The DOT decided to institute a formal route proceeding to reallocate the three available daily round-trip frequencies between the US and Havana Cuba result of Frontier and Spirit planned to discontinue their respective U.S.-Havana services.

During April and May, multiple carriers (AA, DL, FX, B6, WN and UA/Mesa) filed request for reallocation of the Havana frequencies.

DOT procedural timeline is:
Petitions for Reconsideration: 9/1/17
Answers to Petitions: 9/7/17
Applications: 9/12/17
Answers: 9/19/17
Replies: 9/26/17

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Order 2017-8-26

I wonder who wants it now. After the initial "Let's fly planes to Cuba!" craze, I suspect everyone is a little more restrained...

AA737-823 wrote:

I wonder who wants it now. After the initial "Let's fly planes to Cuba!" craze, I suspect everyone is a little more restrained...

Hardly. There are more applications than slot already.

The already filed request are:

American - MIA-HAV - 7 weekly
Delta - MIA-HAV - 7 weekly
FedEx MIA-HAV - 5 weekly
JetBlue - BOS-HAV - 1x weekly
JetBlue - FLL-HAV - 6x weekly
Southwest - FLL-HAV - 7x weekly
United/Mesa - IAH-HAV - 6x weekly

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I guess the 1X LAX-HAV is sufficient for AS.

Delta, Fedex and United are most likely to get the routes. AA, B6 and WN all received more frequencies in the original allocation and are largely duplicating what they were awarded with higher frequencies than other carriers.

I don't think SY has done anything with its slots.

atl100million wrote:

Delta, Fedex and United are most likely to get the routes. AA, B6 and WN all received more frequencies in the original allocation and are largely duplicating what they were awarded with higher frequencies than other carriers.

FedEx can use Varadero

United is only asking for six. B6 will get the Saturday slot for Boston to fly an empty A320 every weekend.

LAXintl wrote:

The already filed request are:

American - MIA-HAV - 7 weekly
Delta - MIA-HAV - 7 weekly
FedEx MIA-HAV - 5 weekly
JetBlue - BOS-HAV - 1x weekly
JetBlue - FLL-HAV - 6x weekly
Southwest - FLL-HAV - 7x weekly
United/Mesa - IAH-HAV - 6x weekly

=

I'm gonna go with United 6x IAH, JetBlue 1x BOS, Delta 7x MIA and WN 7x FLL.

This is another classic case of a restricted bilateral aviation regime driving more service than is justified in the competitive market place. Multiple service failures. And it's going to get worse under the new executive order. But carriers keep signing up for investment flying in hopes the frequencies will someday have value. That strategy has never worked.

MAH4546 wrote:

atl100million wrote:

Delta, Fedex and United are most likely to get the routes. AA, B6 and WN all received more frequencies in the original allocation and are largely duplicating what they were awarded with higher frequencies than other carriers.

FedEx can use Varadero

United is only asking for six. B6 will get the Saturday slot for Boston to fly an empty A320 every weekend.

Hard to see how a once weekly A320 flying from one of the most academically rich cities in the US to Cuba will be "empty". Especially given the general education, liberalism, and adventurism of the Bostonian demographic, and the not insignificant Cuban diaspora in New England. Why would B6 be asking or this authority yet again (I think this is the third time B6 requested this one weekly route) if the flights will be empty? Serious question...

WN should petition for BWI-HAV 7x Weekly

MAH4546 wrote:

FedEx can use Varadero

United is only asking for six. B6 will get the Saturday slot for Boston to fly an empty A320 every weekend.

If FedEx is planning on delivering Amazon packages and industrial parts, Varadero would work. I suspect FedEx has stated a case of wanting to deliver priority overnight things like business documents and medical items in which case HAV is the only viable option.

MY guess is FX, UA, B6 to BOS and DL. Only way I see the FLL frequencies getting picked up is if they go with both since both sirlines are 2x daily now. In that case I think it'd be FX, B6, WN. UA could then come in with 1X weekly to IAH to round things out.

jetbluefan1 wrote:

Especially given the general education, liberalism, and adventurism of the Bostonian demographic, and the not insignificant Cuban diaspora in New England.

