Major Shift in Silver Service Coach Buckets

[railbuck]

Pittsburgh International (only such because you can get one of two direct flights to Toronto and seasonal service to Paris) has already closed the entire E-Terminal. 50% of B-terminal is closed and over 50% of A-terminal is closed. We're not some rural airport, we have 2.5 million people in the area, plus we get travelers from Northern West Virginia and South Eastern Ohio.

CVG is similar, with half of the terminal/concourse buildings currently closed. However, in both cases the airports have been de-hubbed. The capacity that is now surplus was there to serve connecting passengers and flights that now flow through other hubs. If the facilities had been sized to serve only the local population, they would never have been built out to their present size. The underutilization that afigg predicted doesn't really apply here because the capacity was never intended just to serve passengers to/from PIT, but passengers connecting through the airline's overall network.

I think afigg's point was directed more at smaller airports such as CAK, which could suffer if (for example) Southwest pulls the AirTran flights and serves the area only from CLE. If that happens we could see other airlines raise prices and reduce capacity and destinations, forcing more traffic away from CAK and toward CLE/CMH/PIT and eventually creating a situation where CAK is seriously underutilized.

 

[Anderson]

Olds: I think that some "expansions" or "renovations" (and I use quotes because what they involve can vary) sometimes happen to lure airlines in as part of a deal. IIRC, that was part of what got AirTran into Newport News: The terminal got something of an overhaul at about the same time, and while I don't know which bit came first, there's a connection.

Mind you, these tend to be mediocre deals in a lot of cases (sort of like attracting businesses with tax breaks: As soon as the benefits fall off, they tend to leave), but I think the sunk costs are enough in some cases that cities would rather lose money (even net of tax benefits from having the airport around) over more time trying to prop the airport up than seriously looking at alternatives (I've said it before and I'll say it again: Some of these cities, such as Des Moines, need to look at bringing in rail to their markets if they can't get a discount airline in given how high fares can be. They've tried the carrot...the stick needs to come sooner or later.).

 

[Devil's Advocate]

San Antonio International (same important sounding but largely irrelevant name as Pittsburgh) recently built a brand new terminal to replace an older terminal that was fully renovated and looked great. After all the expensive construction and demolition the city gained no additional capacity. Not even a single extra gate. Nothing. Nada. What a waste.

Austin-Bergstrom INTERNATIONAL (ABI) can top that, we have Zero/NADA/Zilch International Flights now, :wacko: yet there are literally hundreds of Blue Shirted TSA Agents hanging out in the Terminal even though there are only two Security CheckPoints in use with an average wait of 30 minutes to get through the long lines! This allows TSA "Inspectors" to come over to the Amtrak Station and hang out watching the Eagle board/deboard but I have yet to see them actually perform any "Secuirity" functions unless talking on a Cell and Smoking is now a Security Function?? Austin has plans to expand the Terminal and runways at a cost of Billions, but where the $$$ will come from is a Big Question that no-one can answer???? :help:

Wow, what a joke. SAT and ABI have similar O&D IIRC, but I guess you do have us beat when it comes to nonsensical naming. I've only been to Bergstrom once and it took quite a while to reach it. I'm guessing that cabs from Austin proper are none to cheap, especially if you live/work in the North/West.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

Pittsburgh International (only such because you can get one of two direct flights to Toronto and seasonal service to Paris) has already closed the entire E-Terminal. 50% of B-terminal is closed and over 50% of A-terminal is closed. We're not some rural airport, we have 2.5 million people in the area, plus we get travelers from Northern West Virginia and South Eastern Ohio.

CVG is similar, with half of the terminal/concourse buildings currently closed. However, in both cases the airports have been de-hubbed. The capacity that is now surplus was there to serve connecting passengers and flights that now flow through other hubs. If the facilities had been sized to serve only the local population, they would never have been built out to their present size. The underutilization that afigg predicted doesn't really apply here because the capacity was never intended just to serve passengers to/from PIT, but passengers connecting through the airline's overall network.

I think afigg's point was directed more at smaller airports such as CAK, which could suffer if (for example) Southwest pulls the AirTran flights and serves the area only from CLE. If that happens we could see other airlines raise prices and reduce capacity and destinations, forcing more traffic away from CAK and toward CLE/CMH/PIT and eventually creating a situation where CAK is seriously underutilized.

