The Transformation Plan

[etops1]

you hit it on the nai lus "a dream"

 

[ual777fan]

United has had off and on service to Delhi over the past 15 years. It has been disrupted on a couple of occasions due to pilot action, when Durbinsky ran the pilots union. It was cancelled after 9/11. United, to my knowlegde, still has dormant slots and rights should they ever return. There is some speculation about a 777 out of NRT-DEL service.

In the past United had a NRT-DEL, LHR-DEL, and the rights for a FRA-DEL(courtesy of PANAM).

Of course, this from the memory of a UA frequent flyer so feel free to correct me. Aviation and airlines are sort of a hobby

 

[Bear96]

To add on to ual777fan's points...

Most recently, DEL was part of UA's "round-the-world" service in the late 1990s-- very early 2000s. UA1 ran westbound LAX-HKG-DEL-LHR-IAD-LAX. UA2 did the reverse eastbound (with EWR instead of IAD in the earlier years of the operation... maybe even JFK at one point... don't remember exactly). However I don't recall it being "disrupted on a couple of occasions due to pilot action."

Leading up to 9/11, UA was on the verge of starting ORD-DEL non-stop. This would have been one of the longest, if not the longest, regularly scheduled passenger services in the world, along with JFK-HKG and LAX-MEL, both of which were also operated exclusively by UA in the period leading up to 9/11, though both of those services were dropped prior to 9/11 as UA's and the general economy's other problems became evident. (Sorry, don't remember the exact relative mileage of the three routes, just that they were very very long and pushing the envelope of even the 747-400's range.)

UA had the Indian and US government's permission in place to start ORD-DEL, and had done months of proving flights over the polar routes to satisfy the FAA. The infrastructure was in place in DEL already because of the round-the-world flights which had been operating for a few years, and they had even satisfied ALPA's safety and crew rest / scheduling concerns. I believe the route was supposed to start in October of 2001 and had even been in F/A and pilot bid packages.

Then of course 9/11 happened.

 

[ual777fan]

Durbinsky on a couple of occasions was able to get the pilots to boycott the route due to disputes with Wolf. One of the occassion was when the pilots refused to fly the 744's because of a contract techincality, there objection dropped as soon as Wolf left.

I read about it in a book about aviation throught the ages...

BTW- It sounds like that there may be some LCC consolidation- Boyd is going to write something about it tommorow. It could be interesting

 

[funguy2]

If you have been paying attention to Us's past, all the cities you have mentioned were very profitable, US could not grow those markets , so they chose to pull out, not out of character for this airline, as they are "Terrified" of competition. they'd rather give it up then compete.

If US Airways is dumping cities that are "Very Profitable", the company should just declare Ch. 7 right now. While I have no proof, I don't believe it. Sorry.

I remember reading either here or on the old planebusiness site that load factors at SAT were regularly around 25% before the service was cancelled. I have no idea if that is true, but if it was, then i doubt it was "very profitable".

I also don't buy the no room for growth bit either. At Orange County, US Airways had been awarded two new slots, for a total of four... But they dropped it saying no room for growth... Sorry, I don't buy it. Frontier and Midwest were allowed into Orange County at the same time... Other airlines probably got some slots too.

You may be right about being afraid of the competition, but if that is the case, US Airways has problems that 60 new airplanes will only add to.

 

[funguy2]

A lot of good ideas have come out. The problem is that the focus on the U.S. side of any proposed expansion has always been Northeast. As other threads have pointed out - time and again - US simply has too many hubs concentrated in a small geographic area.

If US were to expand its base in the Northeast, I think that it would have to choose either LGA or BOS - it could not really do both. I like LGA because its a huge population base and is a close in airport. However, with the expansion of JetBlue, the popularity of Continental at EWR, the largish presence of AA/DL at JFK, ISP out on the Island, and the physical constraints of LGA itself (two intersecting runways), I don't believe that LGA will ever become a major base for any airline. Airlines played free-market economics with LGA about two summers ago and it was an unmitigated disaster. Delays were the worst on record; Congress had to step in. Finally, I think that LGA is just to physically close to PHL. No, I believe that like DCA, LGA is a perfectly fine focus city with a primary emphasis on catering to business customers.

BOS seems to be a more logical choice - although the geographic location of BOS makes it an improbable hub. It is really the only airport in the metro area and has ample gate space. It should be used to cover New England, include a few selected transatlantic services (FRA, LGW, CDG, and given the Irish population, DUB/SNN), and some limited transcon service (3x LAX, 3x SFO, 1x SAN, 1x SJC, 2x DEN, 1x SEA, 2x MIA, 2x TPA, 2x FLL, etc.).

ITRADE:

I don't understand... If the "problem" is too much focus on the Northeast, why would you advocate more service to the Northeast as a "solution"?

BOS seems like a bad idea to me... AWA and JetBlue are already challenging the incumbants on the routes you've mentioned...

BOS-LAX: AA, UA, AWA, and JetBlue to LGB
BOS-SFO: AA, UA, AWA
BOS-DEN: UA and JetBlue... and I would guess that Frontier might come back.
BOS-FLA: AA, Song/Delta, and JetBlue.