None of those alleged attributes changes the visitation rules to Cuba, which had widely expected to be continued to be liberalized pre-Trump. Rules are different for 'family' visitors, heavily concentrated in South Florida.

Personally, I see absolutely zero chance of AA receiving any additional frequencies. I view that as politically impossible. I think Delta and/or United getting additional frequencies is also unlikely. Rightly or wrongly, I think the DOT will most likely favor JetBlue and/or Southwest.

I'll be interested to see the actual proposals and the "angles" each carrier chooses to play up.

Will it make sense for a flight from Keywest?

A huge chunk of the already flying HAV flights have bad loads. Including JFK. Im sure BOS will buck this trend. Cue eye roll.

Plain and simple, this is a slot grab for future investment.

Airlines are hoping and waiting for this to pay off.

Notice how most of these applications go to the Miami area.
-short flights
-minimal loss
-lots of Cuban population
-connects to other flights

Good place to wait out the storm of Cuba flights now while still having your toe in the water

commavia wrote:

Personally, I see absolutely zero chance of AA receiving any additional frequencies. I view that as politically impossible. I think Delta and/or United getting additional frequencies is also unlikely. Rightly or wrongly, I think the DOT will most likely favor JetBlue and/or Southwest.

I'll be interested to see the actual proposals and the "angles" each carrier chooses to play up.

Really? While I agree AA is unlikely, I would think UA and DL have a good chance considering they already have fewer frequencies and UA would be opening a new city. Of course, if it were up to me they would all go to some combination of the South Florida applications.

cledaybuck wrote:

Really? While I agree AA is unlikely, I would think UA and DL have a good chance considering they already have fewer frequencies and UA would be opening a new city. Of course, if it were up to me they would all go to some combination of the South Florida applications.

Yes, really.

Based on what they've proposed thus far, Delta and United both seem unlikely to me. Delta is applying to add more capacity on MIA-HAV, and will no doubt argue that it's needed because MIA is where the Cubans are in South Florida and AA news competition which Frontier now isn't providing. Problem is that Southwest and JetBlue will then naturally argue right back - as they did in the first round - that given their similar business models and cost structures, Delta can't really provide meaningful fare discipline to AA and, in any event, Delta's MIA-HAV flights are network orphans offering minimal broader connectivity compared to the hubs JetBlue and Southwest operate at FLL. As for United, they're not offering a new city, but rather bringing an existing city (IAH) up to daily, but likely with a smaller airplane on six days of the week. I think JetBlue and Southwest will make quick work of that with arguments about traffic flows emanating primarily from the eastern U.S., the higher number of seats they'll add to the market versus a Mesa RJ, etc.

To be clear - I'm not saying I necessarily agree with or endorse any of those carriers' arguments, but if these airlines stick with essentially what they've already proposed, I personally think that is almost certainly how it's going to go.

I don't think the airlines are holding out for future investment. There won't be policy change on travel to Cuba until at least January 2021. On top of that, airlines are leaving the market, not joining it. It's not as if slots won't be available in the future if/when the travel policy does change. I suspect that the South Florida requests are because Havana is viable from both airports (MIA/FLL). As for Boston, that's only once a week so minimal risk and United must believe that they can make Houston work.

Based on actual data from the DOT, US carriers had less than a 70% load factor to/from HAV in the first quarter of 2017.

AS, NK and WN were all below average while AA, DL and UA are above average as is B6.

If narrowed to MIA/FLL, the same trend is true and the average load factor goes up to about 80%. There is the potential to add more capacity to S. Florida but not all carriers have demonstrated so far that they can fill planes on an equal basis. Further, there are significant differences in average fares including from S. Florida- FLL is lower but even there B6 does a better job than other carriers.

There are enough frequencies available to provide capacity to the airlines that have already well used what they have previously given.

There isn't and won't be a preference for low cost carriers over legacy carriers. DL and UA have both done a good job of using their capacity and also received low amounts of capacity the first time around.

New flights even for the Christmas period should be on sale now. The DOT needs to make a quick decision after final responses in order to provide an opportunity for these new flights to be sold.

