America West and OKC

[venture]

For those wanting some informationa bout the merger and how it will effect OKC...here are some of the items...

- US Airways merger has received approval of ATSB in addition to the DOJ now.
- Upon closure of the merger in mid-September, the airline will immediately begin operating as "US Airways" and all signs will be changed over night.
- Carrier has restated that is Major Hubs will be PHL, CLT and PHX with secondary focus cities in LAS, BOS, PIT, and DCA. This would likely lead to OKC getting service to CLT and/or PHL...with the potential for additional service to BOS or DCA.
- Five Airbus aircraft will be delivered this year, but 6 aircraft from the America West fleet (2 737-300s and 4- A320s) will be returned.
- Capacity growth will be near flat through 2006.

I would expect we'll hear something about new CLT service in the next couple months, likely flown by Mesa CRJ-900s.

[brianinok]

Not even thinking about a hub, if we were to get flights to each of their hubs and focus cities in the next few years, that would give us much better options for flying to the east coast. We would have non-stop flights to:

New York (Newark)
Washington DC (Reagan)
Boston
Philadelphia
(and you could maybe consider the following "east coast")
Pittsburg
Charlotte
Atlanta

[venture]

I wouldn't count on Pittsburgh at all since there will be significant cuts coming there, again, with the November pilot bid being an indication. However, I agree with you...if OKC can pick up flights to the various focus cities and two additional hubs - we'll be in tremendous shape. Then all that would need to be done is spend attention on building west coast flying, and Florida for that matter. Alaska, American, Delta and even US Airways will come into play in those areas.

[venture]

Went through and reviewed some of the 2004 Q4 O&D date about the potential new markets with the new US Airways...

Philadelphia has roughly 84 O&D passengers per day on the route paying on average of 14 cents per mile. American is the largest with 35% with Delta having the lowest fares and getting 25%.

Charlotte has 42 O&D passengers per day on the route and they pay and average of 25 cents per mile. American, again, is the largest with 32% market share with Continental having the lowest fares and getting just under 20% of the market.

These numbers are pretty favorable to getting new service on these routing. Fares are just about in line with the average for their respective stage lengths. To give an idea on existing nonstop flight offerings here you go...

These are NONSTOP routings only...PPD is passengers per day...Fare is average fare cost per mile in cents....Largest is the airline with the greatest market share.

Houston PPD: 555 Fare: 29 Largest: Southwest 58.49%
Dallas PPD: 350 Fare: 48 Largest: Southwest 68.95%
Las Vegas PPD: 300 Fare: 15 Largest: Southwest 27.68%
Denver PPD: 279 Fare: 33 Largest: United 59.68%
Chicago PPD: 272 Fare: 23 Largest: American 50.71%
Kansas City PPD: 263.8 Fare: 25 Largest: Southwest 99.01%
Phoenix PPD: 263 Fare: 18 Largest: Southwest 79.2%
New York PPD: 253 Fare: 16 Largest: Continental 40.51%
St Louis PPD: 249 Fare: 21 Largest: Southwest 61.98%
Atlanta PPD: 216 Fare: 30 Largest: Delta 72.53%
Detroit PPD: 114 Fare: 20 Largest: Northwest 76.82%
Minneapolis PPD: 74 Fare: 35 Largest: Northwest 74.23%
Salt Lake City PPD: 67 Fare: 20 Largest: Delta 59.48%
Cincinnati PPD: 41 Fare: 28 Largest: Delta 84.29%
Memphis PPD: 40 Fare: 49 Largest: 86.40%

[jbrown84]

Are those the numbers for flights out of Will Rogers?

[venture]

Yes they are...as this is about America West and OKC.

[Oil Capital]

Very interesting information. Where do you find O&D numbers?

Went through and reviewed some of the 2004 Q4 O&D date about the potential new markets with the new US Airways...

Philadelphia has roughly 84 O&D passengers per day on the route paying on average of 14 cents per mile. American is the largest with 35% with Delta having the lowest fares and getting 25%.

Charlotte has 42 O&D passengers per day on the route and they pay and average of 25 cents per mile. American, again, is the largest with 32% market share with Continental having the lowest fares and getting just under 20% of the market.

These numbers are pretty favorable to getting new service on these routing. Fares are just about in line with the average for their respective stage lengths. To give an idea on existing nonstop flight offerings here you go...

These are NONSTOP routings only...PPD is passengers per day...Fare is average fare cost per mile in cents....Largest is the airline with the greatest market share.