I understand the point about the small airports like that, but even the large airports that aren't hubs are suffering. On the east cost, if you're not BOS, JFK, EWR, PHL, IAD, CLT or ATL, you've probably lost service and had price hikes.

 

[trainviews]

San Antonio International (same important sounding but largely irrelevant name as Pittsburgh) recently built a brand new terminal to replace an older terminal that was fully renovated and looked great. After all the expensive construction and demolition the city gained no additional capacity. Not even a single extra gate. Nothing. Nada. What a waste.

Austin-Bergstrom INTERNATIONAL (ABI) can top that, we have Zero/NADA/Zilch International Flights now, :wacko: yet there are literally hundreds of Blue Shirted TSA Agents hanging out in the Terminal even though there are only two Security CheckPoints in use with an average wait of 30 minutes to get through the long lines! This allows TSA "Inspectors" to come over to the Amtrak Station and hang out watching the Eagle board/deboard but I have yet to see them actually perform any "Secuirity" functions unless talking on a Cell and Smoking is now a Security Function?? Austin has plans to expand the Terminal and runways at a cost of Billions, but where the $$ will come from is a Big Question that no-one can answer???? :help:

Wow, what a joke. SAT and ABI have similar O&D IIRC, but I guess you do have us beat when it comes to nonsensical naming. I've only been to Bergstrom once and it took quite a while to reach it. I'm guessing that cabs from Austin proper are none to cheap, especially if you live/work in the North/West.

Actually Austin is close to a text book example of a city that would benefit so much more from investing in good train connections than propping up an airport, that will never be more than second tier regional at best. Fast and frequent trains to San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth with good connections to the airports would prop up the first to secure a decent domestic service level and the bit longer trip to the second should still be short enough when hub functions are needed.

 

[xyzzy]

On the east cost, if you're not BOS, JFK, EWR, PHL, IAD, CLT or ATL, you've probably lost service and had price hikes.

Depends on how deeply WN has moved into one's market. Here at RDU, WN has 24% market share. They didn't even serve RDU until 1999. Fares have fallen as a consequence. Same story at BNA and several of the Florida markets.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

WN?

 

[afigg]

WN?

Southwest Airlines. I had to look it up myself, even though I used to be more familiar with the airline codes.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

Ah... here in Pittsburgh, South West did move in and fares dropped for everyone though the competition cut back service, but Southwest has since retreated. The old service from the legacy carriers has not been restored.

 

[afigg]

CVG is similar, with half of the terminal/concourse buildings currently closed. However, in both cases the airports have been de-hubbed. The capacity that is now surplus was there to serve connecting passengers and flights that now flow through other hubs. If the facilities had been sized to serve only the local population, they would never have been built out to their present size. The underutilization that afigg predicted doesn't really apply here because the capacity was never intended just to serve passengers to/from PIT, but passengers connecting through the airline's overall network.

I think afigg's point was directed more at smaller airports such as CAK, which could suffer if (for example) Southwest pulls the AirTran flights and serves the area only from CLE. If that happens we could see other airlines raise prices and reduce capacity and destinations, forcing more traffic away from CAK and toward CLE/CMH/PIT and eventually creating a situation where CAK is seriously underutilized.

Yes, larger airports such as Cincinnati or Pittsburgh that have empty terminals and closed gates because of the loss of hub service fall into a different category. The hub business simply shifted away from that airport.

My opinion is that the smaller and medium sized airports, such possibly as Akron-Canton, are going to see shrinking service in the coming years if fuel and oil costs stay high. The airlines will continue to consolidate their traffic to the big airports with high volumes because that is where the (thin) profit margins are. The major airlines have mostly dumped service to the smaller airports to their regional airlines which have cut costs to the bone. As fuel cost increase, there is little more to cut except service frequency and to consolidate fewer flights to larger airplanes and jack up airfares. Which in turn will shrink passenger traffic and revenue for the smaller airports.

The smaller airports within several hundred miles of a major airport are likely most at risk of seeing ever incremental service cuts as the remaining commercial airlines will say, tough, drive or take the bus to the big airport. It is simply won't be cost effective to run a puddle jumper or connecting flight to the small airports. Won't happen to all of the small airports, but I fully expect we will see a number of "zombie" commercial airports in the next decade. We have, in effect, "zombie" decaying shopping malls which lost their anchor stores and now scrap by with 1/2 the stores closed because we built too many indoor malls and too much retail space in the boom years. Same pattern in many ways for the smaller and medium sized city airports in the boom years of cheap oil.

