I saw this on Flightaware today and I'm assuming that it's the charter for the Texas Tech FB game vs OSU Thursday. Assuming that, why didn't the fly into SWO instead??

United (UA) #1802 ? FlightAware (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1802)

My guess is that the team will be overnighting in OKC, not Stillwater.

New signage for WRWA:

Details here http://www.okctalk.com/transportation/32325-will-rogers-world-airport-8.html#post829663

Vintage airliner to arrive in Yukon | Oklahoma City - OKC - KOCO.com (http://www.koco.com/news/vintage-airliner-to-arrive-in-yukon/28242286)

DOT finally got Q1 numbers posted a couple weeks ago, and I finally have time to go through and look at them. For right now, will only look at the top 10 markets, but can expand later. Comparisons will be Q1 2013 to Q1 2014.

Abbreviations
ppd - passengers per day
pax - passengers

#1 Houston
O&D decrease of 13 ppd, WN remains largest though market share fell from 61% to 59%. Fares up from $197 to $213.

#2 Denver
O&D unchanged mostly (down 4). WN remains largest with market share falling from 50% to 47%. Fares have fallen from $142 to $123.

#3 Atlanta
Atlanta is now 3rd. Massive O&D jump from 167 to 398 ppd. WN/FL is the largest, dethroning DL, with market share now at 55%. Fares have crashed from $309 to $188.

#4 Las Vegas
O&D unchanged (up only 3) from 365 ppd to 368. WN still largest and relatively unchanged at 72%. Fares up slightly from $210 to $226.

#5 Los Angeles
O&D up to 345 from 334. WN is now largest instead of AA, even though they don't offer nonstop service. Fares up from $262 to $280.

#6 Washington DC / Baltimore
O&D up from 304 to 325. WN retains largest with 32% market share down from 35%. Fares down from $275 to $260.

#7 Chicago
O&D up from 233 to 286. WN/FL still largest with 27% market share down from 35%. Fares down from $236 to $216.

#8 Phoenix
O&D down from 280 to 243 ppd. WN is largest with 72% market share up from 70%. Fares up from $206 to $235.

#9 Dallas
O&D down from 252 to 226. WN is largest with 54% market share , unchanged. Fares up from $138 to $167.

#10 New York
O&D down to 221 from 235. UA is the largest with 41% market share falling to 35%. Fares up from $285 to $300.

Got to fly on the Tri-Motor on Saturday. If you weren't able to see it or catch a ride, I made this motion picture for your viewing pleasure:

Ford Tri-Motor vid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgGEYugMHAE&list=UU25cbNN_AhU-Gza6HvJt5oQ)

Flew back the other day from ATL on DL. Love the mainline service here. It got me wondering... is the upgrade to all mainline a result of Memphis getting cut, summer seasonal flying or both?? I imagine in the coming months there will be a few CRJ's tossed in to ATL. Or, no???

Flew back the other day from ATL on DL. Love the mainline service here. It got me wondering... is the upgrade to all mainline a result of Memphis getting cut, summer seasonal flying or both?? I imagine in the coming months there will be a few CRJ's tossed in to ATL. Or, no???

Delta wants out of the 50-seater business, so it is just natural progression based on equipment availability. The original 50-seat markets are getting moved up to CR7/CR9s and even 717s. It seems Delta is making it a point to have nearly every market possible from ATL to have at least one mainline flight. While we could see some CR9s come back, I don't think we'll see a big shift back.

When Southwest announced OKC-ATL on AirTran DL immediately upgraded to all mainline.

Venture: That makes sense. My old airport in NC (Asheville) was an all ATR-72 shop, then went to CRJ-200's and then upgraded to CRJ-700s, 717 and even a daily MD80. Allegiant jumped into the market a little while ago with flights to just about every Florida resort town which makes me wonder if that was a good part of the upgrade.

I am surprised by all of the planes that DL flies now..but surprised that even though Skywest flies the EMB-120 out of SLC, that they are not featured as being a plane in DL's fleet. Pretending to not be in the prop plane biz I guess?

I want to say the the EM2 flying that Skywest does is at risk flying that is carrying the DL code. DL doesn't like acknowledging there are any props in their system and routinely avoid it - always stressing all jet.

When Southwest announced OKC-ATL on AirTran DL immediately upgraded to all mainline.