It's amazing how quickly airlines want to throw money at Cuba. Has it worked for anyone yet?

commavia wrote:

cledaybuck wrote:

Really? While I agree AA is unlikely, I would think UA and DL have a good chance considering they already have fewer frequencies and UA would be opening a new city. Of course, if it were up to me they would all go to some combination of the South Florida applications.

Yes, really.

Based on what they've proposed thus far, Delta and United both seem unlikely to me. Delta is applying to add more capacity on MIA-HAV, and will no doubt argue that it's needed because MIA is where the Cubans are in South Florida and AA news competition which Frontier now isn't providing. Problem is that Southwest and JetBlue will then naturally argue right back - as they did in the first round - that given their similar business models and cost structures, Delta can't really provide meaningful fare discipline to AA and, in any event, Delta's MIA-HAV flights are network orphans offering minimal broader connectivity compared to the hubs JetBlue and Southwest operate at FLL. As for United, they're not offering a new city, but rather bringing an existing city (IAH) up to daily, but likely with a smaller airplane on six days of the week. I think JetBlue and Southwest will make quick work of that with arguments about traffic flows emanating primarily from the eastern U.S., the higher number of seats they'll add to the market versus a Mesa RJ, etc.

To be clear - I'm not saying I necessarily agree with or endorse any of those carriers' arguments, but if these airlines stick with essentially what they've already proposed, I personally think that is almost certainly how it's going to go.

In the past, the DOT has shown a preference for diversity among carriers. Among passenger carriers that applied this time, UA has the least number of frequencies and would still have less even if awarded. I would think this would certainly help UA's case.

I also wonder how geography will impact this round. I believe the frequencies come from MIA and FLL x2 (correct me if I am wrong). It would certainly be easy for the DOT to simply replace that with a DL, WN, B6 award, but in the past the DOT has shown a preference of geographical diversity (albeit less so with the HAV awards).

lavalampluva wrote:

It's amazing how quickly airlines want to throw money at Cuba. Has it worked for anyone yet?

I do suspect that Havana is working from South Florida. This is the likely reason that we see DL asking for more frequencies out of Miami and not out of Atlanta. Miami isn't a hub for DL. If the route wasn't working, there'd be no incentive to increase frequency.

Well, I "really" think UA will get more frequencies. I believe I will be proven correct, so hold me to it. So there.

The DOT does in fact like geographic diversity and diversity in carriers. Why else do you think Alaska received a flight from LA and UA received a flight from Houston in the first place?? Because the powers in charge didn't want to put everything in the MIA/FLL/NYC basket. Think about it. Only requesting 6 flights isn't greedy at all. Plenty is leftover. UA may even get 3 or 4 additional to IAH rather than 6.

I can't see DOT only giving more frequencies just to FLL/MIA. Because existing carriers in the market can just increase aircraft size. Elevating a weekly flight to a daily flight is almost as good as adding a new city. Once a week isn't much. I think the DOT will look favourably on opening a new market. Okay, a "newish" market. Of course, folks from the Northeast may connect in IAH to go places, if the price is right I sure would. I have backtracked to save money. Why not?

When the DOT were allocating daytime Tokyo-Haneda frequencies, the a.net peanut gallery said oh no DL will not get Haneda to Minneapolis. No way. No how. Well that's how it went down. They got it.

The DOT usual strategy of awarding lots of flights to a rainbow of different airlines big and small to Cuba really flopped. The usual suspects survived; AA, DL, B6, UA.

The situation reminds me a lot of allocating carriers to Tokyo-Haneda nightops to the USA. The DOT kept switching things up because the carriers didn't make any money on what was thought of as a gold mine situation.

A few months ago I was looking at fares into HAV. It was incredibly expensive. If the carriers are really floating these outrageous fares, the market dynamic has clearly shifted.

Given the newer travel restrictions under Trump (or reinterpretation of existing restrictions depending on your perspective) it's very possible MIA and FLL will carry an even greater percentage of the HAV bound travelers going forward. That might weigh into this decision.

One issue with United bid is they are asking to use a regional partner(Mesa) and they would as result be offering the least amount of seat capacity.

