@SANMAN66-- wow, I didn't know the FDX DC-10's were gone. Those old trijets sure added a lot of color round here...

SANMAN66 wrote:

I think DL is also using a 753 here. (That 757 looks a bit too long to be a 752.)

They were using the 753 on an extra DTW-SAN flight last week.

A GTI 744 is scheduled to depart around 1100 today (3 Jan).

alexrg wrote:

@SANMAN66-- wow, I didn't know the FDX DC-10's were gone. Those old trijets sure added a lot of color round here...

Yup! About September or October they went away, only to be replaced by two 763s and a 757. The FDX 757 sure takes off like a rocket, when I
see it. It's already pretty high up there when it goes over Liberty Station!

alexrg wrote:

@SANMAN66-- wow, I didn't know the FDX DC-10's were gone. Those old trijets sure added a lot of color round here...

I prefer DC-10s over 763s any day!

timf wrote:

They were using the 753 on an extra DTW-SAN flight last week.

I was right! That was a 753 I saw last week!

What do y'all think of SAN-MNL on Philippine Airlines? While it may seem far fetched, the Centre for Aviation article linked below says that PR was, at one point, considering launching SAN flights (the large filipino population in San Diego was sighted as a possible reason for this service). Speaking of sighting things, I was reading a post on our very own Scooter's blog the other day in which he mentioned noticing A350-900 markings on the tarmac. PR will be taking delivery of the 359 next year... thoughts?

http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/p ... ion-268000

timf wrote:

SANMAN66 wrote:

I think DL is also using a 753 here. (That 757 looks a bit too long to be a 752.)

They were using the 753 on an extra DTW-SAN flight last week.

To ATL as well - I was on a 753 from SAN to ATL (flight number 1692) on the 23rd.

alexrg wrote:

What do y'all think of SAN-MNL on Philippine Airlines? While it may seem far fetched, the Centre for Aviation article linked below says that PR was, at one point, considering launching SAN flights (the large filipino population in San Diego was sighted as a possible reason for this service). Speaking of sighting things, I was reading a post on our very own Scooter's blog the other day in which he mentioned noticing A350-900 markings on the tarmac. PR will be taking delivery of the 359 next year... thoughts?

http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/p ... ion-268000

Yeah, there are definitely A350 markings on the ramp - not sure if that's a sign of things to come, or if it's just standard procedure to accommodate common (or soon to be common) aircraft. Personally, I'd think Korean Air or Asiana would do better here in San Diego than Philippine Airlines would. Would love to see them serve SAN though.

As far as I know, ramp markings are only applied for aircraft that actually serve the airport (i.e. there are markings for the 777-200 but not the -300, as a -300 has yet to serve SAN). I agree about Asiana (KE hasn't ordered any A350's) possibly serving San Diego though-- would be great to have another major Asian airline serve SAN.

alexrg wrote:

What do y'all think of SAN-MNL on Philippine Airlines? While it may seem far fetched, the Centre for Aviation article linked below says that PR was, at one point, considering launching SAN flights (the large filipino population in San Diego was sighted as a possible reason for this service). Speaking of sighting things, I was reading a post on our very own Scooter's blog the other day in which he mentioned noticing A350-900 markings on the tarmac. PR will be taking delivery of the 359 next year... thoughts?

http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/p ... ion-268000

PR actually applied for MNL-YVR-SAN authority back in January 2008; that was just before PR was re-designated Cat 2 by the FAA. That brought everything to a standstill and when the dust settled, and PR returned to Cat 1 status, things had changed and YYZ and JFK seemed to be their priorities. Those of us (most of us anyway) who were very excited about the PR A343 becoming a regular visitor at SAN, finally gave up and there hasn't really been any mention of SAN since.

Until now, as we seem to be mentioned in the interesting CAPA article you linked!

