Theories as to why the FLL-BOG route is fairly consistently delayed?
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JBU ... /KFLL/SKBO

BoeingG wrote:

Theories as to why the FLL-BOG route is fairly consistently delayed?
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/JBU ... /KFLL/SKBO

Last few days were delayed by pax and crew Covid card issues and therefore bag pulls, late arriving inbound crew, late arriving aircraft… nothing specific but only a few days of data.

Since they did a wholesale schedule update this past weekend, I took a look at their schedule out of JFK, BOS and FLL in Mar and May to get a sense of how they are adding flights.

Out of JFK. I see 169 flights scheduled for Mar 20. That's definitely an all time high for March. It seems to me they have decided to reduce BUF to 3x, BTV/ROC to 2x and SYR to 1x out of JFK for the foreseeable future. That's a real shame. I know short haul demand is down, but these are all markets they served a lot more pre-COVID. These are places that they always had good presence and a lot of feed. Other interesting part is that they are at 8x to BOS in March. That seems to be the only place where they park slots. I also see an A321 to PVR. That's a lot of capacity for a new market. ONT and BUR are mostly A321s now. It seems to me that ONT could support a second flight long term. BUR might be able to support a 3rd flight.

I see 176 flights scheduled for May 22. Interesting enough, GUA was showing 2x on A321s. That seems to be the only time I remember them running 2 flights to GUA. Not sure what's special about that day. ATL is showing 2x A320 + 2x E90. This is more capacity than the 4x E90 they have for July. Quite a few JFK within perimeter routes got downgauged to E90s in summer peak. That doesn't seem to reflect the actual demand. I think this maybe a case of using higher capacity aircraft in places that can generate higher revenues.

Out of BOS. I see 129 flights scheduled for Mar 21. A lot of the business markets are still down to 1 or 2x during this time. LGA is still at 12x. Most of the capacity are in leisure market still.

I see 145 flights scheduled for May 23. By this point, I see quite a few business markets with improved frequency. And of course, July is currently at around 155 without the London flights included. This would indicate an expectation that the Northeast business travel demand improves steadily over the first half of next year. Both LGA and BOS have a lot of growth during that time.

I would expect that as September and October rolls around, you will see more flights added to the BOS business markets as JFK leisure schedule reduces a little bit. That would also be the best time to start new markets. Especially if they are taking in more aircraft at that time.

Out of FLL, I see 87 flights scheduled for Mar 20. Again, most domestic markets outside of their northeast stronghold are showing up as single daily. Even something like PHL is at 1x during this peak Florida season.

By May 22nd, I see them at 90 flights scheduled. This goes up to 92 in July. Again, a steady climb in their flight total as FLL is getting back to pre-COVID flight count. EWR-FLL is still at just 3x daily. I'm not sure if that's due to limitation of EWR space or a shortage of airframes. Again, none of this include a possible MCO schedule.

With NK moving a lot of their flights from FLL to MIA, it appears that B6 is the largest carriers at FLL again by daily departures. There is to be a lot of growth available here at FLL once they are finished with most of the NYC buildup. Restoring some of the frequencies to places like PHL, LAS, JAX, SFO and RIC would help.

Is London service sustainable? I see paltry seat maps for upcoming JFK-LGW flights. Better data would be appreciated.

BoeingG wrote:

Is London service sustainable? I see paltry seat maps for upcoming JFK-LGW flights. Better data would be appreciated.

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

tphuang wrote:

BoeingG wrote:

Is London service sustainable? I see paltry seat maps for upcoming JFK-LGW flights. Better data would be appreciated.

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

Abeam79 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

BoeingG wrote:

Is London service sustainable? I see paltry seat maps for upcoming JFK-LGW flights. Better data would be appreciated.

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

Isn't the conventional wisdom now that a lot of people don't select seats with the hope that they will get assigned to a 'more space' seat when all of the standard seats sell out?

mjgbtv wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

Isn't the conventional wisdom now that a lot of people don't select seats with the hope that they will get assigned to a 'more space' seat when all of the standard seats sell out?

Not at all. Not sure where you pulled that from.

tphuang wrote:

Out of JFK. I see 169 flights scheduled for Mar 20. That's definitely an all time high for March. It seems to me they have decided to reduce BUF to 3x, BTV/ROC to 2x and SYR to 1x out of JFK for the foreseeable future. That's a real shame. I know short haul demand is down, but these are all markets they served a lot more pre-COVID. These are places that they always had good presence and a lot of feed.

BTV has depended a lot on Canadians and the border has only recently opened up, but (I believe) still with some potential deterrents. There was also a fair amount of O&D to JFK which is probably still hurting from office shutdowns and from the uncertain state of tourism in NYC. Maybe they can still grow back to 3x or 2x A220 down the road.

BoeingG wrote:

mjgbtv wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

Isn't the conventional wisdom now that a lot of people don't select seats with the hope that they will get assigned to a 'more space' seat when all of the standard seats sell out?

Not at all. Not sure where you pulled that from.

From her of course!

mjgbtv wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

Isn't the conventional wisdom now that a lot of people don't select seats with the hope that they will get assigned to a 'more space' seat when all of the standard seats sell out?

Bold strategy as one may end up with a standard middle seat if things don't shake out in their favor.

tphuang wrote:

Since they did a wholesale schedule update this past weekend, I took a look at their schedule out of JFK, BOS and FLL in Mar and May to get a sense of how they are adding flights.

