Airlines and the NEC

I tried to look for a decent existing topic for this... but nothing. So...

This came across my perview: American Airlines cuts 27 routes

The item of interest here is some of the city pairs. From New York LaGuardia to:

• Boston
• Philadelphia
• Orlando
• Portland, Maine
• Savanna, Georgia

In addition, Philadelphia to Baltimore.

That's the NEC and the Silver services.

Guess Amtrak's getting some more business.

Possibly. Cancellation decisions are normally driven by market factors, eg low demand.

Regional airlines are losing pilots as the majors resume hiring, and with oil prices rising, something has to give, and some airlines are cutting services accordingly...

Interestingly, American is reducing at LGA at the same time DOT is about to resume enforcing the use-it-or-lose-it provisions on airport slots.

I haven't looked deeply at AA schedules, but it's possible some of the now-cut LGA services were squatting on slots used for other markets pre-COVID and now they're revering back.

To preserve slots, United Express announced they're going back to almost hourly service from Newark to Washington and Boston.... at the same time,, because of pilot staffing, United Express also announced cuts in 13 smaller markets like Chicago to Lansing MI and Houston to Abiline TX.

The resumption of the slot rule is curious. After 18+ months of helping Amtrak indirectly and seeing flights reduced at LGA/EWR/JFK, our "green" administration will be resuming a policy that will see more flights (possibly mostly empty) return and possibly take customers away from Amtrak....

Shouldn't be too shocking I guess because government policy and business logic rarely intersect.


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Is there any chance that the NEC will go through the PHL airport? I saw there was some considerations in 2017-18? I'm not sure if that is still on the table.

Not surprise that the airlines cut the shorter routes. It's not super profitable for them anymore in todays world. If all the airlines can partner with Amtrak or codeshare, that would help Amtrak's ridership numbers in the NEC.

That's been done... Continental had a partnership with Amtrak and United finally canceled it last October.

https://liveandletsfly.com/amtrak-united-partnership/

Years ago I used to work with negotiating and executing codeshares.... they only work out if both partners see benefits or marketing advantages. Any airline who tries to partner with Amtrak will want some form of exclusivity, either on a market or regional basis. I see no scenario where you would have both American and Delta partnering with Amtrak out of NYC. It would have to be one or the other.

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Amtrak can certainly be competitive and be a solution for airline passengers displaced from said NEC destination points. But to capture the Silver Service market (aka Florida market), that train left the station near the turn of the 21st century, and even before then. Amtrak's Florida LD train market is horrible in my opinion. Only Auto Train really makes sense. At one time, even at the turn of the 21st century, there were LD trains (providing coach, sleeping accommodation, lounge, and descent F&B service) leaving NYP and Miami in the morning, mid-day, and early evening.

Now the service is limited to Silver Star and Silver Meteor with even schedules that are more to be desired, and no more three-a-day, all lumped into two a day with not much variety. Meteor and Star practically follow each other's markers coming and going through Florida. Amtrak had a descent Florida market - but now more to be desired.

Culling flights from BWI and LGA to PHL has more to do with how the American network is realigning than anything else. The Philadelphia Inquirer had a story on this realignment at PHL a few days back: https://www.inquirer.com/business/ameri ... 11115.html

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Mon Nov 15, 2021 7:27 am I tried to look for a decent existing topic for this... but nothing. So...

This came across my perview: American Airlines cuts 27 routes

The item of interest here is some of the city pairs. From New York LaGuardia to:

• Boston
• Philadelphia
• Orlando
• Portland, Maine
• Savanna, Georgia

In addition, Philadelphia to Baltimore.

That's the NEC and the Silver services.

Guess Amtrak's getting some more business.

Good. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction for an increase in rail use when compared to short haul France. This is similar to France banning most of their short haul flights a few months ago in favor of passenger rail. Not to mention, Europe is also rediscovering the night train with more "nightjet" services being offered, and this trend has seemed to pick up a little bit of steam in the U.S. with the overnight regional.

In terms of "uncompetitive" LD services, have a local version which stops at the existing small towns in addition to a few others, and then run an express service on that very same line which only stops at major cities. In the case of the Silver Meteor, this would be New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Richmond, Rocky Mount, Florence, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Miami.