When are they going to get rid of the small jet on the msp-okc flight? It is a miserable 2 hour flight on a jet way too small. I rebooked and flew SFO-ATL-OKC on Sunday just to avoid that flight (I could have gone through DTW but was $500 more and SLC wasn't available unless I went SFO-LAX-SLC-OKC with really short layovers)

When are they going to get rid of the small jet on the msp-okc flight? It is a miserable 2 hour flight on a jet way too small. I rebooked and flew SFO-ATL-OKC on Sunday just to avoid that flight (I could have gone through DTW but was $500 more and SLC wasn't available unless I went SFO-LAX-SLC-OKC with really short layovers)

I have no connection or insight to delta, but msp/okc seems to be a route they have forgotten about. I suspect as their 50 seat fleet continues to shrink that it will move over to CRJ 700's. DL's primary focus seems to be ATL and SEA right now.

I know we're always speculating on future routes etc for OKC.

With DL expanding in SEA, I wonder if there's a future airplane order for Alaska Airlines that would allow them to add more routes. I saw yesterday they added a few more 737s to an existing order but it seems they're retiring a few so net change would be zero.

actually, SEA is in trouble. DL is pulling back already and shifting towards LAX.

Allegiant resumes March 5. Sunday Thursday to Orlando Sanford.

Another HUGE month. September was the best month to date, with a nearly YOY 9% increase in boarding and Deplanements.

http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/September2014Enplanement.pdf

Very nice. That's more than 2.85 million total passengers year-to-date. Keeping in mind we still have the big travel months of November and December (and barring any significant travel hindrances like big winter storms) it should be a pretty good year all around.

projection estimates anybody?

will we get to 4M this year?

How many flights are being cut by Southwest with the Wright Amendment ending? I had heard one daily to both Love and Denver, any others?

How many flights are being cut by Southwest with the Wright Amendment ending? I had heard one daily to both Love and Denver, any others?

DAL is already scaled back to 3 daily - so no additional changes there. DEN remains at 3 daily...which they have been at for long time now. ATL, STL, and MDW are all dropping to 1 daily from 2 daily flights.

Venture, do you see AA or United picking up the slack Southwest leaves?

Venture, do you see AA or United picking up the slack Southwest leaves?

Nope. STL neither cares about. ATL is going to be DL and they are already full mainline. The only real overlap routes here are going to be Dallas (AA) and Chicago (AA & UA). AA isn't going to bump anything up because they are already capped on max number of mainline flights they are allowed per their ground handling scope clause. United has shown very little interest in maintaining much of any mainline presence here...especially going forward when they are getting ready to outsource all of their employees are something like 35 airports (OKC included) which will come with scope restrictions as well. ORD is also quasi limited in the number of flights it can handle as well, and I don't see them going beyond the normal 4-5 daily flights they typically have outside of the seasonal pull down in the winter.

More thoughts in a minute...

I want to expand on Chicago a little bit since that is where AA & UA compete with WN the most...

As of right now, we only have the T-100 data from the DOT available through Q1 of this year, so that is all I can really compare it by. Overall for all of 2013 through the first three months of 2014, Southwest/AirTran has only filled 62% of the seats to MDW. This year has been pretty terrible...

SCH_DEPPERF_DEPSEATSPASSENGERSLOADFACTORUNIQUE_CAR RIER_NAMEORIGINDESTYEARMONTH30303510172849%AirTran Airways CorporationOKCMDW2014126263042139746%AirTran Airways CorporationOKCMDW2014242426006448775%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCMDW20143222809634%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCMDW201437781949160%AirTran Airways CorporationOKCMDW20143
Now this is also for what is considered the slowest period of the year outside of Sept/Oct. Regardless...this period gave an overall load factor of 60%. This is up however from 2013 which only had a 50% load factor. If we look at the 3 months prior - so Q4 for 2013...it is still only up 6 pts.

SCH_DEPPERF_DEPSEATSPASSENGERSLOADFACTORUNIQUE_CAR RIER_NAMEORIGINDESTYEARMONTH2228018165%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCMDW20131056568008559070%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCMDW2013103342924657%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCMDW20131152526084248441%AirTran Airways CorporationOKCMDW20131157576669316647%AirTran Airways CorporationOKCMDW201312
So for one of the busiest periods of the year, to only average 54% full...Southwest has a capacity problem with having a fare structure that now demands higher yields.

If we compare this same period (Q4 2013) to UA with a 78% load factor...