Houston PPD: 555 Fare: 29 Largest: Southwest 58.49%
Dallas PPD: 350 Fare: 48 Largest: Southwest 68.95%
Las Vegas PPD: 300 Fare: 15 Largest: Southwest 27.68%
Denver PPD: 279 Fare: 33 Largest: United 59.68%
Chicago PPD: 272 Fare: 23 Largest: American 50.71%
Kansas City PPD: 263.8 Fare: 25 Largest: Southwest 99.01%
Phoenix PPD: 263 Fare: 18 Largest: Southwest 79.2%
New York PPD: 253 Fare: 16 Largest: Continental 40.51%
St Louis PPD: 249 Fare: 21 Largest: Southwest 61.98%
Atlanta PPD: 216 Fare: 30 Largest: Delta 72.53%
Detroit PPD: 114 Fare: 20 Largest: Northwest 76.82%
Minneapolis PPD: 74 Fare: 35 Largest: Northwest 74.23%
Salt Lake City PPD: 67 Fare: 20 Largest: Delta 59.48%
Cincinnati PPD: 41 Fare: 28 Largest: Delta 84.29%
Memphis PPD: 40 Fare: 49 Largest: 86.40%

[venture]

They are released by the DOT for every Quarter of the year...usually 6 months after the end of the quarter.

[BDP]

Good stuff, venture. Just some questions:

The percentage is the market share of all airlines serving OKC to that market, not just the non-stop service, correct (looking at those #s it has to be, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something else in that computation)?

Is there an online source for this information? I'd would love to see O&D numbers for other major markets to gauge our leverage in campaigning for non-stop service to some other major markets. I realize that there are more factors than just traffic that dictates non-stop service, but I'm still curious.

I really enjoy reading your analysis of the airline industry as it pertains to the OKC market. Very good info.

[venture]

Good stuff, venture. Just some questions:

The percentage is the market share of all airlines serving OKC to that market, not just the non-stop service, correct (looking at those #s it has to be, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something else in that computation)?

Is there an online source for this information? I'd would love to see O&D numbers for other major markets to gauge our leverage in campaigning for non-stop service to some other major markets. I realize that there are more factors than just traffic that dictates non-stop service, but I'm still curious.

I really enjoy reading your analysis of the airline industry as it pertains to the OKC market. Very good info.

The market share does include all scheduled airlines in a market; connecting or nonstop. It does not include any charter airlines traffic like Champion.

Here is the link for all the information you could ever want about air travel markets:

http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/index.html

[brianinok]

According to news reports today, US Airways and America West should be merged in the next month. Anybody have any idea when we might see an announcement of additional service to the current US Airways hubs?

[mranderson]

According to news reports today, US Airways and America West should be merged in the next month. Anybody have any idea when we might see an announcement of additional service to the current US Airways hubs?

My guess is within three to six months. They will increase service west as well. It may be after the new airport director is named.

[venture]

US Airways Group has entered the mandatory 10-day grace period now for any objections the the plan approved by Judge Mitchell. The merger will close on the 27th of the month in which America West Airlines, Inc. will become a wholly owned subsidiary of US Airways Group and the America West name will cease to be used for marketing purposes. You will see a lot of "US Airways operated by America West Airlines" until they transfer everything to the US Airways operating certificate - which will be done in 2-3 years.

New additional hub connections can come at anytime. It cannot happen until the 27th, since that would be bad in the eyes of the government until the two companies are controlled by the same parent. There are some hints as far as what will happen with US Airways going forward.


The first thing to keep in mind, the combined airline is removing 60 aircraft from its fleet through the first quarter of 2006. America West only had 5-6 more Airbus narrowbodies being delivered this year and thats it. The next batch of aircraft deliveries have all been pushed back a couple years. This will restrict the growth of mainline flying as they focus on strong yeilding routes and you will see a lot of transcon flying vanish.

This goes into the next bit. America West has abandoned the transcon flying out of Los Angeles - along with most other non-hub based flying. However, we should still see some connect the dots especially for "Fly Over Country" as the midwest/plains is referred to.

US Airways ALPA has approved a payscale favorable to the company for them to operate the Embraer 190/195 jets at mainline. There isn't any word on if they can get an agreement to bring the 170/175 flying in as well, as it is not being outsourced to Republic Airways. With flying at mainline, there will be a need to watch labor agreements for ground handling restrictions and scope clauses. Also, US Airways is removed about half of the CRJ-900 aircraft from the America West network and has already scheduled them in on markets in the US Airways system. These are the aircraft used to operate OKC-LAS/PHX currently.

Finally, Doug Parker was in Pittsburgh the other day to help rally the troops and also get feedback on the PIT operation. Several old markets are being reintroduced into PIT as PHL capacity issues have been harmful. It also should be noted that PHL is going to be "de-rolled" from the current scheduling method and re-banked into an operation that will probably causes significantly more delays.

So what is the impact on OKC? I would expect at least a couple flights to Charlotte in the next 6 to 12 months. PHL is going to be out for now until capacity issues are addressed by the new management team. PHX and LAS will stay status quo with maybe one flight being added to PHX. LAS is too low yeild right now and they have significant competition from Allegiant and Champion.

If I hear anything, I will pass it on.