Out of JFK. I see 169 flights scheduled for Mar 20. That's definitely an all time high for March. It seems to me they have decided to reduce BUF to 3x, BTV/ROC to 2x and SYR to 1x out of JFK for the foreseeable future. That's a real shame. I know short haul demand is down, but these are all markets they served a lot more pre-COVID. These are places that they always had good presence and a lot of feed. Other interesting part is that they are at 8x to BOS in March. That seems to be the only place where they park slots. I also see an A321 to PVR. That's a lot of capacity for a new market. ONT and BUR are mostly A321s now. It seems to me that ONT could support a second flight long term. BUR might be able to support a 3rd flight.

I’d like to see a 7am BUR-JFK added. Would love to see BOS come back and maybe one day maybe at least a 4x weekly FLL. Maybe once more 220’s arrive?

ONT second flight would be great too. Not sure on loads for the one they operate now but I’ve heard it’s usually pretty full.

Speaking on 220’s I’m really surprised B6 is not utilizing these for the reason they were purchased at this point. Range. I was thinking these would be transcon workhorses to markets that couldn’t really fill a 320/321. I know they just recently added 2 or 3 west coast (SJC and PDX if I remember) stations but figured the BOS/FLL Ops would be targeting those other western markets with less seats.

nine4nine wrote:

tphuang wrote:

Since they did a wholesale schedule update this past weekend, I took a look at their schedule out of JFK, BOS and FLL in Mar and May to get a sense of how they are adding flights.

Out of JFK. I see 169 flights scheduled for Mar 20. That's definitely an all time high for March. It seems to me they have decided to reduce BUF to 3x, BTV/ROC to 2x and SYR to 1x out of JFK for the foreseeable future. That's a real shame. I know short haul demand is down, but these are all markets they served a lot more pre-COVID. These are places that they always had good presence and a lot of feed. Other interesting part is that they are at 8x to BOS in March. That seems to be the only place where they park slots. I also see an A321 to PVR. That's a lot of capacity for a new market. ONT and BUR are mostly A321s now. It seems to me that ONT could support a second flight long term. BUR might be able to support a 3rd flight.

I’d like to see a 7am BUR-JFK added. Would love to see BOS come back and maybe one day maybe at least a 4x weekly FLL. Maybe once more 220’s arrive?

ONT second flight would be great too. Not sure on loads for the one they operate now but I’ve heard it’s usually pretty full.

Speaking on 220’s I’m really surprised B6 is not utilizing these for the reason they were purchased at this point. Range. I was thinking these would be transcon workhorses to markets that couldn’t really fill a 320/321. I know they just recently added 2 or 3 west coast (SJC and PDX if I remember) stations but figured the BOS/FLL Ops would be targeting those other western markets with less seats.

Well, BOS-BUR didn't work. The yield was too low. JFK-BUR on the other hand has consistently done really well. So, it would seem to me that another JFK flight would be more likely. Especially in summer time. No reason they can't sell out 3 flights to BUR and 2 flights to ONT.

As for A220, it's still a new aircraft. Others probably has numbers on this, but my impression is they are not as reliable as A320s. That's why they had been flying to places like TPA/FLL/MCO mostly. As the issues with A220 get sorted out, you should see them taking more aggressive schedules. That's where all the red-eye flying comes in. You get a lot higher utilization on A220 by doing east bound red-eyes with them. There are a whole range of markets they can fly A220. At a minimum, I hope you will see the following out of BOS by sometime in 2023:

5x ATL
5x ORD
3x DEN
3x BNA
3x MSP
3x DFW
3x IAH
2x PHX
2x AUS
2x MSY
1x SLC
1x MCI
1x MKE
1x SAT
1x SJC
1x SMF
1x PDX
You probably need close to 25 A220s to run that schedule. They probably won't have that many A220s until summer of 2023. I would say to just wait a while. A220 is coming to west coast, but it's still a luxury item right now.

tphuang wrote:

nine4nine wrote:

tphuang wrote:

Since they did a wholesale schedule update this past weekend, I took a look at their schedule out of JFK, BOS and FLL in Mar and May to get a sense of how they are adding flights.

Out of JFK. I see 169 flights scheduled for Mar 20. That's definitely an all time high for March. It seems to me they have decided to reduce BUF to 3x, BTV/ROC to 2x and SYR to 1x out of JFK for the foreseeable future. That's a real shame. I know short haul demand is down, but these are all markets they served a lot more pre-COVID. These are places that they always had good presence and a lot of feed. Other interesting part is that they are at 8x to BOS in March. That seems to be the only place where they park slots. I also see an A321 to PVR. That's a lot of capacity for a new market. ONT and BUR are mostly A321s now. It seems to me that ONT could support a second flight long term. BUR might be able to support a 3rd flight.

I’d like to see a 7am BUR-JFK added. Would love to see BOS come back and maybe one day maybe at least a 4x weekly FLL. Maybe once more 220’s arrive?

ONT second flight would be great too. Not sure on loads for the one they operate now but I’ve heard it’s usually pretty full.

Speaking on 220’s I’m really surprised B6 is not utilizing these for the reason they were purchased at this point. Range. I was thinking these would be transcon workhorses to markets that couldn’t really fill a 320/321. I know they just recently added 2 or 3 west coast (SJC and PDX if I remember) stations but figured the BOS/FLL Ops would be targeting those other western markets with less seats.