SCH_DEPPERF_DEPSEATSPASSENGERSLOADFACTORUNIQUE_CAR RIER_NAMEORIGINDESTYEARMONTH4420018593%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131026261716125073%SkyWest Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131031291450127588%Trans States AirlinesOKCORD20131031312046176986%GoJet Airlines, LLC d/b/a United ExpressOKCORD20131027271782105459%Mesa Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131011504386%SkyWest Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131118181188102086%GoJet Airlines, LLC d/b/a United ExpressOKCORD2013116630028695%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131123221452111177%SkyWest Airlines Inc.OKCORD2013112222145276553%Mesa Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131133321600135385%Trans States AirlinesOKCORD201311111050044188%SkyWest Airlines Inc.OKCORD2013121716105686182%SkyWest Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131223231610115572%Mesa Airlines Inc.OKCORD20131221663756%GoJet Airlines, LLC d/b/a United ExpressOKCORD201312151365057388%Trans States AirlinesOKCORD20131234301500130987%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCORD201312
And AA at 76% load factors...

SCH_DEPPERF_DEPSEATSPASSENGERSLOADFACTORUNIQUE_CAR RIER_NAMEORIGINDESTYEARMONTH31311979158380%Envoy AirOKCORD20131089824100271466%Envoy AirOKCORD20131029281790144681%Envoy AirOKCORD201311131328665%Envoy AirOKCORD20131181773850280873%Envoy AirOKCORD20131156522600218984%Envoy AirOKCORD20131261583704300681%Envoy AirOKCORD201312
The take away from this is that there is still plenty of available - existing - capacity that can be back filled on all 3 carriers. I did leave out flights operated by Chautauqua since they operate for both AA and UA at times, though I think they would be under AA in this example (someone else can clarify for me). Regardless...still plenty of flexibility to absorb WN cutting one flight a day. I do expect AA to transition to the E-Jets on the ORD route as Envoy is rumored to be getting replaced by the E-Jets and also CRJs next year. We'll see what happens.

Just for clarification, there is no scope limit on outsourcing and mainline flights. Pre merger united had a contract limitation, pre merger Continental did not. And the combined carrier has no restriction. They can outsource a city if it makes business sense as the only justification, and number of mainline flights has nothing to do with that.

United is in a weird position right now. They do have an interest in the OKC market; but they are under tight watch from above on routes which under perform. They are cutting any flights which don't make money. I suspect as the pressure backs off United will add some slack again. (More flights)

Thanks Catch, I wasn't sure if UA was in a similar position like AA - which limits outsourced stations to only have up to 7 mainline flights per day.

I was suspicious that United might have interest in OKC given the article that was published. It would be fantastic if we could at least restore mainline service to DEN and ORD (one flight a day) in addition to the mainline into IAH and upgrade the overall product going to the other hubs (LAX, SFO, EWR, IAD). It would be nice if AA would throw us a bone with a mainline ORD flight as well just to compete (and they also had an article, hence the interest/compete).

I'd think with WN pulling back that there should be a shift to ORD which UA and AA could capitalize on (hopefully with a mainline a piece). Will be fantastic to see one or both of them send a 757 some day. - Dreaming, I know, but still .... -

I was suspicious that United might have interest in OKC given the article that was published. It would be fantastic if we could at least restore mainline service to DEN and ORD (one flight a day) in addition to the mainline into IAH and upgrade the overall product going to the other hubs (LAX, SFO, EWR, IAD). It would be nice if AA would throw us a bone with a mainline ORD flight as well just to compete (and they also had an article, hence the interest/compete).

I'd think with WN pulling back that there should be a shift to ORD which UA and AA could capitalize on (hopefully with a mainline a piece). Will be fantastic to see one or both of them send a 757 some day. - Dreaming, I know, but still .... -

Maybe my points weren't really made too well. WN pulling the one daily flight really won't do anything to the market. This is excess capacity that will still leave plenty of open capacity in the market. So there really isn't anything for AA or UA to capitalize on. They already trump WN in frequency to Chicago, so there isn't much to go after.

Also as I stated, AA mainline to ORD will require them to give up mainline to DFW. AA is scope restricted to 7 daily mainline flights to a station that has outsourced below wing services.

Ive always been curious as to why DLs seems to neglect the SLC hub, and not just with OKC but with many airports in The Plains. It seems to me that DL missed a possible opportunity to be a west coast dominant carrier but not trying to bring more flights west.

I don't have access to all the numbers like Venture and Catch but would it make sense to add 1 more flight to SLC on a -700 to compete with UAL and Denver or UAL in San Fran and AA in LAX??

And speaking of DL and SLC... I'd love to know what ATC was trying to do with this plane Sunday night....

SkyWest (OO) #4444 ? FlightAware (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SKW4444)

Make sure you include the link that has the timestamp, or it will go to the current day's flight.

