Spirit Airlines began service at DFW about 1 year ago and really began to amp up its service at DFW just after American Airlines entered into bankruptcy.  They’ve announced the addition of 5 new cities from DFW including Baltimore and Houston in September and Oakland and Los Angeles next April.  They’ve also filed paperwork to serve Cancun from DFW.

This would bring Spirit’s service at DFW to 25 daily flights to 20 destinations in just over a year.  Not bad.

Proof that the DFW market is *not* a low fare market.  Spirit is seeing load factors close to 90%.  JetBlue and Virgin America have discovered opportunity here as well.  Delta has started flying into DFW right on top of American Airlines turf.

This isn’t just an incursion against American Airlines.  It’s an incursion on Southwest Airlines turf as well.  Both of these airlines have been fat, happy and sassy with their respective domains here in the DFW area.  Each has enjoyed a kind of monopoly on their services in and out of the DFW metroplex area.

As a resident of the area, I’m glad to see the competition and particularly glad to see Spirit’s competition.  The truth is that it is unlikely that I personally will ever fly Spirit.  I’m 6’2″ tall and a big man.  Spirit’s 29″ seat pitch isn’t exactly my idea of even a leisure flight at a low price.

I expect we will see even more competition in the area and particularly so at DFW.  DFW airport isn’t an expensive airport to fly into and with AA’s bankruptcy, I expect we’ll see some terminal consolidation over the next year freeing up more gate space for more airlines.

Competition is good.

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QANTAS is moving from 4 flights / week to daily flights in its DFW to Australia operations. QANTAS flies non-stop from Sydney to Dallas and non-stop from Dallas to Brisbane with follow on service to Sydney using the Boeing 747-400ER aircraft it has. Previously, it’s been reported that QANTAS load factors have typically exceeded 85% and that the flights have, at times, been load limited or range limited as a result of both passenger and cargo demand.

In other words, this route is *really* succeeding for QANTAS and is attracting a lot of American Airlines network feed. Most felt that this route would go to daily service fairly quickly and it has after about a year of service. My prediction is that the next step will be to add an A380 to the route. Think I’m crazy? I’m not.

The 3 class 747-400ER carries 364 passengers and travels the route at the very limit of its range. 85% load factor for that aircraft translates into about 310 passengers. If the aircraft is being load or range limited with those load factors, it sounds as if there is more demand than can be supplied by the 747-400ER. An A380 can supply 450 seats, ample cargo capacity and has more than ample range to fly DFW-SYD and SYD-DFW without being load limited or range limited at all. 310 passengers equates to 69% load factor for the Airbus A380. If QANTAS continues to stimulate demand and work well with AA making DFW a gateway city to Australia (which is very attractive to east coast residents), an A380 absolutely could be justified as the next step.

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Spirit Airlines has announced new routes from DFW to San Diego, Detroit and Toluca/Mexico City to start on June 21st.  I’m pleased about the competition but I still remain uninterested in flying on Spirit myself.  The ULCC carrier clearly sees opportunity in the DFW marketplace and I think they are right.

Spirit isn’t going to kill American Airlines on those routes although its notable that American is the dominant carrier on all three.  It’s likely to siphon off extremely low value passengers from AA and perhaps even a few from Southwest Airlines.

I like the competition showing up because I think some pressure could be applied to American Airlines on many of its routes.

I suspect we’ll see other LCC carriers such as Virgin America and JetBlue make more overtures to DFW with more routes over time.  The airport has the space and let’s not forget that American will almost certainly shrink at the airport in terms of terminal space and will remain very limited in its response to this competition for the next 12+ months.

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Delta Airlines, not unexpectedly, made a big announcement last Friday about its plans for New York City upon consummation of its slot swap deal with US Airways.  That announcement included a number of bold statements including Richard Anderson offering that Delta intended to build a hub.  So far, no surprises.

Where it gets interesting is Delta announced plans to introduce multiple daily round trip flights to other airline’s hubs.  American Airlines gets to defend against them on routes from New York La Guardia to Dallas / Fort Worth and Miami.  These are major cornerstone routes for American and its cornerstone strategy for its existing hubs.