Scooter wrote:

Yeah, there are definitely A350 markings on the ramp - not sure if that's a sign of things to come, or if it's just standard procedure to accommodate common (or soon to be common) aircraft. Personally, I'd think Korean Air or Asiana would do better here in San Diego than Philippine Airlines would. Would love to see them serve SAN though.

If I'm not mistaken, there's a German airline also acquiring a fleet of A359s... And there have been rumblings - past and present - that LH is interested in SAN but was waiting for the 'right' aircraft! I believe that in 4Q16, there were some suggestions here and there that in 2018, summer, a major European carrier with a world-class hub, could be showing up at Lindbergh! (Not coincidentally, this was part of the urgency in getting the airport to enlarge its FIS facilities!)

The way 2017 is shaping up, it's going to be a very exciting year for SAN. And I wouldn't be surprised if 2018 might be an even better one...

bb

alexrg wrote:

As far as I know, ramp markings are only applied for aircraft that actually serve the airport (i.e. there are markings for the 777-200 but not the -300, as a -300 has yet to serve SAN). I agree about Asiana (KE hasn't ordered any A350's) possibly serving San Diego though-- would be great to have another major Asian airline serve SAN.

I think I heard somewhere that Korean has 787-9s that will be going on line in a few months though. Hopefully KE will send a 789 our way!

I remember SanFan, myself, and several others were waiting with bated breath back in 2007
when Philippine applied for SAN-MNL via YVR, then watch the FAA downgrade the Philippines
to CAT-II. We were frantically searching for any kind of news! I hear that JAL is handling the
SAN-MNL crowds with ease! Anyone that wants to to Manila, easily connects at NRT. I still
wonder why PR lost interest in SAN? PR's loss is JAL's gain.

SANFan wrote:

Don't forget that Edelweiss (WK) will be flying A343s to SAN starting next June!

bb

Condor is also starting service in May 2017.

Will Spirit be bringing back any of their routes from S16 during S17? If I recall correctly, they offered more capacity and routes than what they seem to be currently operating now.

bw50505 wrote:

Will Spirit be bringing back any of their routes from S16 during S17? If I recall correctly, they offered more capacity and routes than what they seem to be currently operating now.

Yes. All 3 routes suspended for the winter -- DEN, SJD & DFW -- will return (supposedly) on, I believe, April 27. This winter, they still offer double-daily to Vegas, & single daily r/t to ORD and IAH. With their lack of interest in, or belief in, SAN, I doubt there are any plans for anything new to be added.

OTOH, tomorrow (Thursday) is the WN summer schedule release. I have a feeling SAN may see a few surprises... ...stay tuned!

bb

SANFan wrote:

bw50505 wrote:

Will Spirit be bringing back any of their routes from S16 during S17? If I recall correctly, they offered more capacity and routes than what they seem to be currently operating now.

Yes. All 3 routes suspended for the winter -- DEN, SJD & DFW -- will return (supposedly) on, I believe, April 27. This winter, they still offer double-daily to Vegas, & single daily r/t to ORD and IAH. With their lack of interest in, or belief in, SAN, I doubt there are any plans for anything new to be added.

OTOH, tomorrow (Thursday) is the WN summer schedule release. I have a feeling SAN may see a few surprises... ...stay tuned!

bb

Thanks for the response, good to hear they'll be bringing them back.

Good morning all! And a good morning it is, thanks to WN...!!!!

FIVE new nonstop routes will begin this June: EWR, IND, SLC, BOI and GEG!! If I'm remembering correctly, that's the most new routes at one time ever for SAN by WN. (Heck, maybe the most by any airline here!)

It really fills in WN's route map for SAN and the western US: we now have nonstops to every WN station west of the Rockies with the exception of course of all the LA basin airports. I don't believe LA or OAK can make that statement at this point. The first city we don't see service to, moving east, is ELP. (I wonder if that will return some day?)

All new routes are daily service and I don't know about seasonality. Hopefully there will be some more information coming out today.

IND was inevitable and I feel it was between WN and AS as to which would make the jump first.... You snooze, you lose, AS.

