Why do so few international airlines serve PHL/Philadelphia? BOS, JFK, EWR, and IAD all have strong presence of European flag carriers and a few others. Is PHL just the 5th wheel of the Northeast for international traffic? I would think a metropolitan area of 6 million would have more options for TATL.

fightforlove wrote:

Why do so few international airlines serve PHL/Philadelphia? BOS, JFK, EWR, and IAD all have strong presence of European flag carriers and a few others. Is PHL just the 5th wheel of the Northeast for international traffic? I would think a metropolitan area of 6 million would have more options for TATL.

What sort of traffic do that 6 million metro area generate? When I look at a map, I see Philadelphia being about 60-70 miles southwest of New York area, about the same distance from Baltimore and roughtly 100 miles northeast of Washington.

fightforlove wrote:

Is PHL just the 5th wheel of the Northeast for international traffic?

That's basically it right there... Philadelphia is unfortunately sandwiched between IAD and EWR, with easy train connections to the latter. Both Washington and New York are bigger international markets, so airlines go there first and then only add PHL if they really want to build out an extensive U.S. network. Luckily for PHL, AA has decided to focus on PHL as their Transatlantic hub rather than JFK.

Look at PHL O&D, specifically TATL O&D. It's not worth fighting the AA hub. As for domestic O&D, PHL has less than MSP - an MSA just 60% of the size of PHL.

One is American is hub here and annoying undercuts everyone price so a lot of airlines can't complete. Two is well being so close NYC it basically takes lots of traffic from PHL. Three while Philly does have some major companies here they need more companies to attract more corporate contacts.

PHL has been trying actively for the last 5 years offering new airlines discounts to offer service here. Air France has been at PHL on and off but seems like they won't be coming back for a while. Honestly I don't know it is going to take to attract more airlines at PHL.

The famous word used for PHL is "leakage". As others stated with other airports to the north and south of PHL there's so many options and cheaper prices most of the time to choose from in NYC and Washington area. Luckily with QR, EL, and FI starting service and being successful thus far maybe other airlines might take a chance.

PHL also doesn’t really have the international tourist appeal that some of the other cities you mentioned have.

PHL has plenty of international carriers. BA, LH, EI, FI and QR. At this point in history it has more than it has ever had. There was a time when BA was the only international carrier at PHL so I would say it has done well relatively speaking.

PHLspecial wrote:

One is American is hub here and annoying undercuts everyone price so a lot of airlines can't complete. Two is well being so close NYC it basically takes lots of traffic from PHL. Three while Philly does have some major companies here they need more companies to attract more corporate contacts.

PHL has been trying actively for the last 5 years offering new airlines discounts to offer service here. Air France has been at PHL on and off but seems like they won't be coming back for a while. Honestly I don't know it is going to take to attract more airlines at PHL.

At this point I think a foreign carrier will need to have a A321Lr in order to fly from Europe and from Asia a 350 or 787 in which case would be from JL but of course doubt that'll happen any time soon if not ever. Overall like you mentioned AA dominance has played a major role.

Polot wrote:

PHL also doesn’t really have the international tourist appeal that some of the other cities you mentioned have.

It is a pretty historical city, yes it does not have the same bling as NY but does a pretty good damn food scene, 100+ museums, and a bunch of national attractions.

A couple of things, first Philadelphia is not as strong economically as NYC, Boston, Northern New Jersey and Northern Virginia. Philadelphia is a blue collar town, which is part of its charm.

Second it does not have huge immigrant communities like New York, and lastly as mentioned much of its suburbs are within easy drives of EWR, JFK and BWI.

It’s about a 90 minute drive from Bucks County to EWR, 2 hours to JFK.


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PHLspecial wrote:

Polot wrote:

PHL also doesn’t really have the international tourist appeal that some of the other cities you mentioned have.

It is a pretty historical city, yes it does not have the same bling as NY but does a pretty good damn food scene, 100+ museums, and a bunch of national attractions.

