Oklahoma Commercial Air Service Discussion 2012

[venture]

Was looking at flights in January 2013 and saw United is sending us a lot of "prop love". Just about all but 1 flight a day to DEN are on a Q400.

Change over starts next month I believe.

^Ouch, a flight that takes an hr and 20 in a jet now with a prop. Most of these are actually ex-Colgan, and I'm not sure if this is a Q400 problem or just a Colgan maintenance problem but I flew Colgan's Q400s last year OKC-IAH-OKC. The entire cabin vibrated continuously while in-flight, and it was way too loud, a continuous drone in-flight as well. Once was enough, and this coming from someone who likes flying and planes in general. I'll take the ATR over the Q400 anyday though, larger overhead bins in which you can store roller carryons and it sounds much more like a jet. I'll admit though it's a good move by UA Express to cut costs, the larger turboprops are way more fuel-efficient than the RJs for such distances.

At least the Q400 speed will be comparable to the RJs currently flying the route. The other good thing, this is a capacity increase for OKC and like you said it will lower the cost of the trip. As far as the in flight experience, sounds like something was out of sync with the anti-vibration and noise dampeners not functioning properly. I see Republic as a more stand up operation and hopefully they'll do better than Colgan.

[brianinok]

How can that be considered a capacity increase when now we have 3 mainline and 2 RJs on the route on United? I just checked January and saw no mainline, one RJs, and some props. At least we still have mainline on Southwest and Frontier, though I like United better.

[venture]

How can that be considered a capacity increase when now we have 3 mainline and 2 RJs on the route on United? I just checked January and saw no mainline, one RJs, and some props. At least we still have mainline on Southwest and Frontier, though I like United better.

The change over the Q400s looks like it is in October. I didn't realize they put in more mainline equipment here recently. Last I looked (about a month ago) we were sitting at 4 RJs and 1 A320.

Looks like in November UA is going down to just 4 daily flights as well...so yeah, I take back my capacity increase comment. They are definitely dumping capacity out of OKC it appears.

[HangryHippo]

Why don't we see increased air service? Is it a lack of political clout, is it that we split meager numbers between here and Tulsa, is it people traveling through DFW, little corporate travel?

[ljbab728]

Why don't we see increased air service? Is it a lack of political clout, is it that we split meager numbers between here and Tulsa, is it people traveling through DFW, little corporate travel?

The airlines have been reducing capacity for the last few years in many markets. It's nothing to do with politics and you would be very surprised about the amount of corporate travel here. It's not insignificant.

[LakeEffect]

The airlines have been reducing capacity for the last few years in many markets. It's nothing to do with politics and you would be very surprised about the amount of corporate travel here. It's not insignificant.

It's extremely political with United at Houston. They originally announced that their first 787 would fly Houston to Auckland, New Zealand, which would have been the first US airline to have a direct flight to NZ. United decided to pull that flight after Southwest won the right to fly internationally out of Hobby. Also, United has "warned" Houston that they'll be cutting many, many jobs because of the potential for lost connections at Intercontinental. It's all posturing.

[venture]

It's extremely political with United at Houston. They originally announced that their first 787 would fly Houston to Auckland, New Zealand, which would have been the first US airline to have a direct flight to NZ. United decided to pull that flight after Southwest won the right to fly internationally out of Hobby. Also, United has "warned" Houston that they'll be cutting many, many jobs because of the potential for lost connections at Intercontinental. It's all posturing.

The whole UA vs WN in Houston is just stupid. UA just needed an excuse to move capacity around. WN won't be starting international flying from HOU until 2015. How a 737 to CUN or LIM can impact a 787 to Aukland is just beyond me. LOL

Like Catch22 mentioned though, these are mainly seasonal adjustments like most airlines do during the fall until the middle of November.

[ljbab728]

It's extremely political with United at Houston. They originally announced that their first 787 would fly Houston to Auckland, New Zealand, which would have been the first US airline to have a direct flight to NZ. United decided to pull that flight after Southwest won the right to fly internationally out of Hobby. Also, United has "warned" Houston that they'll be cutting many, many jobs because of the potential for lost connections at Intercontinental. It's all posturing.

Houston and the issues with Southwest Airlines and United are a unique situation and I don't really consider that about politics anyway unless you consider any business pressures to be politics.

Now if you're talking about awarding spots in slot restricted airports politics, I might not argue about that.