It seems to me that WN is rapidly approaching gate-use saturation as this schedule seems to include about 109/110 daily departures. For 11 gates, how many more flights can they squeeze out of T1E...?

bb

SANFan wrote:

Good morning all! And a good morning it is, thanks to WN...!!!!

FIVE new nonstop routes will begin this June: EWR, IND, SLC, BOI and GEG!! If I'm remembering correctly, that's the most new routes at one time ever for SAN by WN. (Heck, maybe the most by any airline here!)

It really fills in WN's route map for SAN and the western US: we now have nonstops to every WN station west of the Rockies with the exception of course of all the LA basin airports. I don't believe LA or OAK can make that statement at this point. The first city we don't see service to, moving east, is ELP. (I wonder if that will return some day?)

All new routes are daily service and I don't know about seasonality. Hopefully there will be some more information coming out today.

IND was inevitable and I feel it was between WN and AS as to which would make the jump first.... You snooze, you lose, AS.

It seems to me that WN is rapidly approaching gate-use saturation as this schedule seems to include about 109/110 daily departures. For 11 gates, how many more flights can they squeeze out of T1E...?

bb

110 daily departures is just insane to think about. I have no idea how they manage to do that out of T1E, but as you said, this may be the most WN can operate at SAN until the new terminal is built (which is still a long ways off).

There are some WN stations that get 12 flights a day frome each gate so there is still room at SAN.

There are some WN stations that get 12 flights a day frome each gate so there is still room at SAN.

There are some WN stations that get 12 flights a day frome each gate so there is still room at SAN.

AS248 (N609AS) started circling after takeoff and diverted back to SAN after almost an hour today (6 Jan).

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/id/A ... rline-0044

An Everts MD-80(SF) is also at SAN currently.

SANFan wrote:

It seems to me that WN is rapidly approaching gate-use saturation as this schedule seems to include about 109/110 daily departures. For 11 gates, how many more flights can they squeeze out of T1E...?

Zero. None. No more. Please, please, please Southwest, stop adding flights to SAN until you get out of that inhumane terminal.

SANFan wrote:

It seems to me that WN is rapidly approaching gate-use saturation as this schedule seems to include about 109/110 daily departures. For 11 gates, how many more flights can they squeeze out of T1E...?

chrisair wrote:

Zero. None. No more. Please, please, please Southwest, stop adding flights to SAN until you get out of that inhumane terminal.

Unfortunately, the T1 rebuild is still years away from opening. I haven't heard that there is any investigation or planning for a temporary fix for WN's situation at Lindbergh...

bjorn14 wrote:

There are some WN stations that get 12 flights a day frome each gate so there is still room at SAN.

Absolutely but I don't think SAN's T1E design would allow for that many flights. An airport with roomier concourses could handle filling all gates, all day long. The times when all 8 rotunda gates are full at once at SAN must yield a horribly congested situation, right Chrisair? It must be hard to move (and breath?) in that area with all gates in use, especially if there are a few 738s in the mix.... Uggggg

bb

If I remember correctly, back in 2006 the city was considering building a new airport near MCAS Miramar to replace to current one, saying that the present airport would be overcrowded sometime between 2015-2022. Now, T2 doesn't seem overcrowded to me, but T1 is the real problem here. Alaska and Southwest are both expanding at an absolutely insane pace, and suddenly the two biggest airlines at the airport are having to share a single terminal. Is there anything that can be done short-term to fix this? I mean, you could move Frontier to T2, but that would only free up a couple of gates.

Spirit will start SAN-BWI seasonally in May:

http://ir.spirit.com/releasedetail.cfm? ... ID=1007401

Perhaps AS or WN will add additional service on SAN-BWI routes. Perhaps AS might add a morning departure from SAN with late afternoon departure from BWI

georgiabill wrote:

Perhaps AS or WN will add additional service on SAN-BWI routes. Perhaps AS might add a morning departure from SAN with late afternoon departure from BWI

With Spirit's new flight, we will see 5 daily r/t between SAN & BWI! Maybe the airlines are pumping up SAN-BWI since it appears it'll be a long time before we ever see a SAN-DCA nonstop...