I don’t think anyone is trying to rip on your city...
But I don’t think it can argued that European tourists or anyone thinks of NYC/WAS/BOS in the same breath as PHL.
Three of those areas are major draws for tourists around the world.
The odd one out is PHL, which has the least amount of service by far compared to the other three.

As said, it is mainly leakage and I mostly blame AA for that - they treat PHL routes as if they have a monopoly on them and don't price competitively with EWR. Last two trips to Europe + one I have coming up are all departing EWR even though I live 15 minutes from PHL. Two coach passengers for each trip will end up saving me about $3500 total over the cheapest PHL option when I booked, and about $4800 if just comparing against AA.

It's not just leisure - I was recently at a company with a large Europe presence and our Philadelphia suburbs office would book business class for those flying to Europe. Due to price, most people would be flying out of EWR and the company would provide a car service each way. We still saved something like $800-$1000 on average for each trip, even after factoring in the car service.

I can't imagine a great way to measure leakage, but I guarantee there is a ton of it.

lowfareair wrote:

As said, it is mainly leakage and I mostly blame AA for that - they treat PHL routes as if they have a monopoly on them and don't price competitively with EWR. Last two trips to Europe + one I have coming up are all departing EWR even though I live 15 minutes from PHL. Two coach passengers for each trip will end up saving me about $3500 total over the cheapest PHL option when I booked, and about $4800 if just comparing against AA.

It's not just leisure - I was recently at a company with a large Europe presence and our Philadelphia suburbs office would book business class for those flying to Europe. Due to price, most people would be flying out of EWR and the company would provide a car service each way. We still saved something like $800-$1000 on average for each trip, even after factoring in the car service.

I can't imagine a great way to measure leakage, but I guarantee there is a ton of it.

Just like Delta at Detroit they do the same thing. If you want a reasonable fare to Europe they figure you should have to drive 4 hours to either ORD or YYZ but at least you have EI and FI serving PHL we have nothing here to serve the cross section of the market and the airport makes little effort to attract that kind of service.

From my personal experiences, leakage is a huge issue, especially to NYC airports.
I live in the city. My TPAC trips have been Amtrak to EWR then fly UA/CA, or Greyhound to PABT then E train to Jamaica/JFK and fly there.
My aunt who lives in Doyelstown (1+hour commuter rail ride north of Philadelphia) always drive to EWR and fly UA.
To me the cheap airfare out of NYC and the choice of airlines available (especially at JFK) is worth the 2-hour bus/train trip.

A bit shocked at this too, I was in Philly last week ( in Malvern) , I looked at fares before hand from LHR, return direct with BA was £1,300 economy, just up the road to EWR was £350 with United almost identical times. For the extra 1hr in the car it was a no brainier to go to Newark.


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AA non-OW carriers - BA and QR
TATL non OW carriers - EI and LH

I believe OW carriers notably JL, CX etc. may have a decent shot but I do not know how good the market is. My understanding is it is a large metro and good university system but too much leakage to EWR (drivable distance) especially where there are far more options available to Asia, Europe.

fightforlove wrote:

JFK, EWR, and IAD all have strong presence of European flag carriers and a few others.

You answered your own question.
As someone mentioned above, PHL being between those with easy and affordable train connections, the answer is right there.
Amtrak sends warms regards and thank you for this topic.

Kinda similar with BRU: Every half an hour a train departs BRU Central Station and drops you inside AMS Main terminal in 1h30 with no connection, no trains change, nothing. Direct route, sometimes with rates below €18 so why do airlines bother flying into BRU? The other 2 Brussels train stations also have direct services to AMS airport but in lower frequencies.
No one seems to care about easy and fast trip to AMS with fares out AMS way lower than BRU.
Just stop by Brussels Centraal at anytime of the day and you gonna see tons of pax in/out with airline tags in their lugagge.

STT757 wrote:

It’s about a 90 minute drive from Bucks County to EWR, 2 hours to JFK.