United Airlines sees encroachment on routes to Houston and Denver.  Both cities are fortress hubs for United and both will be defended strongly.  US Airways gets to fight off Delta on routes to and from Charlotte although generally only with smaller Bombardier 70+ seat jets. 

From a personal point of view, I’m glad to see Delta enter the DFW-NYC market.  I’m glad to see American Airlines get the competition it should have on those routes because the prices on those routes are exorbitant.  Frankly, I had hoped that we would see Virgin America or JetBlue run the route but I’ll take Delta.   The timing is good for adding those routes because it will be 2 more years before Southwest can run that route non-stop and American Airlines now has to pay attention to reorganization under bankruptcy for the next 18 to 24 months.  Delta has a rare window of opportunity to exploit those vulnerabilities.

It’s also notable that Delta isn’t just investing in La Guardia but intends to transform its JFK operations into a focus on trans-continental and international long haul flights.  This, too, is an attack at the heart of American Airlines’ operations.

The greater picture is more interesting.  I’ve long felt that the SuperLegacy airlines would eventually arrive at the conclusion that to grow, they would have to start exploiting each other’s weaknesses at other hubs.  To me, it seemed inevitable but I also thought that the airline that would really get picked on would be American Airlines because of its higher cost structure.  It the lowest hanging fruit from that perspective.

I wasn’t wrong.  In a way, American Airlines isn’t just getting picked on with respect to two routes.  Those two routes represent a war cry of sorts.  However, the major expansion that Delta is about to engage in at La Guardia.  Delta makes it clear that it intends to own that market and owning a good portion of New York City is a profitable thing.

The problem for American Airlines is that, right now, it has higher labor costs, less efficient aircraft and little maneuvering room to fight off competition.  They’ll be fixing that and they are likely to come out with similar labor costs to Delta and United.  However, they are still a long way away from having the benefits of a relatively efficient fleet.

Another problem is that Delta (and other airlines) now have probably at least 18 months to attack American Airlines on its home turf secure in the knowledge that they can do so without too many consequences. 

It’s also interesting to me that Delta felt it was possible to encroach on two airlines’ (US Airways and United) mainstay routes with success.  That’s where the hub mentality comes into play.  To be a hub, one must have those mainstay routes.  Typically, New York City generally doesn’t serve as a hub in the form that we see in Atlanta, Chicago and DFW.  Delta wants to make it more like that and it’s clearly willing to invest heavily to make it happen.  It’s notable that Delta is *able* to invest heavily to do that.  It’s the only airline that can right now.

I’m pretty sure we’re seeing the dawn of a new form of competition among US airlines and I’m pretty sure it gets pretty bloody in, perhaps, 5 years or so.  I think the smaller airlines and the low cost carriers are going to be shocked at the vicious nature of the competition that is about to take place.  The cost structures are far more similar than ever before in the US airline market and the advantages are slim.  But the war chests to fight will be big among the largest airlines.

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JetBlue is coming to DFW. 

I’m rather surprised that they could not find one more Caribbean island to start service to but here we are:  JetBlue is coming to the DFW area too.

Now, it’s not a real deep commitment.  It’s 3 daily round trips from the Dallas / Fort Worth area to Boston and they’ll be using their Embraer E-190 100 seat aircraft for those flights.  The aircraft itself isn’t bad, particularly on JetBlue where minimum seat pitch is 33″ and the seat widths are just a hair wider than what is found on the typical A320 aircraft.   That said, it’s one inch less seat pitch than the standard JetBlue A320 and JetBlue’s main attraction, in my opinion, is the level of seat comfort offered.

I’m always pleased to see new entrants in the DFW area and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these flights showed up a  week after American filed bankruptcy.   I also expect to see others swooping in to pick up business on high fare American Airlines routes in the near future.  This is one moment in time where American can’t hit back and many airlines will see significant opportunity. 

I fully expect that the guys at Virgin America are having numerous conversations about both Dallas and Chicago.

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QANTAS is going to ramp up its flights between Dallas / Fort Worth and Australia from 4X weekly to 6X weekly and then daily.  The move to 6 times a week comes in January and QANTAS will go daily in July of 2012.

