LVIA or ABE airport (Philadelphia, Allentown: spring break, 2013, layoffs)

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by avg12

I think US flying ABE-PHL is somewhat wasteful, considering that one might still encounter delays at PHL. But perhaps US doesn't want to lose out on European destination packages/flight sales from the Lehigh Valley to a competitor, as PHL is their only hub offering the service. CLT doesn't offer enough in that regards.

A Boston flight would make sense too, although it wouldn't have many connection opportunities unless JetBlue flew the route. That'd cover all the major markets within 700 miles-NYC is driveable.

Given that areas of PA and NJ are within one hour of both TTN and ABE, that hurts ABE's efforts to be a PHL/EWR alternate.

If American Airlines and USAirways merge, I don't see how Charlotte won't be a less important air hub. I would much rather they flew to Miami from ABE, as it offers more options. JFK is 84.5 flight miles from ABE, while PHL is 54 flight miles. Obviously I would rather they flew to JFK since it would also give more options. I don't like driving through Brooklyn.

They had an ABE-BOS flight up until last year. It's annoying that you cannot go north at all from ABE.

It would be nice if ABE was seen as a reliever airport for overcrowding from PHL/EWR, but it seems more like a competitor. As a competitor it gets crushed like a bug. But as a reliever, it is within driving distance of a lot of people. Given the amount of money they are expending to expand both EWR and PHL it seems ridiculous that ABE can't handle some of the traffic.

[avg12]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

Well, I just don't think Charlotte will survive in it's present form if American and USAir merge. Charlotte is probably the biggest air hub relative to the smallest urban population. Perhaps they will fly ABE to Miami instead of Charlotte which would be good for ABE.

This habit of flying 55 miles from ABE to PHL puts a severe strain on airport facilities. It's a nationwide problem, particularly acute when overburdened San Diego and LAX (125 miles) fly about 50 connections per day with small planes. San Diego only has a single runway. The airports may take care of these flights by raising the landing fees and making them unprofitable.

ABE used to have charters to Cancun, a long time ago. I don't see them coming back.

Charlotte will be kept as a hub, as US enjoys already that it is a fortress hub. There is no alternate airport so closeby to hurt it either. Greensboro, NC (GSO) and Greenville, SC (GSP) are still over 1 hour away. From the Northeast, CLT is within 500 miles.

For many small markets, AA/US can fly routes like (small market) ABE-CLT-LAX (rest of the country). CLT has a great location that way, where routing via MIA would be long/thin for some routes and would make the trip longer and thus less desirable (where then pax will choose Delta or United instead).

MIA would play an important role, however,for more connections to Latin America plus it's access to one of the largest markets (S. Florida).

[avg12]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

If American Airlines and USAirways merge, I don't see how Charlotte won't be a less important air hub. I would much rather they flew to Miami from ABE, as it offers more options. JFK is 84.5 flight miles from ABE, while PHL is 54 flight miles. Obviously I would rather they flew to JFK since it would also give more options.

With JFK, there is an issue with slots and thus opportunity cost of using it for one city over another. Delta doesn't fly Harrisburg (MDT) to JFK or LGA either. At JFK, it's also a Delta vs. American vs. JetBlue situation vs. carriers like Virgin America and more intense foreign carrier competition, and the carriers want to focus on O&D, with connections serving a secondary purpose.

From points like Harrisburg and Allentown, people will drive to NYC, so connections would be the primary driver for the flight, which is less desirable.

If US and AA merge, I expect US to pull out of Long Island airport (ISP) on the reasoning that it'd make more sense for Long Islanders to support a nonstop out of JFK than to support ISP-PHL-__

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by avg12

With JFK, there is an issue with slots and thus opportunity cost of using it for one city over another. Delta doesn't fly Harrisburg (MDT) to JFK or LGA either. At JFK, it's also a Delta vs. American vs. JetBlue situation vs. carriers like Virgin America and more intense foreign carrier competition, and the carriers want to focus on O&D, with connections serving a secondary purpose.

From points like Harrisburg and Allentown, people will drive to NYC, so connections would be the primary driver for the flight, which is less desirable.

As PHL is busier than La Guardia, and almost as busy as EWR (-11%) and JFK (-37%) it may not be long before they clampdown on short haul flights.

It is my understanding that it is against FAA regulations to outright forbid certain kinds of planes from landing, but the busy airports simply change their fee structure for landing rights. The easiest is to charge per landing rather than per airplane weight. That makes it much more expensive to land a small plane (particularly turboprops). They can drive out the smaller planes via economics rather than just via regulation.


A merged AA/USairways may keep Charlotte as a domestic hub, but I doubt that they will maintain three east coast hubs for European flights.

The argument that they won't want to give up the monopoly on the local market is not very persuasive. Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area is only twice the population of Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton MSA, but the airport carries 44 times as many passengers. So you can control the local origin market and fly with a lot fewer planes.

[avg12]

The NYC airports and DCA have a clampdown by way of slots. So, in effect Southwest can't add any more flights at Newark unless the carrier buys slots. SW got their slots when United merged with Continental and the combined carrier was forced to sell and chose to sell to Southwest over Virgin America. So, United has no competition on the nonstop SFO-EWR.