BOS-SJC: Huh? US Airways can't make SJC work from a hub and you want them to go point-to-point, against AA (2x/day) which has a substantial operation on both ends? Makes no sence.

NE to Europe and Central America/Caribbean... That I like... it plays into US Airways strength... a strong NE presence. I think that is an advantage... although it is being erroded. US Air needs to be the NE airline of choice. They need to leverage their frequent flyers in the NE. Make using US Airways easy, so that customers are not looking for an alternative.

 

[ITRADE]

I think the answer is that the BOS expansion would possibly come as a consequence of a downsizing of another hub - not sure which one would be downsized, but folks could certainly surmise the one.

As to SJC, it would be part of a reopening of the station for US. SJC and BOS are big technology centers and the addition of "nerd bird" flights would certainly bring in business passengers (even though many tech companies are very, very price sensitive).

The point of the transcon flying is that if you want to keep a FF passenger base alive in the area, you're going to have to offer options other than PQI, RKD, PIT, and CLT.

 

[ITRADE]

Oh, I have no hopes of US starting something like PHL-DEL. I just would think that route would be instantly profitable, given the fares people pay to DEL and the fact that flying nonstop from the US would be a dream for many.

Sounds like somebody has some business deals going on in DEL. I feel sorry for you...

#1 US would need the craft to fly the route
#2 US really needs to focus on areas that are closer to home before gallavanting off to an east coast antipode.

Maybe NRT? How about HNL? Heck, how about YVR.

As soon as some A330-200s or A340s show up, we can start discussing 5,000+ mile routes. Are there any 340s available on a lease basis????

 

[Smartest Loser]

The 60 mainline jets were in the plan all along.

Dave just waited until labor started calling his hand.

I think you'll see them used on "Over-Water" type of routes.

SL

 

[firstamendment]

This mangement group never offers anything without a condition to labor. Mark my words, somewhere in that upcoming announcement we will find a big IF thrown in there.

God forbid this mangement team actually makes a decision to increase revenue instead of cutting.

And please, before anyone starts the "you're being negative rhetoric", I am only going on their dismal history and nothing more.

 

[ual777fan]

Just to wander back off to a US pacific presence. USAir would need to aquire the aircraft, the crews, the west coast bases, and the slots and rights at Toyko, Hong Kong, Dehli etc. Getting the slots and rights would be the hardest.

As for BOS, I think that there are many markets where could expand going east-west, San Jose is a good example. Here is an idea for a flight Norfolk to San Diego non-stop. Two huge navy bases

 

[ITRADE]

Just to wander back off to a US pacific presence. USAir would need to aquire the aircraft, the crews, the west coast bases, and the slots and rights at Toyko, Hong Kong, Dehli etc. Getting the slots and rights would be the hardest.

As for BOS, I think that there are many markets where could expand going east-west, San Jose is a good example. Here is an idea for a flight Norfolk to San Diego non-stop. Two huge navy bases

There are lots of little markets to ponder - ORF-SAN may or may not work as lots of folks just hop military transports.

If US were to start SJC service, the perfect routings (one stoppers of course) would be IAD-PIT-SJC, RDU-CLT-SJC, BOS-PHL-SJC.

As to Asia, you've probably got just enough east coast originating traffic to do a flight to NRT - but not much else beyond that. You would need an A330-200 to do it. However, with a long flight like that, you start to bang up against a fixed number of passengers and a high operating cost owing to the duration of the flight.

United's big jump points are LAX and SFO where they can collect passengers from ALL points east and pile them into asia bound 747s.

 

[ual777fan]

Just thought of an interesting idea. I wonder if UA could convince ANA to move there NRT-IAD to NRT-PHL and codeshare that with US. UA could pick up the NRT-IAD with one of the grounded 744's.

That would give USAir the ability to have an Asia feed directly into one of it's hubs and would allow for a greater Star-Asia presence on the eastern seaboard.

Also UA/US should codeshare the London Heathrow and Gatwick flights. This would give US codeshare access to Heathrow and UA the east coast feeder network to help feed these flights.

 

[ITRADE]

Just thought of an interesting idea. I wonder if UA could convince ANA to move there NRT-IAD to NRT-PHL and codeshare that with US. UA could pick up the NRT-IAD with one of the grounded 744's.

That would give USAir the ability to have an Asia feed directly into one of it's hubs and would allow for a greater Star-Asia presence on the eastern seaboard.

Also UA/US should codeshare the London Heathrow and Gatwick flights. This would give US codeshare access to Heathrow and UA the east coast feeder network to help feed these flights.

A lot of things may be happening in the near future depending on what will really wind up happening with the IAD hub. The transformation of ACA to an independent carrier is quite a thorn.

 

[deltawatch]

Here is an idea for a flight Norfolk to San Diego non-stop. Two huge navy bases

Once-a-pone a time a lot of thought went into all direct-flight city pair’s served. For the longest time to this bunch a hub flights’ a hub flight. Even if they can’t justify non-stop ORF-SAN flights, a morning and afternoon direct flight though CLT makes competitive sense. For years Piedmont made money running a couple of flights daily from JAX (Navy) through - CHS (Navy), ORF (Navy) and on to LGA direct. 737's too....