Why?  Because the flight works and work well for a variety of people.  The flight duration from DFW to Brisbane is essentially the same as it is from the West Coast (is there much of a difference in an hour more duration when we’re talking about 15+ hour flights?) and it affords a connection in a city that is uncrowded vs many West Coast cities.

The real deal here is feed.  American Airlines must be feeding a ton of traffic to QANTAS and vice-versa.  This is one benefit in the Oneworld alliance that does work. 

It’s also why I’m skeptical of Emirates doing very well in DFW.  Emirates has no relationship with any airline in the DFW area.  Furthermore, DFW airport is exceptionally dominated by American Airlines.  Without a codeshare and/or interline agreement with AA, I just don’t see much feed going over to Emirates. 

As for Origin and Destination traffic between DFW and Dubai . . . forget about it.  As for connections to the Middle East, India and Africa, let’s take a look.

Dallas isn’t an oil city.  That’s Houston.  Dallas is banking and real estate and software.  There are ties to India but you can get there just as conveniently or more so via the airlines already giving you frequent flier miles.  I think the lure of frequent flier miles is silly but I won’t argue against the fact that they are a major driver for most fliers.  Africa?  Again, there just aren’t many ties from Dallas to that part of the world.

Now, as for air cargo traffic, I see that this might work.  But at the end of the day, you still have to fill those 777s with passengers to succeed.

It will be fun seeing their aircraft here just as it is seeing QANTAS 747s here.  And if the 747 is doing *that* well between DFW and Australia, it’s quite possible we’ll see an argument made for some of those flights to be served with an Airbus A380 (which should be able to make the hop to Australia east to west without Brisbane in the equation.)

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Emirates Airlines is going to launch non-stop service between Dallas / Fort Worth and Dubai February 2nd of 2012 using Boeing 777 aircraft and I’m a bit surprised. 

While this fits in with Emirates strategy to be a carrier for the world, I question whether or not the power of American Airlines has been fully considered.  Yes, Emirates has had quite a bit of success competing against other Oneworld alliance customers.  Yes, Emirates offers a world class service product.  No, Emirates is not a part of an alliance and the DFW area is a network hub for the entire region.

How do you compete against American Airlines who possesses a world class network in this region when you have no alliances or codeshares to provide feed from that same region at that same airport?  Furthermore, how do you compete against an airline with arguably one of the strongest frequent flyer programs known and in a city where the entire frequent flyer concept was invented?

I don’t think American Airlines will necessarily respond to this flight with flights of their own to that region.  They don’t need to.  Travelers from this area can get to any point they want in the world via American Airlines either non-stop or through connections as good or better than what Emirates can offer with the possible exception of the Middle East itself.

DFW isn’t really an oil region.  Yes, we have ExxonMobil here with their headquarters and even Halliburton.  Those are headquarters and not operations.  The ties that DFW has to the Middle East are tenuous at best.  The ties that DFW has to Africa are almost non-existent. 

Perhaps Emirates can succeed with a single flight per day.  However, that flight isn’t a real threat to AA or Oneworld.  for areas that do have ties to the DFW region, there are already better, direct flights on American or Oneworld partners.  Europe is well served.  India is well served.  The Far East is well served.  And you can fly QANTAS direct to Australia.

When Emirates started service to Houston, that made sense to me.  There are strong ties to areas between Houston and what Middle Eastern and African regions Emirates serves.  This one doesn’t have a very good argument on its behalf. 

Regardless, it will be fun to go to DFW airport and photograph an Emirates 777 landing.

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Virgin America started flights between DFW and LOS/SFO all the way back in December and experienced a fair bit of success while American Airlines simply matched fares and maintained their status quo.  Over the past several months, VA has learned that if they can get people to try their flights out, they can win the all important business customer.  With that in mind, VA launched a new initiative in the Dallas / Fort Worth area offering 2 for 1 purchases and inviting people to give up their old airline.

It’s a fairly agressive campaign and one that promises to really dent AA’s traffic.  So, in response, AA is offering $99 fares to LA and San Francisco (although not matching the 2 for 1 deal) and fighting back with communications to their customers with email blasts. 