What does this mean for Amtrak and intercity passenger rail? Well, rather than spend 100s of millions propping up a failing airport, the smarter local politicians should consider putting the funding into restoring or upgrading passenger rail service so their citizens and business community will have options on travel to other cities. But, in many places, we won't see that. Instead they will prop up the airport authority and offer subsidies & tax breaks to entice a commercial airline to come back.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The smaller airports within several hundred miles of a major airport are likely most at risk of seeing ever incremental service cuts as the remaining commercial airlines will say, tough, drive or take the bus to the big airport.

I'm having a hard time visualizing a domestic airport that does not fit within that category.

 

[Anderson]

The smaller airports within several hundred miles of a major airport are likely most at risk of seeing ever incremental service cuts as the remaining commercial airlines will say, tough, drive or take the bus to the big airport.

I'm having a hard time visualizing a domestic airport that does not fit within that category.

I think the line is somewhere around 150-200 miles. Below about 100 miles, you have an inconvenient drive; above 150 miles or so, weakly-served local airports may make some sense if there's a midsized city, and above this you start getting to the point that I can accept EAS funding in some cases and where there's no (affordable) way to set up a rail link (i.e. some places in Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, etc.).

If you want a good example of a system that might work well, you could set up passenger lines on both the Colorado Front Range and in the Ogden-SLC area (the latter having actually apparently had decent passenger service at one time, and the FrontRunner/TRAX system may actually do this as well, linking Ogden and Provo to Salt Lake International) to channel traffic to Denver International and Salt Lake International. Another example would be Des Moines: A passenger line from Omaha to Chicago would get folks from Des Moines to the Omaha airport (or to O'Hare, though that's always going to be a messier connection).

Also, I'd note that in a lot of cases, those malls mentioned above are getting torn down as time goes by. It happened with Coliseum Mall in Hampton...they tore down all but the anchor stores and put Peninsula Town Center in to replace it. I'll refer to my point earlier about airports that are worth more dead than alive: Even if you just clip an underused runway off an airport and sell off a corner of the land, that could be several million dollars of revenue right there.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

Around here old malls get torn down or turned into office buildings.

A few years bacj Pittsburgh was competeing for federal funds for a mag-lev from downtown to the airport. They wanted to run this thing at 200 miles an hour to cover the 18 mile distance. Even being a rail fan the project made no sense to me. It should have used the existing trolly system into downtown then split onto its own line once it got across the river. The T-system runs on 5' track rather than standard gauge which means the FRA can stick its buff strength rules where the sun dont shine. Import a bunch of off the shelf EU commuter EMUs on 5' trucks. Viola! 90 mph running to the airport once you clear the city at a fraction of what they were proposing for the mag-lev.

 

[Anderson]

Around here old malls get torn down or turned into office buildings.

A few years bacj Pittsburgh was competeing for federal funds for a mag-lev from downtown to the airport. They wanted to run this thing at 200 miles an hour to cover the 18 mile distance. Even being a rail fan the project made no sense to me. It should have used the existing trolly system into downtown then split onto its own line once it got across the river. The T-system runs on 5' track rather than standard gauge which means the FRA can stick its buff strength rules where the sun dont shine. Import a bunch of off the shelf EU commuter EMUs on 5' trucks. Viola! 90 mph running to the airport once you clear the city at a fraction of what they were proposing for the mag-lev.

That reminds me of the guys in Tennessee who dropped consideration of a conventional line from Chattanooga to Atlanta because of the push for a Maglev there that they didn't want to split efforts on.

I'll actually say that, as a rail advocate, I think the FRA should basically declare Maglev projects "off limits" for funding requests until the technology sorts out. HSR money is too tight to get thrown at something that isn't even functional on a large scale anywhere in the world (unlike most other HSR projects).

Also, another thought, Texas: I don't think there are too many airports that aren't facing potential trouble of some form or another. I called this in a chat with a friend tonight, so I'll put it here: Within eight years, I expect that combined EAS funding and airport bailouts will take more federal dollars than Amtrak subsidies do.

