• Delta’s LAX Hub - Looks like Delta is pulling down some LAX flying. Just after the new year, nonstops to Columbus, Jacksonville, Raleigh/Durham and more disappear. Sure, some of them seem to come back in a few months, but I wouldn’t put money down on that staying put. Interesting that Skybus flies from Columbus and Greensboro to the LA Area. I’m not convinced these are connected, but it could very well be the straw that broke the camel’s back. More likely, Delta’s realizing that LAX isn’t working for them as well as they’d hoped.




• United’s Intra-LA Basin Flying - There’s nothing more fun for an airline/LA dork than flying from Ontario or Orange County to LAX. I’ve flown the latter, and it’s a great ride. You depart Orange County to the south and then make a big backwards “S” before landing at LAX shortly after departing. Sadly, those days are numbered as both routes get the axe from United. Those little Brasilias are going to be phased out, and these short hauls had to get the axe first, especially with fuel prices where they are.




• Icelandair’s Home in North America - Icelandair may still have their US headquarters outside of Baltimore for now, but as of early January, they will no longer actually FLY to Baltimore. In my college days, my friends and I took a far-too-cheap Spring Break trip from BWI to Glasgow for 3 nights and then Reykjavik for three nights. Why was it cheap? Um. Iceland in March? Exactly. The flights were great, but the hostel that doubled as a homeless shelter left much to be desired. BWI will miss you, Icelandair.




• MAXjet - We knew MAXjet was losing a bunch of money, but the recent request to have shares suspended from trading made the situation seem much more dire. Mark over at Upgrade: Travel Better has good coverage of this. Hopefully they’ll keep going . . . I haven’t had a chance to try them yet.




• Emirates Across the Pond - Those Dubai runs may be working well for Emirates (check out Towers and Tarmacs’ coverage of the Houston inaugural), but apparently that one run from New York that goes through Hamburg is getting killed. Don’t worry. The few of you who want to go from New York to Hamburg can still fly from Newark on Continental.

See, lots of doom and gloom. Let’s try to end on a happier note. Delta put out their latest in their Planeguage video series, and this is a great one. Every time I get an empty middle on a full flight, it does seem like divine intervention. Though sadly, the first question I had after watching this video was, “How did they get all those wrapped presents past the TSA?!” Enjoy.

1. Eliminate corporate jets from LaGuardia - How many corporate jet flights are there from LGA every day? It can’t be that many. And where else would they go on the east side of the East River?
2. Do not permit “Non-Standard” departures from LaGuardia - This is a very rare occurrence. According to a New York air traffic expert friend of mine, this would have very little impact.
3. Eliminate all published connections at LGA - Why? He says it only accounts for 5% of the traffic at the airport. I can’t imagine that eliminating connections would do anything to relieve air traffic congestion. It would just reduce the number of passengers and not the number of flights. That isn’t the problem.
4. Eliminate the perimeter rule prohibiting flights over 1,500 miles - Huh? Again, this does nothing to reduce air traffic congestion. It just reallocates capacity to different areas. There will still be too many airplanes for the current system set up.
5. Change the definition of a “delay” from not just being 15 minutes - Again, huh? This doesn’t fix congestion. This just tries to convince people that they aren’t delayed. Wow.

That’s a heck of a list that leaves more questions than answers. After I finished reading this morning, I shot an email over to David Stempler, the man who appears to be the entire organization, asking many of the questions I posted above. I said that I was planning on writing this morning, so I asked to hear back by last night. I did not.

I suppose I shouldn’t expect such quick turnaround for a little blog like mine, but if you’re going to put out a press release and you want it to get coverage, I would think you would at least write back asking for more time to make sure you have a say in what happens. Hopefully I’ll hear back from him and can post updates here, but for now, I’ll just hope that someone reading can help fill in the blanks for me. What am I missing?

My biggest question is about who he is trying to support here. In his release, he says, “The Air Travelers Association is the airline passenger/consumer representative on the U.S. DOT’s New York Aviation Rulemaking Committee . . . .” He is clearly connected to someone if he made it on this committee, but as many others have asked, is he really supporting passengers?

Much of this proposal does not seem to address any of the issues passengers face today. Let’s say this does open up a little more space at the already saturated LaGuardia. Is that really going fix the New York area congestion issues? I think not. Flights will fill those holes very quickly. I’m just still trying to figure out the motivation here.