It’s been a while since we’ve seen things heat up like this.  The problem for American Airlines is that at the prices being offered, it becomes kind of a no-brainer to try Virgin America.  And once you try Virgin America, you realize that, no, not all flights have to be staffed with mean people and not all flights have to be endured on crowded 737-800s.  The newest AA aircraft are no match for the experience Virgin America offers.

Who wins?  Everyone in the Dallas Fort Worth area, for sure.

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So, here is some interesting news.  According to the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), QANTAS is finding its 4 times a week flights to the DFW area using a 747-400ER as both successful and profitable.  The airline began the flights just 3 months ago and is already seeing load factors in the 90% range (with about 80% of that load being leisure and 20% corporate/business.)

There have been a few diversions to South Pacific locations for refueling due to adverse headwinds but none recently.  There have also been a few complaints about luggage being delayed due to load limitations.  Both because the route is on the outer limits of the range offered by the 747-400ER. 

If the success is as good as claimed by Qantas NSW regional general manager Peter Collins says it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if QANTAS either changed the service to an A380 in the future or if it added 6 or 7 times a week frequencies.  QANTAS has already said that when its 787s become available, they’ll likely service the route with multiple daily frequencies. 

QANTAS has both 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft on order but I would expect that the aircraft they’ll want to use is the 787-9 (provided the range promised is delivered) and that means a long time from now.  In the meantime, the A380 can offer as much range with greater capacity as the 747-400ER for this flight when it can operate its aircraft with the uprated Rolls Royce Trent engines at full thrust again. 

In any case, it’s good to see QANTAS succeed with this route and I look forward to seeing it developed even more as time goes by.

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Spirit Airlines has announced that it will begin flying between Dallas and Chicago (DFW to ORD) on August 18th.  Right now, I see 2 frequencies each way between the cities and they’re pretty convenient times.

This is smart on the part of Spirit because they’re striking at American Airlines as a function of performing this service at DFW to ORD and they’re competing with SWA on value.  Both AA and SWA have far more frequencies but the typical Spirit customer can be bled off from both companies for different reasons. 

This might spur a price competition between the 3 airlines but I kind of doubt it.  Spirit has many downsides too.  Everything is a fee on this airline and some of those fees are pretty expensive.  The seating is *not* even as comfortable as American Airlines (and I consider AA to be pretty uncomfortable.)  The frequencies aren’t enought o compete for any business traffic but, then, Spirit isn’t after the business traveler anyway.

I’m glad to see them enter into the market.  However, I’ll also say that it is highly unlikely that I would ever use them myself.

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I had to fly to Chicago again this past weekend and took Southwest once more.  That caused me to consider Southwest as an airline with respect to where it is and what is happening with it today. 

In many respects, Southwest remains my favorite airline.  I like how they move their planes.  I like their seats and I like the prices quite a bit, too.  They still largely have a friendly and motivated staff and they take their jobs seriously.  Their service is far more consistent than many other airlines and, as an airline, they’re pretty creative in how they get the job done.

I’m also a bit irritated with them and I’m really irritated with the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. 

I’m irritated with Southwest because of the now 3 flight attendants who have tried to either A) move my briefcase from the bin above me to the back or B) tried to convince me to move it under the chair in front of me.  All because they are unwilling to say “no” to the new business travelers they have carrying their entire life with them.  I was traveling on business each time.  I had a lot of stuff with me in fact because of the work I was doing and I still managed to check my bag.  Ironically, I got into my ride’s car in Chicago and left before several of the business travelers managed to who were waiting for taxis. 

But don’t tell me that the overhead bin is reserved for large suitcases.  Poppycock and balderdash.  They aren’t, they never were and just because you find gate checking bags difficult doesn’t mean you get to move my briefcase to the back of the plane to make it more convenient for someone else to put their large suitcase up in a bin.

I’m also irritated at their gates.   Their gates in Chicago and Dallas are cramped, hot and uncomfortable.  Even with the new “business areas”, they are cramped, hot and uncomfortable.  So much so, that I realized I was getting tired from just jockeying for a seat in a gate area.  And you know what I noticed?  Many of the seats are being taken up by people putting their large bags in the seats.  There has to be a better way.