 

[railbuck]

The smaller airports within several hundred miles of a major airport are likely most at risk of seeing ever incremental service cuts as the remaining commercial airlines will say, tough, drive or take the bus to the big airport. It is simply won't be cost effective to run a puddle jumper or connecting flight to the small airports. Won't happen to all of the small airports, but I fully expect we will see a number of "zombie" commercial airports in the next decade. We have, in effect, "zombie" decaying shopping malls which lost their anchor stores and now scrap by with 1/2 the stores closed because we built too many indoor malls and too much retail space in the boom years. Same pattern in many ways for the smaller and medium sized city airports in the boom years of cheap oil.
What does this mean for Amtrak and intercity passenger rail? Well, rather than spend 100s of millions propping up a failing airport, the smarter local politicians should consider putting the funding into restoring or upgrading passenger rail service so their citizens and business community will have options on travel to other cities. But, in many places, we won't see that. Instead they will prop up the airport authority and offer subsidies & tax breaks to entice a commercial airline to come back.

For a case study, look at TOL. This is a nice, convenient little airport that used to have a decent selection of flights: DL to CVG and ATL, NW to DTW, AA to ORD, CO to CLE, US to PIT, AirTran, and maybe a few more. All that's left now is AA to ORD, and a few weekly flights to Florida on Allegiant and (seasonally) DirectAir. Annual passenger traffic has dropped from 679K in 1997 to 182K in 2009. The last time (2008) I took one of the American Eagle flights--granted, it was early morning on a holiday--the crew outnumbered the passengers 3 to 2.

The railroad tracks are located just across the highway, less than a mile away from the terminal. Of course the Cap and LSL come through in both directions at times that are not conducive to connecting to/from a flight, and there aren't many flights anyway. But one can dream of a daytime CHI-CLE train; a platform, AmShack, and shuttle bus; and a convenient intermodal connection including car rental. And in the meantime, while we wait for that, a badly needed renovation of the downtown Amtrak station.

Instead, as the latest in a series of failed attempts, the Port Authority is setting up revenue guarantees and incentives to try to get a Frontier flight to DEN.

 

[xyzzy]

Part of the problem with smaller airports is the cost to operate small passenger aircraft. Fuel costs are much higher today than when the first generation of commuter jets was designed in the 1980s. The ERJs and CRJs that seat 50 passengers or fewer just aren't economical anymore. Jets that seat 70-90 passengers can be economical, but there aren't yet enough of those aircraft in the fleets to cover all the small airports. Also there is a question of how many of those additional seats can be sold at a compensatory fare. A 90-passenger jet that's only 50% full isn't economical, either. So, you're likely to see larger but fewer planes serving the small airports that retain service, and you're likely to see some small airports lose flights altogether.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Looks like the zero tolerance "all jet fleet" planning and advertising is finally coming back to bite US airlines (and customers) in the rear. Our carefully cultivated (but largely unsubstantiated) distrust of modern propeller planes leaves few realistic options for thin routes to retain frequent air service with petrol prices this high and rising.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Olds: I think that "International" is often an overblown label that every airport likes to stick on itself, appropriate or not. Washington National notwithstanding, if an airport says anything but "International", I tend to suspect that it's a rinky-dink rural airport.

Its been a while since I checked, but back when I did, the label of "International" has nothing to due with size, capacity, or expansion of the airport. All an airport needs to legitimately label itself as "International" is to have a Customs Office; even if that office is only in operation part time.

I know a few rinky-dink rural airports up near the Canadian boarder, which are "International" since they have a part-time Customs Office to handle the occasional Piper Cub from Canada.

 

[dart330]

OKC has the Will Rogers World Airport, the only one named "World" in the world I believe, no international flights. The smaller airport is Wiley Post, so both are named after men that died in the same plane crash, bizarre.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

A

would be useful on this forum.

 

[Anderson]

I'm putting everything in one post, but I did a "pulse check" on the Silver fares:

ORL-WAS LB, March 2011: $101 coach/$296 roomette
ORL-WAS HB, March 2011: $225 coach/$583 roomette

ORL-WAS LB, January 2012: $115 coach/$317 roomette
ORL-WAS HB, January 2012: $256 coach/$616 roomette

ORL-WAS LB, February 2013: $119 coach/$327 roomette
ORL-WAS HB, February 2013: $2XX coach/$635 roomette

The XX is there because I couldn't find a top-bucket coach seat. It would probably be around $264 if it showed up, however.

Also of interest is that there seemed to be six roomette buckets:
$208
$285
$362
$394*
$439
$516

*This may be an "error fare" of sorts related to the busing on a few days.