My parents live in Bucks county (northern suburbs of philly, for others). And I used to live in europe, so I flew international to the Philly area a bit. I always checked both PHL and EWR. JFK - no. Combined with NYC traffic jams, JFK really wouldn't enter into it.

Philly is a great city to visit, but from the standpoint of marketing to europeans, I think NYC and Washington are much better known.

Cause it’s an AA fortress hub

Slightly off topic but is there any possibility of AA starting non-stop service to HNL to compete with HA's service between HNL and JFK/BOS?

dfwjim1 wrote:

Slightly off topic but is there any possibility of AA starting non-stop service to HNL to compete with HA's service between HNL and JFK/BOS?

Never say never, but I'd say it's very unlikely. The only chance is probably a winter-seasonal flight that makes use of slack in the long haul fleet. Otherwise, for the same (or less) block time, AA could add another transatlantic destination with better supplemental connecting traffic.

stephanwintner wrote:

My parents live in Bucks county (northern suburbs of philly, for others). And I used to live in europe, so I flew international to the Philly area a bit. I always checked both PHL and EWR. JFK - no. Combined with NYC traffic jams, JFK really wouldn't enter into it.

For a lot of people, it's all about the lowest price. They may find that they spend $100 to save $50. But hey it was "cheaper"!

I do love watching the A.net brain trust complain that PHL prices are too high. The local market clearly supports it, therefore the pricing is what it is. If the market didn't support it, either planes would be empty or prices would be lower. Too many people on here who forget that an airline is a business, and wants to make maximum return on investment.

lowfareair wrote:

As said, it is mainly leakage and I mostly blame AA for that - they treat PHL routes as if they have a monopoly on them and don't price competitively with EWR

That can't be said enough. It's super annoying AA undercuts every airline here but doesn't complete with EWR. AA as a hub at PHL is a curse and sometimes a good thing.

From PHL one can already fly to:

Amsterdam
Athens
Barcelona
Berlin
Bologna
Budapest
Dublin
Dubrovnik
Edinburgh
Frankfurt
Lisbon
London
Manchester
Paris
Prague
Reykjavik
Rome

And that's just to Europe. Not sure how many more options are necessary.

toltommy wrote:

stephanwintner wrote:

My parents live in Bucks county (northern suburbs of philly, for others). And I used to live in europe, so I flew international to the Philly area a bit. I always checked both PHL and EWR. JFK - no. Combined with NYC traffic jams, JFK really wouldn't enter into it.

For a lot of people, it's all about the lowest price. They may find that they spend $100 to save $50. But hey it was "cheaper"!

I do love watching the A.net brain trust complain that PHL prices are too high. The local market clearly supports it, therefore the pricing is what it is. If the market didn't support it, either planes would be empty or prices would be lower. Too many people on here who forget that an airline is a business, and wants to make maximum return on investment.

As mentioned above, I saved $3500 on 3 trips with 2 seats each. There's trying to find the absolute lowest price and there's "Spend an extra 2-3 hours roundtrip to save $1200". The vast majority of people would be strongly considering the latter and many will do it.

"If the market didn't support it, either planes would be empty or prices would be lower." or an option 3) There is a lot of connecting feed on the aircraft and AA justifies higher prices for PHL O&D by underestimating the amount of shrinkage to EWR. It could also be they know there's leakage, but they would rather get a higher profit per O&D passenger on a smaller number of passengers and replace the leakage with connections.

ojjunior wrote:

fightforlove wrote:

JFK, EWR, and IAD all have strong presence of European flag carriers and a few others.

You answered your own question.
As someone mentioned above, PHL being between those with easy and affordable train connections, the answer is right there.
Amtrak sends warms regards and thank you for this topic.

Kinda similar with BRU: Every half an hour a train departs BRU Central Station and drops you inside AMS Main terminal in 1h30 with no connection, no trains change, nothing. Direct route, sometimes with rates below €18 so why do airlines bother flying into BRU? The other 2 Brussels train stations also have direct services to AMS airport but in lower frequencies.
No one seems to care about easy and fast trip to AMS with fares out AMS way lower than BRU.
Just stop by Brussels Centraal at anytime of the day and you gonna see tons of pax in/out with airline tags in their lugagge.

