Get someone else to do the route and take the hit. Meanwhile the partner puts a codeshare number on it and reaps the benefits. It happens all the time

Yes, I'm sure AA/BA are positively quaking about Jetblue's entrance into the New York-London market with its (likely) 2x daily A321 service and non-existent LHR slots. Nobody else is in that market, right? The tapas meal in a suite with a **door** is just what's really going to slay them though. The corporate contracts will abandon the behemoth -- who needs global connectivity when you've got a cool cocktail with mint in it!

I live how you just assume LHR.

Blueknows wrote:

I live how you just assume LHR.

While I personally prefer Gatwick based on transit connections to my flat, most business travelers prefer Heathrow. Luton is far, Stansted is also far and terrible, and they dont have an a/c that's compliant with LCY's requirements. If they go with LGW they can slog it out with Norwegian for the £200 return specials