Southwest has announced that they won’t withdraw Airtran from DFW until November 21st and now Dallas and Fort Worth mayors are being crabby about that.  Well, I tend to agree that getting that done earlier is unlikely to be a very difficult thing to do and is unlikely to inconvenience many more additional passengers.  But it irritates me because this is, in part, who Southwest has become as an airline.  They’re becoming the company that doesn’t cope with its size very well.  It’s lethargic because it lacks the IT infrastructure to deal with its size.  They could be a lot more agile than they are.

I’m irritated with the City of Dallas because Love Field really is abysmal as an airport.  Yes, it’s being renovated and that means inconveniences but that does not mean that restrooms need to be dirty and stores and restaurants need not act entitled to every last dollar bill in my wallet.  The terminal is blazing hot already and nothing has really been done to accomodate passengers during this construction.

Frankly, this is a job that should have been done 10 years ago, not scheduled for completion sometime in 2014.

The way the use of Love Field airport is being dictated even post 2014 is silly.  I get that Fort Worth wants to be a Big City and they aren’t small, for sure.  But please quit acting like your whole world crashes if airlines use Love Field.  It was the preferred airport in the Metroplex back in 1959 and remains so today.  It’s a shame that Fort Worth couldn’t support a similar airport but they couldn’t do so in the last 50 years.  DFW serves them very well and it isn’t inconvenient to most of that city. 

If Fort Worth needs more airline access, how about we let them build an airport in south west Tarrant county?   The entire Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex has over 6 million people.  We can support more than just DFW airport these days.

But the petty squabbling that goes on between these two cities over airports is just stupid in 2011.  And both Southwest and American Airlines could stand to get a bit more real over that subject as well.  Let’s not be naive:  the reason both those airlines continue to poke and prod the city governments over the issue is driven by their desire to continue to monopolize their respective airports in the area. 

Southwest could stand to become a better airline and I think they’re actually headed towards some serious trouble.  They’re innovating on the customer side but I don’t see them investing in their infrastructure quite the way a big airline should.  Holding on to perfectly good things is fine but you must reinvest in your systems from time to time to continue to grow and compete.  Let me point out that Southwest is using a reservations system it bought from Braniff originally titled “Cowboy” and developed in the late 1960’s.  Yes, it’s basic reservations infrastructure is 50 years old and never was all that good to begin with.

Why does this irritate me?  Because I think Southwest is good and it could be really great but for how slow it is moving these days.

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QANTAS began flying to and from Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport just a few weeks ago and they’ve already experienced a somewhat unusual diversion.  QANTAS Flight QF8 flying from DFW to Brisbane, Australia diverted to Noumea, an island in the South Pacific, to take on additional fuel.  The diversion caused the flight to be late by 2 hours and, no doubt, a bit unprofitable.

There have also been stories of baggage being left behind to reduce weight on these flight.  The flight between DFW and Australia is arguably the longest possible on the Boeing 747-400ER.  QANTAS is the only airline to fly the -400ER and the nominal max range with maximum payload on this aircraft is 7670 nautical miles.  The shortest distance between DFW and Brisbane is 8300 nautical miles.

This means the QANTAS aircraft is already flying payload restricted to achieve the route distance so it is quite possible that some baggage is getting loaded.  Ironically, the 777-200LR could probably fly the same number of people on the same route with unrestricted payload.  This was an aircraft that QANTAS found unsuitable for purchase.

Future QANTAS 787 aircraft will be capable of flying that route and I would expect that that will be one of the first routes to see the 787 although the -8 versions will be barely capable of the flight to Brisbane as well.

QANTAS is smart and I would expect that if this becomes a trend, they’ll re-think the route or look for other equipment to put on it.   If the load factors remain consistently strong, they may well choose to put an A-380 on that route as well.  Much of this new route depends upon how much American Airlines can feed traffic to it and I suspect they can feed quite a bit. 

The thing is, the last thing they want is this flight developing a reputation for taking even longer due to diversions.