That is a really bad comparison. Brussels to AMS is 200 km. Brussels to CDG is 300 km.

Philadelphia to EWR is only 80 miles or 130 km. And distances in US VS Europe are incomparable. For US standards (even in traffic-jammed NE), 80 miles is nothing. In Europe 300 km. usually means you are crossing two countries. And I know there is quick train to both AMS and CDG but that is quite common in Europe.

For TATL BRU has Air Canada, ANA, Cathay, Delta, Emirates, Ethiopian, Etihad, Hainan, Qatar, Thai and United... something PHL can only dream of. BRU has the EU and NATO and quite a few EU HQs for American or Asian companies.

Also BRU happens very often to be cheaper than AMS or CDG because in some major destinations like New York there are several carriers fighting for a relatively small market.

klm617 wrote:

lowfareair wrote:

As said, it is mainly leakage and I mostly blame AA for that - they treat PHL routes as if they have a monopoly on them and don't price competitively with EWR. Last two trips to Europe + one I have coming up are all departing EWR even though I live 15 minutes from PHL. Two coach passengers for each trip will end up saving me about $3500 total over the cheapest PHL option when I booked, and about $4800 if just comparing against AA.

It's not just leisure - I was recently at a company with a large Europe presence and our Philadelphia suburbs office would book business class for those flying to Europe. Due to price, most people would be flying out of EWR and the company would provide a car service each way. We still saved something like $800-$1000 on average for each trip, even after factoring in the car service.

I can't imagine a great way to measure leakage, but I guarantee there is a ton of it.

Just like Delta at Detroit they do the same thing. If you want a reasonable fare to Europe they figure you should have to drive 4 hours to either ORD or YYZ but at least you have EI and FI serving PHL we have nothing here to serve the cross section of the market and the airport makes little effort to attract that kind of service.

No, its actually not like that at all.

PHL is 70 miles from EWR which offers flights to most anywhere on earth. DTW is 4.5 hours from ORD or 4 hours plus an international crossing from YYZ.

Youll see alot more leakage from PHL to EWR than from DTW to ORD/YYZ.

It is a triple perfect storm. AA fortress, EWR fares, and leakage. eg Princeton Univ is equidistant between PHL and EWR, an hour plus drive.In any other area that university would be mentioned as an airport draw. It doesn't even get an afterthought for PHL traffic. etc, etc, etc

There is also Air Canada with good YYZ int'l traffic connections. At least it counts as Philly departures, but cuts into volume for other carriers

PHLspecial wrote:

Polot wrote:

PHL also doesn’t really have the international tourist appeal that some of the other cities you mentioned have.

It is a pretty historical city, yes it does not have the same bling as NY but does a pretty good damn food scene, 100+ museums, and a bunch of national attractions.

Who gets on a 7 and 1/2 hours flights from Europe for a “good food scene” ??.

Hard truth is it’s a pretty boring city from a tourist’s perspective. Worth they day trip when visiting NYC ? Yeah sure, to go take some pictures at constitution hall and liberty bell. But a dedicated trip across the pond ? Absolutely not. I should know my boyfriend went to Upenn and I flew there from Paris almost every month for a moment, hating him for not choosing NYU where he had also been admitted.

Polot wrote:

PHL also doesn’t really have the international tourist appeal that some of the other cities you mentioned have.

That`s right, but PHL also serves Willmington, DE – the biggist and SAFEST hotspot of global tax evasion and shell companies. This fact won’t generate any mass traffic but it will help to fill some front seats every now and then.