I think AS's 737 fleet is stretched a bit thin this year and that's why they added the red-eye SAN-BWI with a morning w/b: no new a/c time is needed. I assume that eventually they will re-time the flights to daylight, or possibly, add a second r/t.

IF AAG is willing and able to devote a 737 to SAN anytime soon, I hope it will be used for SAN-IND or TPA!

Actually, I'm kind of surprised by this add by Spirit. SAN-FLL, SAN-DTW or SAN-MSY would have made more sense to me -- all 3 of those routes are served currently by only one carrier. Some competition would be nice and is probably inevitable.

bb

Last night I actually saw a billboard promoting the new flights to FRA . They seem to be
promoting the Frankfurt flights on Condor, but I haven't seen any promotion for the
upcoming flights to Zurich on Edelweiss ?

Looks like there will be a few less widebody charters at SAN ..

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/1845 ... os-angeles

Almost one year to the day since the Rams moved to Los Angeles, the Chargers now likely intend to do the same.

The Chargers plan to announce as early as Thursday that they are moving to Los Angeles for the 2017 season, league sources said, ending a 55-year stint in San Diego and returning to their birthplace. The franchise played its inaugural season in Los Angeles in 1960 before moving to San Diego in 1961.

SANFan wrote:

It seems to me that WN is rapidly approaching gate-use saturation as this schedule seems to include about 109/110 daily departures. For 11 gates, how many more flights can they squeeze out of T1E...?

bb

Great news for us in San Diego, but honestly, I have to think twice about flying WN out of its "circle of death and despair" terminal 1. The terminal is so stressful and uncomfortable as it is - I can't imagine how they can shove more people in there.

A couple of updates on SAN2017.

Amid all the preceding talk about how crowded T1 is , WN has just announced their 31st destination from SAN: Cabo! (There is a thread on the subject but I just thought I'd mention it here to centralize SANewz.) The daily flight starts April 25 and will be timed pretty much on top of one of the AS flights, and Spirit's as well. (NK will re-start their seasonal service right about the same time as WN starts the route.

Of note (to me) is that neither Vegas nor PHX has of yet to see service on WN to Mexico! Four CA cities see service (OAK, LAX, SNA & now SAN) and DEN is next most western city to have any Mexican service on WN. I expect WN will be using SAN, along with LAX & OAK, as connecting points between Cabo & much of their network. From SAN, can PVR be far behind? Maybe even MZT? Could WN be the US carrier to finally try MEX and or GDL? I wouldn't be too surprised to see more Mexico from WN...

The numbers are out and 2016 at SAN saw a passenger traffic increase of 3.2% (over 2015) to a new all-time record 20,725,801 travelers! Int'l traffic reached 762K pax, up 9% over the previous year! Yes, last year was a great one at Lindbergh Field and so far, 2017 is looking like it should be another one.

> WN has already announced 6 new routes from SAN for 2017: SJD, IND, EWR, BOI, GEG & SLC; the summer sked will be 110 weekday flights!
> AS is checked in already with 2 new destinations (BWI, SMF) with, IMHO, more to come. (My most likely guesses would include ABQ, OAK and perhaps IND and
TPA?)
> NK has even announced a new route: BWI.
> DE (Condor) will start flying to FRA in early May, and
> WK (Edelweiss) will head for ZRH starting in June.

The SDCRAA folks should be finalizing decisions & details (this month) on moving and expanding the FIS facilities by summer of 2018 and it sure sounds like that would be a very good idea!

bb

SANFan wrote:

Maybe even MZT?

Maybe with a 735. A 73G is too heavy for that route.

blacksoviet wrote:

SANFan wrote:

Maybe even MZT?