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Airline hubs are often surprising and, if you are an airline enthusiast, you already know that Atlanta is the world’s largest airline hub.  Others are obvious but do can you name the top 10 airline hubs in the world by traffic?  Answer after the fold:

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Virgin America is doing what I have wished an LCC carrier would do to American Airlines for 10 years:  compete with them.  In December, they took up the challenge to compete against AA on the DFW-LAX/SFO markets and they’ve done pretty well.  Virgin America knew going in that it was an long term investment and that they would see a strong reaction from AA.  Of course, that’s no surprise since VA CEO David Cush is a former senior AA executive.

Now Virgin America is set to start competing with American Airlines and United Airlines on routes between Chicago and LAX/SFO.  The response from American Airlines tells a story.  According to the Dallas Morning News Aviation Blog, American Airlines is giving away a “special gift” that includes:

“. . . a $100 discount for future travel that is booked on AA.com, a $150 voucher for bookings on AAVacations.com, 5,000 AAdvantage miles and an Admirals Club pass and $50 discount on a one-year membership.”

If Virgin America was looking for any confirmation of the threat it presents to AA, there it is.  That’s a pretty special gift to try to keep business customers away from VA.  As incentives go, that’s a pretty surprisingly high price to pay.

And it doesn’t surprise me in the least.  The VA product should compete exceptionally well against the AA offerings.  The difference in the physical service product alone is the difference between night and day. 

I’ve now heard a number of first hand stories from people flying VA out of the Dallas area and, anecdotally, I’d say that AA is in real trouble.  The responses I’ve heard have uniformly been expressed as shockingly impressed with the aircraft, service product and staffing.   This is from corporate travelers, not the occasional vacation flyers. 

I think VA has identified that it can compete and it can erode American Airlines’ strengths on routes and I think we’ll see VA look to do it on more and more American Airlines “core” routes while they also nibble on United Airlines as well.  Right now, I would say that Delta is somewhat safe from VA but they also have Southwest to worry about so they aren’t exempt from pressures.

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The Dallas Fort Worth area has a number of operating airports including DFW, Dallas Love Field and Alliance Airport.  All busy commercial airports. 

Long before DFW International was built, Dallas was served by Love Field and Fort Worth was served by Meacham Field.  The FAA grew weary of funding two airports for the  city and Fort Worth was tired of being second fiddle to Dallas.

Question:  Can you name the first airport built between Dallas and Fort Worth and and where it was built?

Answer after the fold:

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Southwest and Airtran are now one airline legally although both will continue to operate separately in varying degrees during their transition to one operation.  Once change that will come sooner than later and one that will disappoint me at that is Airtran leaving DFW airport.  Southwest isn’t permitted to fly from both airlines because of a clause in the law(s) governing operations from Love Field Airport. 

It disappoints me because Airtran was my “Southwest Alternative” when it came to flying to destinations on the East Coast.  It  was faster and easier to fly Airtran via Atlanta to many of those destinations and it was just as inexpensive.  Now, those flights will have to be on Southwest which is hamstrung with the Wright Amendment law(s). 

I’ll also be disappointed to see Airtran’s business class go away.  It was a great value to upgrade to and offered what was most important (to me) which was better seating.   It’s not about the food or being addressed by my name or a mint, it’s about being more comfortable for what was a great price.

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British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia Airlines received trans-Atlantic anti-trust immunity to cooperate on routes between the United States and Europe late last year.  Since that time, all three have been maneuvering their operations to prepare for this cooperation.  Now it begins.

Previously, flights between JFK (New York city) and Heathrow (London) on AA and BA frequently left within minutes of each other.  Now, the two airlines will form a kind of “shuttle service” between New York City and London with departures from London to NYC in the afternoon leaving once every hour and flights from NYC to London leaving as frequently as every 20 minutes in the afternoon. 

Frequency is good.  Choice is good.  And I would be tempted to criticize that much frequency except that a quick check of schedules reveals that all of these aircraft are either BA 747-400s or AA 777-200s.   I do wonder if I haven’t identified where at least one British Airways A380 will fly routes.   It also makes me speculate that AA’s recent order of 777-300ERs might not be for quite as distant routes as we once thought. 