Like Cathay Pacific fly from HKG to IAD, EWR, JFK and BOS but no PHL yet. JFK, EWR, and IAD are obvious choice, and then between BOS and PHL ot do seems that BOS have more potential and is farther out from catchment area of other airports in the region.I wouldn't say it is the fifth wheel but it's certainly the fifth when it come to long haul airlines' priority to service the region.

lavalampluva wrote:

From PHL one can already fly to:

Amsterdam
Athens
Barcelona
Berlin
Bologna
Budapest
Dublin
Dubrovnik
Edinburgh
Frankfurt
Lisbon
London
Manchester
Paris
Prague
Reykjavik
Rome

And that's just to Europe. Not sure how many more options are necessary.

This. And any cities not mentioned can be connected to with one stop in LHR.

c933103 wrote:

Like Cathay Pacific fly from HKG to IAD, EWR, JFK and BOS but no PHL yet. JFK, EWR, and IAD are obvious choice, and then between BOS and PHL ot do seems that BOS have more potential and is farther out from catchment area of other airports in the region.I wouldn't say it is the fifth wheel but it's certainly the fifth when it come to long haul airlines' priority to service the region.

Except IMHO BOS is a more "obvious" choice than IAD. But otherwise, yes, BOS catchment area is a lot larger and Philly somewhat suffered from being too close to NYC. I would argue that Boston area has more VFR traffic in general also.

Kilopond wrote:

That`s right, but PHL also serves Willmington, DE – the biggist and SAFEST hotspot of global tax evasion and shell companies. This fact won’t generate any mass traffic but it will help to fill some front seats every now and then.

So is GCM or BDA. Those really fat cats just fly in/out in corporate jets anyway.

As for the OP questions - Philly itself is one of those places that simply has to live in the shadow of its much larger neighbor (NYC). It's also a giant OW fortress hub, making it hard for anyone outside OW to jump in. PHL location is not bad for TATL connection, but OW itself is not that strong in Europe with its hub located on the edges.

Compare that to BOS (NYC is simply a much larger market, and any comparison won't be fair), where nobody really dominates and thus, making it easier for pretty much any carrier to jump in there. BOS in general also generate more international traffic.

toltommy wrote:

stephanwintner wrote:

My parents live in Bucks county (northern suburbs of philly, for others). And I used to live in europe, so I flew international to the Philly area a bit. I always checked both PHL and EWR. JFK - no. Combined with NYC traffic jams, JFK really wouldn't enter into it.

For a lot of people, it's all about the lowest price. They may find that they spend $100 to save $50. But hey it was "cheaper"!

What gives you the idea that I wasn't well aware of the costs to get from PHL to warrington, and from EWR to warrington? Be it via Amtrak, Septa, or being picked up by Dadtaxi (tm), those costs, as well as time and convenience, were also considered. My point is that, for a Bucks county location, EWR is nearly as convenient as PHL...

lavalampluva wrote:

From PHL one can already fly to:

Amsterdam
Athens
Barcelona
Berlin
Bologna
Budapest
Dublin
Dubrovnik
Edinburgh
Frankfurt
Lisbon
London
Manchester
Paris
Prague
Reykjavik
Rome

And that's just to Europe. Not sure how many more options are necessary.

+ Madrid, which is 332 daily year-round flown by AA

toltommy wrote:

stephanwintner wrote:

My parents live in Bucks county (northern suburbs of philly, for others). And I used to live in europe, so I flew international to the Philly area a bit. I always checked both PHL and EWR. JFK - no. Combined with NYC traffic jams, JFK really wouldn't enter into it.

For a lot of people, it's all about the lowest price. They may find that they spend $100 to save $50. But hey it was "cheaper"!

What?
I do take into the account that I have to spend money to get to EWR or JFK.
The things is, fares on SU via SVO (yeah I know a long way)/CN3 out of JFK to China are often $200-300 cheaper than AA via DFW/DL via DTW out of PHL.
A bus ride to NYC is less than $30 round trip.
For me, if the airfare difference is less than $100 then I would probably not bother going to NYC. But for the dates and times I traveled on, this has yet to happen.