SkyWest (OO) #4444 ? 12-Oct-2014 ? KSLC - KOKC ? FlightAware (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SKW4444/history/20141013/0200Z/KSLC/KOKC)

since the line of storms was coming through, they may have planned ahead and went towards Tulsa

A) to kill time for the line of storms to pass

B) in case OKC didn't open back up they are close to their diversion airport.

Looks like once they got close to Tulsa, the line of storms passed OKC, so they decided to come back around. They most likely held again NW of the city to kill off a little more time for the storms to get a little further away before attempting a landing.

So, I read this weekend that Southwest will be able to do longer flights from Love Field and not have to travel out of DFW as much anymore. Anybody have any thoughts on that and how it might affect OKC?

Yes, we have reduced from 5 daily to DAL to 3.

So, I read this weekend that Southwest will be able to do longer flights from Love Field and not have to travel out of DFW as much anymore. Anybody have any thoughts on that and how it might affect OKC?

I don't see any particular affect on OKC other than less nonstop flights to DAL.

By the way, I remember AA had one or two MD 80s to ORD but that was a while back (late 90s-early-mid 2000s). That was of course before all the scope clauses went into effect and we had something like 10-12 daily AA/Eagle flights to DFW, with a mix of F-100s, ERJ 145s and ATR 72s.

Yes, we have reduced from 5 daily to DAL to 3.

Have the flights to DFW increased?

Have the flights to DFW increased?

Last year, AA added two RJ frequencies, to bring their total to 9. Net loss of seats, however.

(AA added 200 roundtrip while WN subtracted 548). I believe AA is about to (or has already) upgraded one of the RJ's to a CRJ-700 with 65 seats... (So +130-548)

American Airlines from 06NOV14 will introduce CRJ900 aircraft service on following routes from Dallas. The CRJ900 service is operated by Mesa Airlines as American Eagle.

eff 06NOV14
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Albuquerque
Dallas/Ft. Worth – El Paso
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Fayetteville AR
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Greenville

eff 16NOV14
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Huntsville

eff 02DEC14
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Colorado Springs
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Little Rock
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Louisville
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Lubbock
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Oklahoma City
Dallas/Ft. Worth – Wichita

Wow pretty big hit to mainline coming on AA with this schedule update.

The new schedule will now be 4x MD-80s, 3x CR9s, 1x CR7, and 1x CR2.

CR2...those planes should all be put to pasture

Is the AA downgrade just for the winter?? Or are these MD-80s that are getting sent to retirement??

Ah, I went to AA.com and saw January loaded back with all mainline except 1... don't know if this is a dummy schedule our not. I'll let Venture and Catch and whoever else has inside knowledge to correct me

CR2...those planes should all be put to pasture

That's pretty much where they're headed. The regionals are retiring them in droves these days, which is why we're getting the larger ones like the CR7s/9s and the larger-still E-Jets.

I'm guessing the AA downgrade is mainly a winter deal, but with more CRJ 700s/900s being incorporated into Eagle's RJ fleet I can see them becoming a mainstay especially between OKC and DFW. Especially the ones from US Airways Express.

Losing the MD-80s permanently (at least until they are fully replaced by 738's) would be surprising and disappointing. I have very rarely been on AA mainline to DFW the past 3 years that wasn't at full or nearly full capacity. Not to mention the S80s, while old, currently have the best legroom and comfort in AA's fleet.

I happened to be shopping for flights in November when I ran across something interesting: some of the itineraries showed a 717 on the Detroit route. If that's not an error, then it's very nice to see mainline equipment appear on this route.

On a related note, might anybody know the last time Delta had mainline from here to somewhere other than Atlanta?

I believe they had DC9/A319 service to MEM for a short while after the Northwest merger.

I happened to be shopping for flights in November when I ran across something interesting: some of the itineraries showed a 717 on the Detroit route. If that's not an error, then it's very nice to see mainline equipment appear on this route.

On a related note, might anybody know the last time Delta had mainline from here to somewhere other than Atlanta?

Good catch. Seems to only be Mo We Th Fr on the week of the 10th. No other week has it in there.

Maybe a proving/test run to see if OKC can handle mainline to DTW?

Well, I haven't mentioned it, (been busy and forgot) but we are getting the 717 to ATL in Jan/Feb, so my initial thought is ground crew familiarization. They may have had some slack in the 717 fleet to get one down here that week, and it just happened to work well from DTW.

But, they are essentially the same as a MD80 from a ramp perspective, so maybe not. Usually airlines don't do trial runs, if they do it's for a full scheduling period (2-3 months). Maybe there's a convention in town and they want the extra capacity (I don't know).

On a related note, might anybody know the last time Delta had mainline from here to somewhere other than Atlanta?