Well, BOS-BUR didn't work. The yield was too low. JFK-BUR on the other hand has consistently done really well. So, it would seem to me that another JFK flight would be more likely. Especially in summer time. No reason they can't sell out 3 flights to BUR and 2 flights to ONT.

As for A220, it's still a new aircraft. Others probably has numbers on this, but my impression is they are not as reliable as A320s. That's why they had been flying to places like TPA/FLL/MCO mostly. As the issues with A220 get sorted out, you should see them taking more aggressive schedules. That's where all the red-eye flying comes in. You get a lot higher utilization on A220 by doing east bound red-eyes with them. There are a whole range of markets they can fly A220. At a minimum, I hope you will see the following out of BOS by sometime in 2023:

5x ATL
5x ORD
3x DEN
3x BNA
3x MSP
3x DFW
3x IAH
2x PHX
2x AUS
2x MSY
1x SLC
1x MCI
1x MKE
1x SAT
1x SJC
1x SMF
1x PDX
You probably need close to 25 A220s to run that schedule. They probably won't have that many A220s until summer of 2023. I would say to just wait a while. A220 is coming to west coast, but it's still a luxury item right now.

I would love to see BOI go year round and maybe add FLL,BOS at some point I think it will work with the growth and more a220s

Why does B6 have a midnight service from PBI into HPN? I understand that the curfew isn't enforced, but this seems like a bad practice given the moat of NIMBYs around the field. You'd think it'd tread carefully in light of this–especially if it hopes to ever increase its operations. Lofty aspirations of mine, perhaps? Haha!

JetBlue hit the 1K milestone today with 1,003 flights scheduled. A first since the pandemic began.

How are load factors on LAX-PBI? Also, any chance B6 starts LGA-MIA? Even with the NEA, service from both AA and B6 has worked at JFK and more.

With regards to EWR, could it be that they have to temporarily downsize when they move to the new Terminal. Not all the gates will open right away, the current Terminal A will close (A-1 concourse is already closed) as soon as the new Terminal is open. They need to tear down the old A concourses to complete the ramp work on the East (North) side of the new Terminal. So there may be a temporary shortage of gate space.

LAX-PBI LF
Apr 74%
May 58%
Jun 86%
Jul 82%
Aug 56%

Not really that good. There was a lot of capacity this year in the south Florida to LAX market.

My guess is that they will not start LGA-MIA. Not enough slots to do so. Seems like their agreement with AA is just to cover all the non-MIA leisure markets out of LGA.

Great to see them going over 1000 flights a day. Any idea what's the highest level they reached pre-COVID?

STT757 wrote:

With regards to EWR, could it be that they have to temporarily downsize when they move to the new Terminal. Not all the gates will open right away, the current Terminal A will close (A-1 concourse is already closed) as soon as the new Terminal is open. They need to tear down the old A concourses to complete the ramp work on the East (North) side of the new Terminal. So there may be a temporary shortage of gate space.

I've been thinking the same thing about their downsizing to roughly 48 flights a day. That's about the most they'd want to operate with 6 gates. I hope its not due to issues with getting "slots" (runway times)

tphuang wrote:

LAX-PBI LF
Apr 74%
May 58%
Jun 86%
Jul 82%
Aug 56%

Not really that good. There was a lot of capacity this year in the south Florida to LAX market.

My guess is that they will not start LGA-MIA. Not enough slots to do so. Seems like their agreement with AA is just to cover all the non-MIA leisure markets out of LGA.

Great to see them going over 1000 flights a day. Any idea what's the highest level they reached pre-COVID?

STT757 wrote:

With regards to EWR, could it be that they have to temporarily downsize when they move to the new Terminal. Not all the gates will open right away, the current Terminal A will close (A-1 concourse is already closed) as soon as the new Terminal is open. They need to tear down the old A concourses to complete the ramp work on the East (North) side of the new Terminal. So there may be a temporary shortage of gate space.

I've been thinking the same thing about their downsizing to roughly 48 flights a day. That's about the most they'd want to operate with 6 gates. I hope its not due to issues with getting "slots" (runway times)

I doubt they would open up a flight attendant and pilot base in EWR without assurances from PANYNJ of growth and additional gates in the future. When it opened they said they plan on future growth. Unlike certain other carriers, Jetblue rarely makes plans on growth in a blue city unless they know for sure future growth potential. Most of the time their strategy with their service is they don't do it unless they know for sure its going to stick for a while.

This photo is from December 16, 2021. You can see the work remaining is all near the current Terminal A.

Any idea yet on when B6 would be announcing BOS-LON? I guess maybe sometime next spring judging based on when JFK-LON was announced.

Also if TATL demand stays low, I really wonder if JetBlue will look at starting Hawaii service a little sooner than say, 2023.

I was looking at some numbers today on a couple of new airports they are adding next year, MKE and MCI. I was expecting O&D out of these 2 cities to be fairly comparable. It turns out that MCI is 60 to 70% higher than MKE for Q2 of this year. My theory is that this is probably due to natural leakage to ORD. Looking at IND, which is a little further away from Chicago than MKE (and probably also experience some leakage to ORD), the originating revenue is close to 60% higher than MKE. Again, I do expect both IND and MCI to be larger than MKE, but not this much larger.