Virgin America wanted to service Newark actually over Philadelphia, but couldn't get the slots at Newark. I think it is dumb for United to be flying EWR-PHL when their use of flying such flights prohibits other carriers from having service at the airport. Prior to the US Airways and Delta swap, US was using it's slots on a lot of LGA-PHL frequency. A way to just use it and not to lose it but offer little in way of value.

CLT currently doesn't have much in way of European flights. US positions it however to have more Mexico/Latin America service than PHL, while PHL has more Trans Atlantic Service. CLT also reaches many of the smaller domestic markets like Augusta, GA, where there is no PHL service.

[PacoMartin]

The Morning Call on the front page article predicted that flights could go under 700 thousand this year, while nationwide flights could drop to under 700 million (lowest in a decade).

If the airport should fall below 1:1000 relative to national flights, ABE will lose it's hub status with the FAA. Funding will be reduced even more.Currently there are nonstop flights to only 8 cities (9 airports because 2 in Orlando).

[avg12]

Southwest ended AirTran at ABE because of proximity to neighboring markets (EWR, PHL) and general lack of interest to service ABE, particularly ABE-MDW, not fuel costs. Diplomatic response but false.

Southwest flies to SEA (Seattle) and has no short-haul routes (routes < 500 miles) out of Seattle anymore.

By same logic, fuel costs would made Southwest terminate service to Seattle. In actuality, Southwest has ended many short-haul routes in favor of longer routes, such as terminating EWR-BWI, in favor of launching EWR-AUS and EWR-BNA.

"Everett said the airport's best chance to grow business might be to begin offering flights to Cancun, Mexico, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and Montego Bay, Jamaica.But to do that, LVIA would have to spend $5 million to install a U.S. Customs station. "

This is shameful overlooking domestic markets for a customs stations for international.

The NYC-Miami market is huge and flying from an alternate airport to MIA or FLL wouldn't be long and thin, yet ABE-Miami/FLL is currently unserved. The airport should be striving for daily service to MCO and FLL from other LCCs other than Southwest. BOS service would be a good idea as well.

[flyonpa]

BWI is a southwest Hub (or as they like to call them Focus city). So even if its a short Hop it allow the rest of the US access to the EWR market. And EWR to All the cities served out of that Hub.

A EWR-AUS/BNA would give EWR 1stop Service to Dallas/Love field. The Wright Act does not allow until (2016??) Non-stop flight from/to Dallas/Love To non contigunues (and few other cites) states from/to Dallas/Love, was done to direct/protect traffic to DFW.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by avg12

The NYC-Miami market is huge and flying from an alternate airport to MIA or FLL wouldn't be long and thin, yet ABE-Miami/FLL is currently unserved. The airport should be striving for daily service to MCO and FLL from other LCCs other than Southwest. BOS service would be a good idea as well.

Actually ABE has two LCCs flying to Orlando, Frontier flies to Orlando/MCO and Allegiant flies to Orlando/SFB.

Allegiant is flying Mon, Wed, Fri to SFB in northern Orlando and a second trip St Petersburg (near Tampa)
Allegiant used to fly four days per week.

Frontier was flying Tue, Wed, Thu & Sat (4 days a week to MCO)
AirTran used to fly 8 times a week to MCO

So Allegiant cut one day of flights, and I was hoping that they would add a flight to Ft Lauderdale.
Frontier has not even replaced the AirTran flights and I was hoping they would add a flight to Colorado.

Mainline USAirways has recently stopped flying to ABE, the major airlines are served by USAirways Express, Delta Connection and United Express which fly to 2 hub cities apiece.

It is possible for ABE enplanements to drop below 0.1% of the national enplanements for the year. That will reduce ABE to FAA non-hub status (like five other PA airports
AVP:Wilkes Barre - Scranton or
ERI: Erie or
LBE: Latrobe or
IPT:Williamsport or
UNV: State College)

There are 135 FAA hub airports in USA including Puerto Rico. California and Florida have 13 hubs each, Texas has 10, NY has 8, and all other states have 5 or fewer.
If ABE becomes a non-hub, then Pennsylvania will only have Philadelphia (Large), Pittsburgh (Medium), and Harrisburg (Small).

[PacoMartin]

Where are people flying to from ABE?

Looking at the flight stats for the first half of 2012.

Orlando is by far the most popular destination. Allegiant flights go to northern Orland (Sanford), but this destination is the choice for 23% of patrons.

Out of the four express jet transfer airports (Charlotte, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta) Charlotte is by far the most popular.

Out of the two turbo prop transfer airports (Philadelphia 55 miles, Washington Dulles 159 miles) Philadelphia gets slightly more traffic (over 100 ppl / day). There is no indication that they will replace this transfer with a bus (like ABE-Newark).

Myrtle Beach, SC has very few customers. St Petersburg had a minimal 11K passengers each way in the first half of 2012. I would think that Fort Lauderdale would be of much more interest to ppl from Lehigh Valley.

Hopefully most of the Orlando patrons will switch from Airtran to Frontier. They seem to have given up on attracting a new destination.

Air traffic at MDT (Harrisburg) is 50% higher than ABE, but the Lehigh Valley urban area is 50% larger than Harrisburg urban area.