Maybe with a 735. A 73G is too heavy for that route.

-500's have been gone since September. They stopped flying to SAN months before that.

WN732 wrote:

blacksoviet wrote:

SANFan wrote:

Maybe even MZT?

Maybe with a 735. A 73G is too heavy for that route.

-500's have been gone since September. They stopped flying to SAN months before that.

Well a 733 would probably still be too heavy. There would be too many empty seats.

[twoid][/twoid]

blacksoviet wrote:

WN732 wrote:

blacksoviet wrote:

Maybe with a 735. A 73G is too heavy for that route.

-500's have been gone since September. They stopped flying to SAN months before that.

Well a 733 would probably still be too heavy. There would be too many empty seats.

Maybe so. But those are coming off the schedule for California cities. They'll soon only be subs in CA. Just like how the -500 was.

That's a shame. The 733 is much lighter than the 73G.

SANFan wrote:

Good morning all! And a good morning it is, thanks to WN...!!!!

FIVE new nonstop routes will begin this June: EWR, IND, SLC, BOI and GEG!! If I'm remembering correctly, that's the most new routes at one time ever for SAN by WN. (Heck, maybe the most by any airline here!)

An interesting, and logical, retaliation to and pre-empting of additional AS service in SAN. 3 of those destinations, EWR, SLC and BOI, AS flies while IND, as others have said, was inevitable for someone to add. GEG is interesting given AS's local strength in the market. I'm actually surprised that GEG doesn't get more love from AS than it does.

http://www.flyingmag.com/red-bull-relea ... p-schedule

Red Bull Air Races will be held in SAN in middle April. This will most likely mean SAN will see some GTI and/or CKS charters for the events. There were a few GTI charters when this happened in 2009 as well at SAN.

I just wanted to make sure that anyone interested in service expansion from Lindbergh Field knew that Frontier has apparently "rediscovered" America's Finest City!

Last Fall, F9 began daily r/t service to MCO -- already being served by both AS & WN. It was a surprise when it was announced and it appears that the flight is doing well enough to remain year-round and daily!

Yesterday, F9 announced new service throughout their network at 10 cities and SAN was one of them this time! We will see new service to two currently un-served cities, CVG and CLE, both routes starting right around May 21; the 2 routes will split a daily op with CVG 3x wkly (Tu, Th, Su) while CLE gets the other 4 days. Times, IMO, are not real good, with the e/b departures from SAN in the late afternoon, arriving late night in Ohio. The w/b trips are mid-day and seem pretty nice. Of course as these are mostly aimed at leisure traffic (I assume) the timing is prolly not too critical. We'll see. It's a bit unclear to me but I believe these are both seasonal (summer) routes.

And as quite a surprise, starting April 23, F9 will also add SAN-AUS! This route will be 3 days a week (Tu, Th Su) and, again, I suppose it will be seasonal as well. They of course have competition from WN on this route, with 2 daily r/t offered. (I had thought this a route that AAG might add at some point.)

This will bring F9 to 5 different destinations from SAN -- up from only DEN just 3 months ago -- and with ~5 1/2 daily departures. As of now, F9 is still using gate 12 in T1W. I continue to expect F9 and VX to swap terminals soon, in order to get Virgin in with their parent company in T1W. With this summer schedule, all flights will easily op at 1 gate but AS will have a bit more difficulty using gate 12 as overflow relief if and when needed.

As of today, I count 14 new routes already announced for 2017, with 6 of them being new, currently un-served destinations: FRA, CVG, CLE, GEG, IND and ZRH. And it's only February 1! I'm very impressed! (Excellent job Hampton!)

bb

Cool news - thanks, BB. I probably would have missed that otherwise. One additional tidbit of SAN news that I don't see reported in this thread is that Delta is boosting its service to/from Seattle with a fifth daily flight starting this summer, another ERJ-175, arriving and departing in the very early afternoon.