Looking at the air service out of MKE for June, which will probably be further reduced by the time we get to summer time,
I see 1x B6 to JFK, 4x DL RJ to LGA and 5x UA RJ to EWR for NYC airports (569 PDEW in 2019Q3, $220 average fare)
I see 1x B6 and 3x DL to BOS (288 PDEW in 2019Q3, $221 average fare)
I see just 1x NK to FLL and nothing to MIA (105 PDEW in 2019Q3, $225 average fare)
I see 2x WN and 1x NK to MCO (362 PDEW in 2019Q3, $157 average fare)
I see 1x NK to LAX (304 PDEW in 2019Q3, $271 average fare)
I see nothing to SFO (230 PDEW in 2019Q3, $258 average fare)
I see nothing to CUN
I see nothing to SJU

I'm not saying MKE is necessarily a hidden gem, but there could be some potential there for some direct service. For example, BOS-MKE fares are 20% higher than BOS-ORD and 40% higher than comparative stage lengthed BOS-BNA. NYC-MKE fares are 15% higher than NYC-ORD and 35% higher than comparative stage length NYC-CHS (it's harder to find a within perimeter market out of NYC where B6 affects pricing). With more direct service and lower fares, I can easily see PDEW for NYC-MKE to get up to the 800 mark and for BOS to get to 400 mark. Which means, they can probably add a 2nd flight to NYC (probably LGA) and a 2nd flight to BOS.

As for FLL, I think the demand to south Florida is probably also a lot higher if there were more direct service. Looks like NK ran WN off this route. Without AA to MIA, there is a lot of untapped connection opportunity to Caribbeans here. I think this is a route where B6 could co-exist with NK. PDEW will probably a lot higher if average fare to South florida drops to the same vicinity as Orlando.

I don't think they'd try Orlando.

I does appear to me west coast is quite underserved. I think AA and UA ff probably are mostly flying the more frequent options out of ORD. Even with that, LAX could probably support 2 to 3 flights a day. There is no reason SFO should remain unserved. With UA just cutting IAD-MKE, I don't get the sense they are too interested in MKE market. Probably expecting most of their loyal ff fly out of ORD.

So, while this is not a huge sized market, I think it's currently quite under served and could be a market where B6 could link up more of their focus cities in the future.

BlueBaller wrote:

JetBlue hit the 1K milestone today with 1,003 flights scheduled. A first since the pandemic began.

Out of that 1003 scheduled flights, how many were canceled?

STT757 wrote:

With regards to EWR, could it be that they have to temporarily downsize when they move to the new Terminal. Not all the gates will open right away, the current Terminal A will close (A-1 concourse is already closed) as soon as the new Terminal is open. They need to tear down the old A concourses to complete the ramp work on the East (North) side of the new Terminal. So there may be a temporary shortage of gate space.

Are you aware that B6 also operates out of terminal B as well as A?

Last week, Colombia implemented a vaccine requirement for crews laying over.

Im sure that had a lot to do with it as many crew are unvaccinated

LX015 wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

JetBlue hit the 1K milestone today with 1,003 flights scheduled. A first since the pandemic began.

Out of that 1003 scheduled flights, how many were canceled?

STT757 wrote:

With regards to EWR, could it be that they have to temporarily downsize when they move to the new Terminal. Not all the gates will open right away, the current Terminal A will close (A-1 concourse is already closed) as soon as the new Terminal is open. They need to tear down the old A concourses to complete the ramp work on the East (North) side of the new Terminal. So there may be a temporary shortage of gate space.

Are you aware that B6 also operates out of terminal B as well as A?

Yesterday, around 75

LX015 wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

JetBlue hit the 1K milestone today with 1,003 flights scheduled. A first since the pandemic began.

Out of that 1003 scheduled flights, how many were canceled?

120, or 12% of the schedule as of 9:30 Eastern Time. Below is a link to the FlightAware data which refreshes frequently.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today#stats

14% cancelled at DL and 12% at UA, so B6 isn't an outlier here.

MIflyer12 wrote:

LX015 wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

JetBlue hit the 1K milestone today with 1,003 flights scheduled. A first since the pandemic began.

Out of that 1003 scheduled flights, how many were canceled?

120, or 12% of the schedule as of 9:30 Eastern Time. Below is a link to the FlightAware data which refreshes frequently.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today#stats

14% cancelled at DL and 12% at UA, so B6 isn't an outlier here.

Where JetBlue is an outlier is delays (source same FlightAware link you shared):

12/24
% of Flights Canceled and % Delayed

United 10%, 13%
Delta 8%, 8%
JetBlue 7%, 31%

12/25

Delta 15%, 10%
United 12%, 12%
JetBlue 12%, 35%

CRJ200flyer wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

LX015 wrote:

Out of that 1003 scheduled flights, how many were canceled?

120, or 12% of the schedule as of 9:30 Eastern Time. Below is a link to the FlightAware data which refreshes frequently.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today#stats

14% cancelled at DL and 12% at UA, so B6 isn't an outlier here.

Where JetBlue is an outlier is delays (source same FlightAware link you shared):

12/24
% of Flights Canceled and % Delayed

United 10%, 13%
Delta 8%, 8%
JetBlue 7%, 31%

12/25

Delta 15%, 10%
United 12%, 12%
JetBlue 12%, 35%

Not much of a surprise when B6 rates 9th in on-time percentage for the year (through September 2021). Only Allegiant ranks lower. For the month of September they were in 9th and almost 6 percentage points below the carrier in 8th.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/do ... 1_ATCR.pdf

Abeam79 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

BoeingG wrote:

Is London service sustainable? I see paltry seat maps for upcoming JFK-LGW flights. Better data would be appreciated.