The airlines are also cooperating on other flights to between other cities.  Iberia will fly to California from Madrid.  Schedules between Miami and Spain will be coordinated going forward.  A check of flights between Dallas / Fort Worth and London Heathrow show 3 coordinated flights a day with 2 AA 777s and 1 BA 747.   There are 7 more connections (several at cheaper prices) available between those cities with stops in Chicago, Boston and Washington D.C.

Chicago to London flights as non-stops are a bit more frequent although all operated on 777s.  Chicago gets 6 evening departures to London and when you consider the connections that AA has in its Chicago hub, this should be good for everyone in Oneworld. 

I am struck by one thing now.  The biggest argument against such an alliance was the dominance both BA and AA would have between London and the United States.  Both were already dominant players by any measure.  The new schedule for these flights show real muscle flex and I wonder how any other airline competes against this partnership into London. 

This will be a very interesting alliance to watch for the next 2 years as it  grows and blossoms.  You have to wonder if Star Alliance and SkyTeam aren’t just a bit concerned at how this network unfolded on a global basis. 

One example:  QANTAS will soon be flying to DFW airport regularly from Australia.  It will be possible to leave Sydney, Australia on QANTAS at 1:25pm on a Monday, arrive at 1:50pm in DFW that same Monday ( I love how the international date line makes that possible) and then depart DFW at 6:05pm on British Airways to London Heathrow arriving at 9:00am the next morning.   Then one could hop a QANTAS flight from London Hearthrow at 12:00 noon and fly to Sydney, Australia via Singapore (fuel stop) arriving at 7:30pm the following day and thus completing a roundtrip flight on some of the longest flights in existence.

And you can book all of that through American Airlines’ website.  This is some real market power and it will be very interesting to see how people respond to the offerings these Oneworld partners will have arranged between themselves.

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Later today, I’m flying from Dallas to Chicago and this time I’m trying out Southwest Airlines’ service from Love Field to Midway Airport.  Both airports are the quintessential second airports for their respective cities and both have a strong Southwest history. 

Why this airline and these airports?  I’ve long advocated that you can enjoy a better, less expensive flight on Southwest that is essentially the same time elapsed “door to door” as a flight on a carrier such as American Airlines. 

So, I’ll be making a much quicker drive to Love Field airport where I’ll make a much quicker transit  through security to my gate.  I did pay the $10 Southwest Fee to early check in to improve my seating options (and it’s a fee that, for Southwest customers, does provide extra value).  My flight, however, is not non-stop.  I’ll be on a one-stop Southwest flight that pauses briefly in St. Louis.  Total programmed flight time?  2 hours, 55 minutes.

I paid $408 for this trip last Saturday compared to American Airlines fare for similar departure times on the same days of $659 and that does not include the fees for one checked bag that I’ll have to take with me.  All in, AA would have cost me (or, rather, my client) over $700. 

If I had taken AA, I would have had a much longer drive to DFW airport and a much more expensive one as well.  (One takes a tollway to DFW if one expects to get to DFW in a reasonable amount of time from where I live.)  The difference in time to get to each airport for me on a day where there are no traffic jams?  About 20 minutes less to access Love Field.

My Southwest flight time will be 2 hours, 55 minutes (if they’re on time) and a similar choice with American Airlines would be 2 hours, 30 minutes.  With the difference in drive time alone, I’ve just made up 20 minutes of a 25 minute difference.  When you account for the fact that I can arrive at Love Field with a bare minimum amount of time for passing through vs DFW airport where I would arrive about 15 minutes before my one hour deadline prior to flight time (because checking bags and passing through security at DFW can be easy or it can be real lengthy), I’ve just gained another 10 minutes. 

Since I”m arriving at Chicago Midway Airport, I’ll have a drive to my hotel in downtown Chicago that is nominally 6 miles shorter in distance and about 20 minutes quicker than if I arrived at Chicago O’Hare.  I’m now up by 30 minutes using Southwest.

At least in theory.

But let’s take a look at the contrasts in experiences I’m liable to enjoy between the two airlines.  On Southwest, I paid the $10 Early Bird Check-In fee so I’ll have a very high likelihood of obtaining a good, front of cabin seat on a 737-700.  It will be a fairly new aircraft and possibly a brand new aircraft.  It won’t be old and it won’t have old, worn out seats either.  I’ll enjoy 32″ to 33″ of seat pitch, most likely a friend flight attendant and no charge for a beverage.  Because of the nature of my trip, I have to check a bag and that comes free and on an airline with a good reputation for baggage handling and security.