I just looked, and re: the Portland - LGA route, Delta, traditionally the lead carrier out of PWM, currently has 3 rt/day between those two as well as 1 rt/day to JFK. (Plus United to EWR and JetBlue to JFK in the summer.) Given that the Portland market contracts in winter, they may have just decided they didn't have enough share on the route to make it worth their while.

Intercity travel is down, across all modes of travel.
Ridership:
2019 Amtrak 32.5 million trips, 2020 Amtrak 16.8 million trips, down 49%
2019 US airlines domestic ridership 812 million, 2020 US airlines domestic ridership 336 million, down 59%
2019 US airlines international ridership 242 million, 2020 US airlines international ridership 63 million, down 71%
https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/passengers ... wn-62-2019

At large airports where more than one airline provides a daily service, expect a huge decrease in the number of flights. At medium sized airports with more than one airlines, expect one airline to stop servicing them. At small airports, usually only one airline was all that was servicing it. expect smaller capacity planes. There is a major reshuffling of service to airports and will be for a while while ridership rebounds. Even during great economic seasons, airlines were modifying services to match demand.

Amtrak's share of the domestic intercity travel within the USA is very, very low.
32.5 million / 812 million x 100 = 4%
Meaning 96% travel by air vs 4% by rail.
And that's not including intercity travel by automobiles.
Some websites suggest 6 times more travelers travel intercity by automobiles than by airlines, but many responders here will not accept that data. Most data for automobiles many will find acceptable here has to do with their number of vehicles, or the number of passenger-miles or vehicle-miles. Not quite the same thing for comparison purposes. Which is why I am not including that data point in this response.

Never-the-less, I wonder how close to a 96 to 4 ratio of Federal funds is reflected in the yearly budgets for intercity travel?

eolesen wrote: ↑Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:57 am That's been done... Continental had a partnership with Amtrak and United finally canceled it last October.

https://liveandletsfly.com/amtrak-united-partnership/

Ugh, United. When US Air still existed, they had a codeshare system that never worked right. I got caught up in that and the net effect made me switch to Southwest for... all my flying now. United on my blacklist.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Mon Nov 15, 2021 7:27 am Savanna, Georgia

One point of order, Mr. Wolf; Savanna, Illinois vice Georgia.

This was where the MILW and CB&Q x'd at a diamond and where the "Cities" and the "Zephyr's" could at times see one another waiting their turn to X. DPM even once wrote a piece depicting the choices that a resident there had to get to Chicago, which as I recall, was not less than "a dozen a day".

This was also, incidentally, my A-Day Eve excursion; "City of Everywhere" out, return on the "Afternoon Zephyr". Even if the Dome Diner had been withdrawn, and a 22 car train with the often noted around here "Adios" drumhead, could only be considered "unwieldly", there was still a semblance of "days past". The Zephyr was no longer "more smiles to the miles" and had become a "Coach and Food Service" operation.

Sound familiar, youngsters who "never knew it when"?

I did go to Savanna several times "on assignment" during my years with the MILW ('70-81).

Through Short Line and now CP ownership, "The D&I" has hung on post-MILW. Under CP, it's probably Class 2 and at such time the CPKC merger is approved, will likely be upgraded to Class 3 and "really dreamin'" Containers consigned to Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacán will pass through Davis Jct, IL.

I'd like to think that activity today on the BNSF Aurora Sub needs no introduction. Pretty sure my three most recent autos have all ridden "Auto Train" over such (for the present one, I recall the Salesman saying to me "well it's now at Elwood (IL), so give it three days for it to get here and us to prep it.").

Sorry 'bout off topic - read it before it's killed.

Is a big part of the AA cuts to do with the JetBlue partnership? Big coverage out of JFK and BOS, and reasonable from LGA these days too - inc Orlando and Savannah.

Lumo trains take on the budget airlines, Anglo - Scotland.
https://theconversation.com/lumo-why-th ... ads-172040

Yeah, good luck there. Agree it's about the same distance as the NEC, but right now Amtrak isn't getting the budget traffic... that's going to the bus companies like Megabus.

What's currently two trains a day (timed @ 1045 and 1425 northbound) are going to have a hard time taking "budget" passengers who tend not to leave in the middle of the workday...

By rail, it's a 4.5 hour trip compared to a 1 hour flight. Might work well for people who live close to Kings Cross, but even with screening at the airport, it's still half the travel time to fly.

This is expected since American Airlines will not be able to offer any more profitable flights. No one will use them. The most relevant flights are the ones that are in demand.