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

As in 26 different EU airports? Hmm somehow I have a hard time believing it since I don't think there are that many markets they can successfully serve that are within the range of the A321XLR.

Since I checked this morning when they were at 110 cancellations (close to 11%), it doesn't look like they've made any further cancellations. Maybe they are getting over the worst period of this situations and things are turning around the corner. Let's hope this situation improves tomorrow. Just 2 cancellations for tomorrow so far, but I'm sure this will go up a lot more.

Just saw another source's analysis on each carrier's JFK route performances in Q2 vs other routes in their system. This just covers domestic routes.

B6 is basically at least average on all except a couple of new markets they added during COVID time and a few thin red-eye transcon. BNA, BZN, DFW, EYW, MIA, PSP, PDX, PHX, RNO, SLC, STT. Also interestingly, FLL and SJU were below average due to too capacity I guess.

They did well even on JFK-DTW/MSP. After adjusting for connections, looked like their average fares were even higher than DL on those routes. JFK-ATL performed great as usual. I'd expect as their partnership with AA continue to develop, the performances to BNA, DFW, MIA and PHX will continue to improve also. The red-eye transcons probably will always show lower yield, but will cover incremental variable cost of those flights. A lot to look forward to next summer when they get up to 195 flights a day.

For BZN and STT, they probably just need the right aircraft (A220) for these routes. EYW probably shouldn't be operated in summer time. PSP probably shouldn't be operated into May.

In the same quarter, AA basically just operated to hubs + AUS and a few leisure markets. Even with that, quite a few below average markets. That's why I fully expect a lot more slot shifting happening at JFK over the next year and half.

Blerg wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

I don't think seat maps give the full picture. When things first opened up in November, they were selling out mint cabin on a lot of flights. I'm sure January demand is bad due to Omicron and travel restrictions, but that's going to be less of an issue when we get to Q2. They should have no problem selling 2 flights of a 134 seat each.

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

As in 26 different EU airports? Hmm somehow I have a hard time believing it since I don't think there are that many markets they can successfully serve that are within the range of the A321XLR.

Maybe 26 individual routes. Like 12-15 stations between JFK and BOS, with MAYBE one from FLL and MCO if the range is good enough.
13 stations is more reasonable, but perhaps still aggressive.
LHR, LGW, MAN, GLA, DUB, EDI, BCN, MAD, LIS, PAR, AMS, BRU, CGN, DUS, and longshot a Spanish beachy destination, Switzerland, or Nordin destination are all within range to JFK and BOS. I imagine these are what they are looking at--and counting them twice.

tphuang wrote:

Since I checked this morning when they were at 110 cancellations (close to 11%), it doesn't look like they've made any further cancellations. Maybe they are getting over the worst period of this situations and things are turning around the corner. Let's hope this situation improves tomorrow. Just 2 cancellations for tomorrow so far, but I'm sure this will go up a lot more.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/

Now at 12% canceled and a whopping 43% delayed.

Now 48 percent delayed.

wjcandee wrote:

Now 48 percent delayed.

I’m always shocked that Wall Street and the MSM don’t pick up on this more often. B6 consistently runs a terrible operation. How do they continue to grow while not addressing this? At what point does it become a serious problem? Pretty hard to run a hub-and-spoke supporter model (with the AA partnership/pseudo merger) when it’s routine to see 20+% of flights delayed or cancelled.

Jeremy

SESGDL wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Now 48 percent delayed.

I’m always shocked that Wall Street and the MSM don’t pick up on this more often. B6 consistently runs a terrible operation. How do they continue to grow while not addressing this? At what point does it become a serious problem? Pretty hard to run a hub-and-spoke supporter model (with the AA partnership/pseudo merger) when it’s routine to see 20+% of flights delayed or cancelled.

Jeremy

Wall Street? What more do you want from them? B6 stock is already in the toilet. How much lower do you want it to go? Below 10? 5? 0?

ahj2000 wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

Recently heard from a jetblue employee that they said London is doing very well. Overall eyeing 26 EU markets in the future. Because of uncertainty with new COVID variant far out bookings aren’t a good barameter as most people are waiting to finalize last minute. If you look at close in bookings London is showing well above 90% load factor.

As in 26 different EU airports? Hmm somehow I have a hard time believing it since I don't think there are that many markets they can successfully serve that are within the range of the A321XLR.

Maybe 26 individual routes. Like 12-15 stations between JFK and BOS, with MAYBE one from FLL and MCO if the range is good enough.
13 stations is more reasonable, but perhaps still aggressive.
LHR, LGW, MAN, GLA, DUB, EDI, BCN, MAD, LIS, PAR, AMS, BRU, CGN, DUS, and longshot a Spanish beachy destination, Switzerland, or Nordin destination are all within range to JFK and BOS. I imagine these are what they are looking at--and counting them twice.

That would make more sense, that is if they introduce it from various hubs/focus cities. Then again it says in the future, that's a pretty vague time from which could mean pretty much anything.

Can an A321XLR make it both ways from JFK/BOS to Switzerland and Barcelona? I remember UA's B752 had range issues when they used to fly to TXL. Aren't these even further away?

Blerg wrote:

Can an A321XLR make it both ways from JFK/BOS to Switzerland and Barcelona? I remember UA's B752 had range issues when they used to fly to TXL. Aren't these even further away?

I think it should be ok -- right?