I believe they had DC9/A319 service to MEM for a short while after the Northwest merger.

Actually it was only Northwest that had all-mainline service to MEM with DC 9-30s, but that lasted only till the early 2000s. Afrter that, it switched to Northwest Airlink with mix of Avro RJ 85s and CRJ 200s. After the merger with DL/DL Connection, we had only three CRJ 200s to MEM with DL Connecction, and I think that lasted till 2011 when the MEM hub was downgraded (timeline might be off on that).

Delta actually did have Boeing 737-800s to SLC from roughly 1999 to 2003 (737-200s before that). We also had 737s to CVG for a while before the CRJ revolution took over.

To add some perspective...here are the route stats for OKC-DAL & OKC-DFW for the first quarter this year...

Dallas Love (Southwest)

333329468723332171%




SCH_DEPPERF_DEPSEATSPASSENGERSLOADFACTORUNIQUE_CAR RIER_NAMEORIGINDESTYEARMONTH111758146%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL2014155537579448159%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL2014155547584636384%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL2014122223116229974%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL20142818111583815570%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL20142111222420%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL2014317172413176473%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL20143101100143001015471%Southwest Airlines Co.OKCDAL20143
Dallas/Fort Worth (American)

715689887206604074%SCH_DEPPERF_DEPSEATSPASSENGERSL OADFACTORUNIQUE_CARRIER_NAMEORIGINDESTYEARMONTH312 91450128088%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCDFW20141213213298202018468%American Airlines Inc.OKCDFW20141115000%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCDFW2014228261300114988%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCDFW20142193181253402058281%American Airlines Inc.OKCDFW201421114011381%American Airlines Inc.OKCDAL2014331301500125283%ExpressJet Airlines Inc.OKCDFW20143217208291202148074%American Airlines Inc.OKCDFW20143

Delta actually did have Boeing 737-800s to SLC from roughly 1999 to 2003 (737-200s before that). We also had 737s to CVG for a while before the CRJ revolution took over.

SLC did have 727-200s on it, I can't remember if the 73S ever operated it. I know it was also operated as SLC-OKC-TUL-ATL and ATL-TUL-OKC-SLC...as well as other variations. CVG did indeed have 73Ss on it as well (twice a day)...loved getting upgraded to first on those.

The last two weeks of December 2011 (or was it November?) had A319 service to MEM, in addition to the twice daily MD88 to ATL.

SLC did have 727-200s on it, I can't remember if the 73S ever operated it. I know it was also operated as SLC-OKC-TUL-ATL and ATL-TUL-OKC-SLC...as well as other variations. CVG did indeed have 73Ss on it as well (twice a day)...loved getting upgraded to first on those.

^I flewa few times on that 727-200 flight from ATL to OKC with the TUL stop. It continued all the way to SJC after SLC (I remember the flight attendant's announcement very clearly for some odd reason when we boarded the plane at ATL; this was back in '96 btw haha).

The ATL-TUL-OKC-SLC-SJC and back service was also operated with 737-200s for a while.

That's quite the routing to SLC from ATL. I'll never forget when I was trying to go from SLC-DCA and ended up going via SLC-ABQ-ELP-DFW-ATL-CVG-DCA all in 1 night!

If anyone's been keeping tabs on the Austin aviation scene you already know this. The BA nonstop between Austin and London is doing well enough to warrant an upgrade to a 777-200ER beginning next winter.

Source: Airline Route (http://airlineroute.net/2014/10/14/ba-w15update1/)

What is a bit surprising is that the aircraft is getting upgraded at a time of year when airlines typically downgrade flights to something with less seats (or continue the same aircraft), since the winter season is typically when passenger numbers tend to go down on trans-Atlantic services. I guess that says something about the international sector in the Austin market. I'm also guessing this has to do a little with the U.S. Formula 1 Grand Prix which is held in November. Good news for Austinites though.

it has been speculated that BA wants that 787 on the LHR-YEG route, which currently has a 772. So, there's the aspect of upping the product (787) in one market for a downgrade of product (772) in another. Net zero. :)

Ahh that makes sense then.

Is it just me or does DL seem to not have much invested in their SLC hub?

Anyone have any insider information on how much demand OKC has to the west?

OKC is heavy to SoCal, Denver, Vegas, and kinda moderate to Seattle and San Fran.

Ton of connections to N Dakota via Denver.

OKC is heavy to SoCal, Denver, Vegas, and kinda moderate to Seattle and San Fran.

Ton of connections to N Dakota via Denver.

Any chance United would connect us to N Dakota while things are booming? Do connections like that happen between small places?