While I agree that geographic diversity is something the DOT indeed likes, they also like to maximize seats and have on multiple occasions highlighted proposed aircraft gauge as being decision criteria as well.

MIflyer12 wrote:

jetbluefan1 wrote:

Especially given the general education, liberalism, and adventurism of the Bostonian demographic, and the not insignificant Cuban diaspora in New England.

None of those alleged attributes changes the visitation rules to Cuba, which had widely expected to be continued to be liberalized pre-Trump. Rules are different for 'family' visitors, heavily concentrated in South Florida.

There has been a dramatic increase in travel to Cuba by US citizens who aren't part of the Cuban diaspora. I bet the vast majority of these people fall into the "liberal, adventurous, academic, intellectual" group that is way over represented in Boston.

The people who will not want to go to Cuba are the ones who already go to PUJ and CUN. Or even MBJ. Way too many hassles if the objective is to stay in the artificial and culturally sterile environments which all inclusive properties foster.

Now I will agree that a daily BOS HAV flight will be ridiculous and I suspect that this flight will not operate in Sept/Oct but a weekly Nov/July-early Aug service is perfectly possible.

I see something like this
United gets the 6 weekly Sunday-Friday HAV-IAH
JetBlue gets 1 Saturday only HAV-BOS
Delta gets 7 weekly HAV-MIA
FedEX gets 5 weekly Monday-Friday HAV-MIA
Southwest gets 1 extra HAV-FLL flight on Saturday and Sunday only. If they pass on the option then JetBlue will get the same option as WN. If JetBlue passes then America gets the option for a extra Saturday and Sunday only MIA-HAV flight.
If all 3 pass then FedEX will get the final option to have 7 weekly flights vs just 5 weekly.

Flyguy

MAH4546 wrote:

atl100million wrote:

Delta, Fedex and United are most likely to get the routes. AA, B6 and WN all received more frequencies in the original allocation and are largely duplicating what they were awarded with higher frequencies than other carriers.

B6 will get the Saturday slot for Boston to fly an empty A320 every weekend.

Ha. HAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, that's a good one! Did you get that from playing an airline simulator game?

c933103 wrote:

Will it make sense for a flight from Keywest?

Not really, Key West itself has well under 40,000 residents. Even if you go all the way up to Marathon, you would be hard pressed to get much above 100,000 people, many of whom work in service industries. Anyone above Marathon would be closer to Miami anyway. It would be cool to have a flight from EYW, but it makes pretty much no sense from a business perspective.

The could maybe work out something like a day trip, similar the ferry or float plane out to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. There are definitely folks in town that have the money to do that on a lark, or while on a vacation, but it would be tough to make it work.

I was very surprised that JetBlue didn't fly BOS-HAV. So it was about time.

The Cambridge "liberals" have money and love visiting Cuba. Many colleges in the area have "educational programs" to travel there. I bet it will be a success.

Updated applications being submitted today.

So far -

American
9 weekly frequencies:
Daily MIA-HAV using 738, plus 2 Saturday only frequencies MIA-HAV using 738.

United
6 frequencies:
6 weekly IAH-HAV using Mesa E175 with flexibility to upgauge to 737 when conditions warrant.


AA application also compares market loads on other routes. According to them(per DOT T-100s) load factors by gateway to Havana has been:
AA MIA - 78.3%
DL MIA - 75.9
B6 FLL - 72.6
F9 MIA - 70.3
UA EWR - 69.7
B6 JFK - 68.0
WN TPA - 67.6
DL JFK - 62.8
WN FLL - 62.3
DL ATL - 60.5
UA IAH - 60.3
AS LAX - 57.9
B6 MCO - 57.6
AA CLT - 51.4
NK FLL - 42.1

Delta
Request 7 weekly frequencies.
7 weekly MIA-HAV using A320

JetBlue
Requesting 21 weekly frequencies
6 frequencies FLL-HAV A320, 1 frequency Saturday only BOS-HAV A320, 7 frequencies EWR-HAV A320, 7 frequencies JFK-HAV A320.