B6 will have a more premium config than those older 2-2 J UA 752s, and the 752 has a nominal range of ~3900nmi whereas Airbus claims that the XLR will get up to 4700nmi. That's a pretty big difference. No doubt, B6 will be able to fly to BCN with no problems whatsoever. I'm guessing it's the same for Switzerland, if they plan on serving ZRH and/or GVA in the future.

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

When there are enough mint planes. I’d guess 2023 or 2024, unless they end up leasing some more sooner. But I don’t really know…really just a guess.

CRJ200flyer wrote:

tphuang wrote:

Since I checked this morning when they were at 110 cancellations (close to 11%), it doesn't look like they've made any further cancellations. Maybe they are getting over the worst period of this situations and things are turning around the corner. Let's hope this situation improves tomorrow. Just 2 cancellations for tomorrow so far, but I'm sure this will go up a lot more.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/

Now at 12% canceled and a whopping 43% delayed.

Given where Omicron hit first and the hardest, it's not a surprise that a lot of JetBlue crew members caught it and are taking the necessary time to isolate and recover. Given how many people caught omicron in the past 2 weeks, I'm sure most New Yorkers understand that an airline based in NYC might have trouble dealing with it.

That post was to see if we are through the worst of this crisis. It doesn't appear so. Right now, we are at 6% cancelled for today at 7:50 AM. That number is sure to climb, but hopefully the overall cancellation rates will come down. These are the most busy few days of trouble. It's possible by middle of this week, things will get better just from people recovering + fewer flights.

SESGDL wrote:

wjcandee wrote:

Now 48 percent delayed.

I’m always shocked that Wall Street and the MSM don’t pick up on this more often. B6 consistently runs a terrible operation. How do they continue to grow while not addressing this? At what point does it become a serious problem? Pretty hard to run a hub-and-spoke supporter model (with the AA partnership/pseudo merger) when it’s routine to see 20+% of flights delayed or cancelled.

Jeremy

It's not a pseudo merger. It's a partnership.

why would wall street care? They only care about PnL and future projections.

If you take a look at their OTP numbers out of JFK and BOS for the year before COVID, they had about the same OTP number as AA mainline. There is no reason they can't do that for next summer if they hire sufficient number of people.

Frankly, this is not their biggest issue right now. They have a lot of ongoing IT issues that are a lot more problematic for customers. This partnership is a huge step forward for B6. They are experiencing a lot of growing pain right now.

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

In Q2, the highest yielding mint route was BOS-SFO. Another route where B6 took advantage of UA weakness out of SFO. The problem is lack of mint aircraft. SFO seems to be a market that really embraced mint service.

Once they get more A321LDs into service, I think MIA-SFO will happen. I think they will probably also add to JFK/EWR/BOS-SFO. All 3 of these are high performers that could use more frequency. There is a lot of things they could try at SFO. If I were them, I'd probably try Hawaii, LAS, SAN, SJD, MCO, IAD/BWI, HPN, MKE,

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

Why would you presume that there is a gap in premium service for MIA-SFO? There are two incumbent airlines, each with a hub at either end. Neither of those airlines serves the route in a way that suggests that there is lots of premium demand for it and neither lacks the ability to do so. Why would not just one, but both of those airlines just leave that premium demand unserved if it did exist?

Right now (at 3 PM EST), they are still at 6% cancellations for today. Let's hope the worst of this cancellation nightmare is over.

Taking a look at their block hours. They are still down about 2% for January vs 2019. February is down a little to now be a hair lower than 2019. March is up a little bit to be about 1% more than 2019. While this sounds like not a lot, they are probably going to be up 7 to 10% in ASM in Q1 if this holds since their average seat per aircraft has gone up by probably 7% during this time. Compared to their competitors, the ULCCs are generally up about 20 to 25% in block hours vs 2019 (not sure how they will staff these flights). DL is down 15 to 18%. AA is down 5 to 10%. UA is down 10 to 15%. AS is down about 9%. WN is down 5 to 10%.

Brickell305 wrote:

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

Why would you presume that there is a gap in premium service for MIA-SFO? There are two incumbent airlines, each with a hub at either end. Neither of those airlines serves the route in a way that suggests that there is lots of premium demand for it and neither lacks the ability to do so. Why would not just one, but both of those airlines just leave that premium demand unserved if it did exist?

i believe AA had a 767 here pre-COVID, but now they have a widebody shortage. In Q2, B6 had an average far on direct flight of $318 while AA was at $270 on MIA-SFO. So it looks like there was a premium crowd that was not flying on AA. I think that crowd very happily try B6 out of MIA since they've already done so out of FLL. Back when B6 entered MIA-LAX, AA retaliated pretty strongly with 6 widebodies on MIA-LAX + 2 flights on FLL-LAX. Even with that, MIA/FLL-LAX was probably a system average to slightly below system average route for B6. They were extremely poor performers for AA. Although, you could argue that AA really didn't have a better place to put those 777s.

So if we look at what happened on FLL/MIA-LAX, one would think that they can get similar fares on MIA-SFO as they do FLL-SFO. It grows B6's south Florida presence and SFO presence. The only question is how AA will react. So far, AA has retaliated against every add B6 has made in MIA. In every case, those retaliations were very costly for AA, but they've more or less have kept those retaliations around.

there are some obvious adds ahead for B6 at MIA. SFO, SJU and SDQ can all be added without hurting their FLL operation. As long as it doesn't damage their relationship with NEA, I see no reason why they should not add them. AA retaliation is proof that the two airlines are still competing aggressively.

tphuang wrote:

Right now (at 3 PM EST), they are still at 6% cancellations for today. Let's hope the worst of this cancellation nightmare is over.