On the photography front, I'll share a couple SAN oldies that I uploaded recently for your viewing pleasure.


Cheers,

Edward

lindy field wrote:

On the photography front, I'll share a couple SAN oldies that I uploaded recently for your viewing pleasure.


Cheers,

Edward

I miss the Continental 733s. I always thought that they retired them too young. The operating costs of a 73G aren't that much lower. The 733 might actually have lower trip costs.

lindy field wrote:

One additional tidbit of SAN news that I don't see reported in this thread is that Delta is boosting its service to/from Seattle with a fifth daily flight starting this summer, another ERJ-175, arriving and departing in the very early afternoon.

Thanx for that Lindy'. Seems like WN is the one losing the three-way SAN-SEA market battle. They've gone from triple-daily freq when they began the route back in June of '14 down to only a single r/t this April & May, but back up to double-daily this summer. Looks like DL is keeping the route pretty competitive (with their 'friends' over at AAG.)

lindy field wrote:

On the photography front, I'll share a couple SAN oldies that I uploaded recently for your viewing pleasure.

Thank you also for posting the pictures. Always great to see the birds who visit, and used to visit, our "Littlest Big Airport in America."

By the way folks, tomorrow will be the next monthly board meeting of the SDCRAA, and there will be discussion of changing the ADP (Airport Development Plan) revolving around several ever-changing factors, not the least of which is the immediate expansion and relocation (by next summer!) of our FIS facilities. (I believe the official decision to approve the move, etc., will take place next month at that board meeting.) It will be truly amazing if the board can actually succeed in approving the project in March 2017 with completion date in May/June 2018! From what is being hinted at, bigger and better int'l arrivals facilities WILL be needed by Summer of 2018!

Seems like all this great stuff that's happening this year -- and last -- will be continuing right on into 2018 as well!

bb

Looks like JL is sending a 772, scheduled to land tomorrow (Thursday) morning:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/JAL8 ... /RJFF/KSAN

Of course, if tomorrow's weather is like today's, things might not play out as scheduled.

SANFan wrote:

lindy field wrote:

One additional tidbit of SAN news that I don't see reported in this thread is that Delta is boosting its service to/from Seattle with a fifth daily flight starting this summer, another ERJ-175, arriving and departing in the very early afternoon.

Thanx for that Lindy'. Seems like WN is the one losing the three-way SAN-SEA market battle. They've gone from triple-daily freq when they began the route back in June of '14 down to only a single r/t this April & May, but back up to double-daily this summer. Looks like DL is keeping the route pretty competitive (with their 'friends' over at AAG.)

lindy field wrote:

On the photography front, I'll share a couple SAN oldies that I uploaded recently for your viewing pleasure.

Thank you also for posting the pictures. Always great to see the birds who visit, and used to visit, our "Littlest Big Airport in America."

By the way folks, tomorrow will be the next monthly board meeting of the SDCRAA, and there will be discussion of changing the ADP (Airport Development Plan) revolving around several ever-changing factors, not the least of which is the immediate expansion and relocation (by next summer!) of our FIS facilities. (I believe the official decision to approve the move, etc., will take place next month at that board meeting.) It will be truly amazing if the board can actually succeed in approving the project in March 2017 with completion date in May/June 2018! From what is being hinted at, bigger and better int'l arrivals facilities WILL be needed by Summer of 2018!

Seems like all this great stuff that's happening this year -- and last -- will be continuing right on into 2018 as well!

bb

Will the board meeting be streamed online?

afszcz wrote:

Looks like JL is sending a 772, scheduled to land tomorrow (Thursday) morning:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/JAL8 ... /RJFF/KSAN

Of course, if tomorrow's weather is like today's, things might not play out as scheduled.

JA707J is the Tail Number, I am just curious....how is it so early? 9 hours early?!

Why are they sending a 772 instead of a 788?

blacksoviet wrote:

Why are they sending a 772 instead of a 788?

Charter flight from Fukuoka.