If I had taken American Airlines on similar flight time, I would have enjoyed a 20+ year old MD-82.  Since I would have bought AA’s best economy price, I would have likely been at the back of the aircraft and sitting in old, worn out seating with 31″ of seat pitch.  My flight attendants would have most likely been cranky, older crew who have a reputation of taking out their job dissatisfaction on their customers.  (AA flight attendants can be good but in my experience the DFW and Chicago based crews are frequently hostile to customers.) 

My bag would be handled by an airline who had a less than positive reputation for baggage handling (and strangely I’ve had many bags delayed over the years on the DFW-ORD route) and only for a $25 fee each way.   If I had paid AA’s fee for priority boarding, I’d get earlier access to overhead bins but no options to sit in a preferred seat up front and an economy passenger on an AA MD-80 flight is going to have the options of “bad” and “worse” when it comes to seat assignments.

Savings in dollars:  About $300

Savings in time:  About 30 minutes door to door (if this works out as I expect).

What do I give up?  I don’t get frequent flier points on American Airlines.  Let me point out that my dollar savings alone just bought me a “free trip” if I wanted it.  Which would you rather have?  about 1600 frequent flier point or $300 in savings?  Which would you rather fly on?  An old MD-80 with old seats and a hostile flight crew or on a fairly new 737 with new seats and a friendly flight crew?

Once I complete this trip, I’ll write up what actually happened.

Filed under: Airline Fees, Airline Fleets, Airline Seating, Airline Service, Airports, Frequent Flier, Travel Hints by ajax
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There has been talk recently of a phase 2 expansion of Chicago’s O’Hare airport and now there are calls for expanding both JFK and Newark airports in the New York City area.

No doubt that the latter two could certainly stand some better planning and a revision of runway strategy.  I would also be wholly unsurprised to find out that others will argue for a new airport serving the area.  Then they will point to White Plains as the next NYC airport again.

I’m all for airports getting revamped and better plans and runways.

But what I would like to see more of is rapid transportation to and from these airports.  A big part of the problem with using many of today’s airports is the inability to get to them in timely manner as well as the parking fees that resemble mob extortion.

Everyone knows the challenges in accessing most of the New York’s airports.  It’s much the same at many other airports around the country including my own home base in DFW.  I can drive 40 miles and pay a minimum of $13/day to park at DFW (anything somewhat close to the terminal is considerably more) and I don’t have much in the way of choice in doing that.

We have a rail system now and it’s actually a pleasant one.  You can get kind of close to DFW via the rail system but you still have to transit from a rail station to the airport via shuttle at the cost of at least 15 minutes more time and often more. 

Why I can’t ride a rail right to the DFW airport terminals and their new rail system is completely beyond me and a sorely neglected option.  It’s coming, they say but it’s about 10 years overdue in my opinion.

And these conditions aren’t much different at other major airports.  We need to do a better job of planning access to these airports in addition to building a new runway here and there.

Filed under: Airports by ajax
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Virgin America has had a great experience with its new flights between DFW and Los Angeles as well as San Francisco.  So much so, they’re adding one new frequency on each route by terminating its LAX – Toronto flights. 

This is what I mean by it being time to compete with American Airlines.  That big bully that everyone sees in the DFW area is a lot more vulnerable than it may look at first glance.  AA has fought back some on those routes but with VA’s load factors running in the 80 percents and their advance bookings running about 70 percent, it’s clear that a new, service oriented entrant can compete with AA.  Especially on routes that have been traditionally dominated by AA over the past 10+ years. 

Once VA gets these flights settled and tweaked and finds itself satisfied, look for new flights out of DFW.  I see opportunities for them on DFW to New York city, Boston and Seattle.  All three routes are the non-stop domain of AA and all three have relatively high fares.  Just like the DFW-LAX and DFW-SFO routes had.  Virgin has a presence in each of those cities which would make it easier to integrate routes from DFW to those destinations as well.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax
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