Taking a look at their block hours. They are still down about 2% for January vs 2019. February is down a little to now be a hair lower than 2019. March is up a little bit to be about 1% more than 2019. While this sounds like not a lot, they are probably going to be up 7 to 10% in ASM in Q1 if this holds since their average seat per aircraft has gone up by probably 7% during this time. Compared to their competitors, the ULCCs are generally up about 20 to 25% in block hours vs 2019 (not sure how they will staff these flights). DL is down 15 to 18%. AA is down 5 to 10%. UA is down 10 to 15%. AS is down about 9%. WN is down 5 to 10%.

Brickell305 wrote:

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

Why would you presume that there is a gap in premium service for MIA-SFO? There are two incumbent airlines, each with a hub at either end. Neither of those airlines serves the route in a way that suggests that there is lots of premium demand for it and neither lacks the ability to do so. Why would not just one, but both of those airlines just leave that premium demand unserved if it did exist?

i believe AA had a 767 here pre-COVID, but now they have a widebody shortage. In Q2, B6 had an average far on direct flight of $318 while AA was at $270 on MIA-SFO. So it looks like there was a premium crowd that was not flying on AA. I think that crowd very happily try B6 out of MIA since they've already done so out of FLL. Back when B6 entered MIA-LAX, AA retaliated pretty strongly with 6 widebodies on MIA-LAX + 2 flights on FLL-LAX. Even with that, MIA/FLL-LAX was probably a system average to slightly below system average route for B6. They were extremely poor performers for AA. Although, you could argue that AA really didn't have a better place to put those 777s.

So if we look at what happened on FLL/MIA-LAX, one would think that they can get similar fares on MIA-SFO as they do FLL-SFO. It grows B6's south Florida presence and SFO presence. The only question is how AA will react. So far, AA has retaliated against every add B6 has made in MIA. In every case, those retaliations were very costly for AA, but they've more or less have kept those retaliations around.

there are some obvious adds ahead for B6 at MIA. SFO, SJU and SDQ can all be added without hurting their FLL operation. As long as it doesn't damage their relationship with NEA, I see no reason why they should not add them. AA retaliation is proof that the two airlines are still competing aggressively.

I flew MIA-SFO in January 2020 so basically right before the pandemic shut everything down. AA flew 3x daily 737s on the route. It may have been flown on a 767 before but that was years ago IIRC. I don’t believe that was recent.

Post-pandemic when AA was throwing 777s on all kinds of routes to MIA e.g. JFK, LAS, LAX and was putting 777s on routes like DFW-MCO, they opted not to do the same for MIA-SFO. And going back pre-pandemic, AA has experimented with putting the A321T on LAX-MIA. That was never done with SFO.

UA, on the other hand, has only served this seasonally and once daily when they do. I’m not saying there is absolutely no premium demand but from all appearances, it doesn’t seem to be an especially or disproportionately premium route.

tphuang wrote:

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

In Q2, the highest yielding mint route was BOS-SFO. Another route where B6 took advantage of UA weakness out of SFO. The problem is lack of mint aircraft. SFO seems to be a market that really embraced mint service.

Once they get more A321LDs into service, I think MIA-SFO will happen. I think they will probably also add to JFK/EWR/BOS-SFO. All 3 of these are high performers that could use more frequency. There is a lot of things they could try at SFO. If I were them, I'd probably try Hawaii, LAS, SAN, SJD, MCO, IAD/BWI, HPN, MKE,

JetBlue added MCO service from SFO 1x daily on an A320 during their crazy expansions in 2020 but it has since been cut I wonder why....... Same thing with a few of MCO routes like MCO-AUS/RDU/PHL/ATL and I'm pretty sure it's due to the ULCC presence at MCO. Hopefully JetBlue could show some more love to the city of Orlando but with all this competition and MCO not that business oriented I really do not know what JetBlue could add.

tphuang wrote:

With NK moving a lot of their flights from FLL to MIA, it appears that B6 is the largest carriers at FLL again by daily departures. There is to be a lot of growth available here at FLL once they are finished with most of the NYC buildup. Restoring some of the frequencies to places like PHL, LAS, JAX, SFO and RIC would help.

There are some defensive moves that WN can make against B6 at both FLL and LAX such as
(a) the addition of FLL-LAX/OAK/SAN nonstop service,
(b) the return of FLL-ALB/LAS nonstop service, and
(c) the addition of LAX-BUF/CHS/FLL/BDL/JAX/MCO/RDU nonstop service.

I had also recently asked the question regarding the possibility of WN making defensive adds against B6 in a discussion at viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1468051, but did not receive any responses in that discussion.

WN also already has FF bases, strong brand recognition, and point-of-sale in some markets outside of FLL/MIA or LAX/BUR/LGB/ONT/SNA to support some of the defensive adds by WN against B6 out of FLL and LAX.

How can B6 remain competitive against WN at FLL and LAX where B6 might face the possibility of defensive adds by WN?

jplatts wrote:

tphuang wrote:

With NK moving a lot of their flights from FLL to MIA, it appears that B6 is the largest carriers at FLL again by daily departures. There is to be a lot of growth available here at FLL once they are finished with most of the NYC buildup. Restoring some of the frequencies to places like PHL, LAS, JAX, SFO and RIC would help.