A quick Google search brought up a post from Chris Elliot with links to all sorts of sites that raise questions about the legitimacy of this organization. Hmm. Very questionable.

Believe it or not, they are launching 14 new destinations next summer from JFK. There are only two flights to Europe (Edinburgh and, oddly, Malaga in Spain), but there are two cities in the Middle East (Tel Aviv and Amman) and five in Africa (Dakar in Senegal, Nairobi, Lagos, Cairo, and Cape Town). They’ll also head south to Panama City, Guatemala City, Port of Spain, San Jose (Costa Rica), and Liberia (Costa Rica).

How the heck are they doing this and reducing flights during peak times? Well, I haven’t seen the actual schedules, but these can depart at different times than the afternoon Europe flights. Africa and Middle Eastern flying takes longer, so the flights can leave earlier in the day from JFK. From Atlanta, for example, Delta’s flight to Dakar leaves at 355p, early enough to beat the peak. Still, this may just end up growing the peak hours. Cool destinations for sure, but it’s not what JFK needs right now. It’s also not what Delta’s decrepit JFK terminals need now either. They’re going to be pumping 20% more available seat miles out of that place. Anyone who flew threw there this summer care to comment? It’s going to be ugly.

Don’t think Delta is the only offender here. How about this article talking about BA’s plans. EU-US open skies has apparently encouraged them to start flying from the US to points in Europe beyond the UK. Next summer they’ll start at JFK, of course, with 2 to 3 new cities using 757s. If it works, they’ll only grow from there.

If the FAA doesn’t step in, I’d avoid New York next summer.

Looking at this, you can see that in June of this year, 20 out of 30 days had a GDP issued for at least part of the day. Every month saw massive increases over last year to the point where I would now consider Newark over JFK, and that says something.

The most important question now is . . . how is this allowed to happen? Nobody denies there is a problem, but people keep talking about longer term solutions. Yes, the FAA is redesigning the airspace around New York to be more efficient, but that doesn’t help TODAY. There is only one solution guaranteed to work, and that’s cutting flights.

No airline is going cut flights on its own, because it has no guarantee that others will follow. (They won’t.) The only group that has the ability to limit flights across the board is the FAA, and they need to get moving on this. They were able to get American and United to cooperate by reducing flights at O’Hare. Why hasn’t it happened at JFK?

Is it the impending airspace redesign? Fine, wait for a month until that happens and then you’ll know your true capacity. It’s not going to stop airlines from adding flights though, so there still needs to be limits determined by the FAA. Until that happens, New Yorkers and visitors to New York are going to continue to suffer.

Take a look at the short JFK-Boston route, for instance. The 7p flight on Delta is scheduled for 1:53. That’s 30 minutes longer than the 7a flight and an astounding 1:21 longer than last night’s actual flight time. That means they’re expecting to sit on the ground for probably around 1:15 every day on average. To put things in perspective, a flight at 630p from LaGuardia to Boston is blocked in at “only” 1:19, that’s :34 less than JFK. True, some of those problems are due to Delta’s horribly cramped gate situation at JFK, but even JetBlue’s 640p departure from JFK still has a 1:41 block time, and American’s 555p flight is blocked at 1:35 from their spacious, sparkling new terminal. How could you NOT take the train?

This may just be one example, but you can look yourself and see that it’s like this on every flight, especially in the later afternoon. Something needs to change, and the FAA needs to take action now.

JFK, originally uploaded by maxpower33.

I spend so much of my airport posts focused on LAX that I thought it would be nice to check in on the east coast and see what’s new. In this post, I’ll check in on the new JetBlue terminal at JFK.

Anyone who has flown JetBlue into New York/JFK knows that it’s not easy. Sure the terminal has wi-fi and good food, but it is just about maxed out with flights and travelers.

JetBlue anticipated this long ago and they’ve had a new terminal in the works. It’s quite convenient that right next door to their terminal 6 is the long vacant terminal 5. You’ve seen pictures of terminal 5. It’s an architectural icon, the former home of TWA at JFK. Well, JetBlue has bulldozed everything behind the main structure and built their own terminal., as you can see above.

The terminal structure appears to be mostly complete, well in advance of it’s scheduled opening next year. It will give the airline some much-needed space to stretch out and most importantly it will make life easier for travelers.