ABEguy wrote:

lavalampluva wrote:

From PHL one can already fly to:

Amsterdam
Athens
Barcelona
Berlin
Bologna
Budapest
Dublin
Dubrovnik
Edinburgh
Frankfurt
Lisbon
London
Manchester
Paris
Prague
Reykjavik
Rome

And that's just to Europe. Not sure how many more options are necessary.

This. And any cities not mentioned can be connected to with one stop in LHR.

And people especially business travelers prefer a non-stop

Kilopond wrote:

Polot wrote:

PHL also doesn’t really have the international tourist appeal that some of the other cities you mentioned have.

That`s right, but PHL also serves Willmington, DE – the biggist and SAFEST hotspot of global tax evasion and shell companies. This fact won’t generate any mass traffic but it will help to fill some front seats every now and then.

Filling up the front every now and then doesn't work as well as filling up the front everyday like EWR/JFK/IAD/SFO/LAX/IAH do. And the companies with Delaware addresses are just the incorporated addresses, their HQ's are in different cities.

Examples include:
United Continental Holdings (Chicago, Il)
Ernst & Young (London, England)
Dow Chemical (Midland, MI)

MIflyer12 wrote:

Look at PHL O&D, specifically TATL O&D. It's not worth fighting the AA hub. As for domestic O&D, PHL has less than MSP - an MSA just 60% of the size of PHL.

What is the latest PHL Airport International O&D and the Source?
The more important/impressive statistic is the number of international cities served non-stop from PHL - as listed up thread. Very few U.S. cities come even close to PHL in that respect. The only POTENTIAL advantage of having more International Carriers serving PHL is competitive pricing - as long as AA permits them to survive. JAL - or another Asian carrier is about the only reasonable exception.

IIRC, AF and SR used to serve PHL at one point.

I flew to PHL with LH last year. The return trip was at a bit more than 1,000 euros for Y+. Booked a couple of months in advance. Compared to what you can pay to flights within Europe, that’s a hell of a good price. Load factor was okay-ish at around 70% or so (A330). I loved that immigration took only 15 minutes. And the procedures for the outbound flight were also perfect. It took me 20 minutes to be airside. Then I had like three hours to kill and I didn’t get bored at PHL.
I definitely would reconsider booking a direct flight to PHL instead of going through Newark or JFK even if I had to pay more.

Has the OP ever been to Philadelphia?

lavalampluva wrote:

From PHL one can already fly to:

Amsterdam
Athens
Barcelona
Berlin
Bologna
Budapest
Dublin
Dubrovnik
Edinburgh
Frankfurt
Lisbon
London
Manchester
Paris
Prague
Reykjavik
Rome

And that's just to Europe. Not sure how many more options are necessary.

But this is mostly AA. The question was about international carriers, not international destinations, which AA would probably continue to add to.

So what International carriers would even make sense at this point for PHL?

The leakage goes both ways. When I lived in Central NJ and needed a cheap domestic flight, I frequently went south to PHL. Likewise, when I needed a cheap International flight, I would usually end up at JFK. PHL has an amazing number of destinations that it in no way could support on O&D alone, the ex-US Airways hub provides throughput that wouldn't be there otherwise.

Living in Philadelphia I'm going to give you the honest answer as to why you don't see more international airlines here. The truth is we broke as f*** out here. We aint got no money to be travelling overseas. The honest to god truth.

Boof02671 wrote:

Cause it’s an AA fortress hub

With limited O&D. Like CLT, DTW etc.

It's a combination of factors. DFW is a fortress hub for AA too and IAH for UA, both (the latter more so) have a plethora of carriers.

STT757 wrote:

A couple of things, first Philadelphia is not as strong economically as NYC, Boston, Northern New Jersey and Northern Virginia. Philadelphia is a blue collar town, which is part of its charm.

Second it does not have huge immigrant communities like New York, and lastly as mentioned much of its suburbs are within easy drives of EWR, JFK and BWI.

It’s about a 90 minute drive from Bucks County to EWR, 2 hours to JFK.


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Sums it up well