There are some defensive moves that WN can make against B6 at both FLL and LAX such as
(a) the addition of FLL-LAX/OAK/SAN nonstop service,
(b) the return of FLL-ALB/LAS nonstop service, and
(c) the addition of LAX-BUF/CHS/FLL/BDL/JAX/MCO/RDU nonstop service.

I had also recently asked the question regarding the possibility of WN making defensive adds against B6 in a discussion at viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1468051, but did not receive any responses in that discussion.

WN also already has FF bases, strong brand recognition, and point-of-sale in some markets outside of FLL/MIA or LAX/BUR/LGB/ONT/SNA to support some of the defensive adds by WN against B6 out of FLL and LAX.

How can B6 remain competitive against WN at FLL and LAX where B6 might face the possibility of defensive adds by WN?

It seems like B6 is doing very well at FLL especially since wn is the one that pulled back on many of the routes they competed at, and they have more room for growth in FLL with more gates coming available to them to put them firmly as the #1 carrier in FLL. I think wn will just remain serving the routes than bolster their domestic network. I think it seems wn is happy coexisting as a 3rd player in FLL just playing their strengths connecting sfla to middle of the country.
Lax seems it will do as they always do. Coexist as well being it’s so fragmented. Most of the B6 lx strategy is transcon and thinner point to point east/west coast connections. Wn seems to settle with the west of Mississippi flying there

aviationMCO8 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

sfojvjets wrote:

When (if, at all) do any of you think B6 would try to break into the MIA-SFO market?

Happy to glean any insights. My thinking is that there is a significant gap in premium operations on the route since neither UA nor AA offer lie-flat J. UA flies daily seasonally on a 737 while AA flies 3+ dailies on MAX 8s... if B6 were to add mint service on MIA-SFO, it would blow the competition right out of the water where it matters most - the premium offering. For reference to a somewhat similar route, AA sends multiple daily 777s between MIA and LAX. Yes, both are hubs for AA, but it's evident that the premium cabins are there to serve the premium O&D traffic -- the SFO route, although smaller in volume and less competitive, lacks this.

I guess there could be questions of a potential MIA-SFO B6 service cannibalizing FLL-SFO, but since we have data on B6 flying both FLL-LAX and MIA-LAX now, is there that big of an impact on pre-existing FLL service?

I think FLL-SFO is currently the highest yielding B6 route in the network (someone please correct if this is wrong). Would love to see Miami added to the list of destinations B6 serves from San Francisco.

In Q2, the highest yielding mint route was BOS-SFO. Another route where B6 took advantage of UA weakness out of SFO. The problem is lack of mint aircraft. SFO seems to be a market that really embraced mint service.

Once they get more A321LDs into service, I think MIA-SFO will happen. I think they will probably also add to JFK/EWR/BOS-SFO. All 3 of these are high performers that could use more frequency. There is a lot of things they could try at SFO. If I were them, I'd probably try Hawaii, LAS, SAN, SJD, MCO, IAD/BWI, HPN, MKE,

JetBlue added MCO service from SFO 1x daily on an A320 during their crazy expansions in 2020 but it has since been cut I wonder why....... Same thing with a few of MCO routes like MCO-AUS/RDU/PHL/ATL and I'm pretty sure it's due to the ULCC presence at MCO. Hopefully JetBlue could show some more love to the city of Orlando but with all this competition and MCO not that business oriented I really do not know what JetBlue could add.

It was said further up this thread that they expect to be back to close to pre-COVID size in terms of departures by next summer. So somewhere between 60 and 65. I don't think you are going to see a huge expansion at MCO for a while, but they will need to add a few route to get to their desired level. FLL-MCO is a given at this point. I think MCO-SFO is the next most likely. I don't think MCO-AUS/ATL is coming back. Those performed too terribly. MCO-PHL is possible, but was quite low yielding. MCO-RDU was pretty low yielding for the period they operated it, but they might try it again at some point.

The problem is that a lot of MCO routes really depend on other side point of sale and B6 really doesn't have much of a presence to much of the country. MCO-SFO makes sense because they actually have some local point of sale. They did better on MCO-SFO than MCO-LAX.

I flew MIA-SFO in January 2020 so basically right before the pandemic shut everything down. AA flew 3x daily 737s on the route. It may have been flown on a 767 before but that was years ago IIRC. I don’t believe that was recent.

Post-pandemic when AA was throwing 777s on all kinds of routes to MIA e.g. JFK, LAS, LAX and was putting 777s on routes like DFW-MCO, they opted not to do the same for MIA-SFO. And going back pre-pandemic, AA has experimented with putting the A321T on LAX-MIA. That was never done with SFO.

UA, on the other hand, has only served this seasonally and once daily when they do. I’m not saying there is absolutely no premium demand but from all appearances, it doesn’t seem to be an especially or disproportionately premium route.

Weird, I thought I saw 767 at some point. While there isn't as much premium demand on SoFla-SFO, there is some. When there isn't as much premium capacity from competitors, B6 will do well. FLL-SFO mint service has generally performed well after some initial struggles. In several quarters, it was one of their best performing mint route. UA really isn't that strong at SFO. If B6 puts enough pressure here, they might be able to run UA off this market entirely. Of course, they can also add all-core flight(s) on FLL-SFO if they just want to increase capacity. MIA-SFO makes a lot of sense to both raise their profile in SFO and building their south Florida strategy.