Southwest
Request 7 weekly frequencies
Daily FLL-HAV using 737-700/800

LAXintl wrote:

Delta
Request 7 weekly frequencies.
7 weekly MIA-HAV using A320

JetBlue
Requesting 21 weekly frequencies
6 frequencies FLL-HAV A320, 1 frequency Saturday only BOS-HAV A320, 7 frequencies EWR-HAV A320, 7 frequencies JFK-HAV A320.

What the heck is wrong with JetBlue?

tphuang wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

Delta
Request 7 weekly frequencies.
7 weekly MIA-HAV using A320

JetBlue
Requesting 21 weekly frequencies
6 frequencies FLL-HAV A320, 1 frequency Saturday only BOS-HAV A320, 7 frequencies EWR-HAV A320, 7 frequencies JFK-HAV A320.

What the heck is wrong with JetBlue?

There's gotta be some kind of stuff in the water they're drinking, so much more expansion they can do instead of waste fuel on a ton of HAV frequencies.

tphuang wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

Delta
Request 7 weekly frequencies.
7 weekly MIA-HAV using A320

JetBlue
Requesting 21 weekly frequencies
6 frequencies FLL-HAV A320, 1 frequency Saturday only BOS-HAV A320, 7 frequencies EWR-HAV A320, 7 frequencies JFK-HAV A320.

What the heck is wrong with JetBlue?

Hahaha! I agree--almost greedy!

The extreme enthusiasm for likely loss making routes to Cuba by US airlines is quite interesting to watch.

mercure1 wrote:

The extreme enthusiasm for likely loss making routes to Cuba by US airlines is quite interesting to watch.

MIA/FLL-Cuba is not loss making, especially to HAV. Delta is not looking at adding ATL-HAV they want another daily MIA-HAV. Most other routes will not work right now. I won't put it passed them but not giving them to MIA/FLL routes is a waste IMO. But we will see what the DOT does.

Thank you so much for the update LAXintl. Super interesting.

LAXintl wrote:

Updated applications being submitted today.
AA application also compares market loads on other routes. According to them(per DOT T-100s) load factors by gateway to Havana has been:
AA MIA - 78.3%
DL MIA - 75.9
B6 FLL - 72.6
F9 MIA - 70.3
UA EWR - 69.7
B6 JFK - 68.0
WN TPA - 67.6
DL JFK - 62.8
WN FLL - 62.3
DL ATL - 60.5
UA IAH - 60.3
AS LAX - 57.9
B6 MCO - 57.6
AA CLT - 51.4
NK FLL - 42.1

Wow, can't believe NK did so poorly. No wonder they are pulling out.

Also notable is WN's relatively low LF from FLL. Could this hurt their application for 7x more frequencies? Does the DOT even consider historical LF's when allocating awards? (I know it's a gauge of demand in the market, but it can easily be manipulated by pricing and connecting traffic flow...)

B6's MCO number is ugly, hence the down gauge from an A321 down to an E190.

LAXintl wrote:

JetBlue
Requesting 21 weekly frequencies
6 frequencies FLL-HAV A320, 1 frequency Saturday only BOS-HAV A320, 7 frequencies EWR-HAV A320, 7 frequencies JFK-HAV A320.

Holy cow. The 7x to EWR and 2nd daily to JFK are new. JFK makes some sense but EWR? What?

Clearly B6 is looking at the long-term here. Management has said time and again that Cuba can eventually look like the DR for B6 (which sounds a bit optimistic, but what do I know...). Requests for more capacity should probably not come as a surprise given their ambitions.

LAXintl wrote:

American
9 weekly frequencies:
Daily MIA-HAV using 738, plus 2 Saturday only frequencies MIA-HAV using 738.

AA asked for 10 weekly - in order of preference:

1. 2 weekly for Sat/Sun MIA-HAV
2. 1 weekly for Sat MIA-HAV
3. 7 weekly for daily MIA-HAV

Also, I have to laugh at AA again pulling no punches with the directness and forcefulness of its arguments, with comments like:

"MIA’s experience has been the opposite. Aside from Frontier’s swift departure, which is not atypical for new Frontier services, MIA has not suffered any loss in U.S.-Havana capacity."

Haha. Zing.

Overall, the data in AA's application appears - at least to me - to validate what virtually everyone knew going in - MIA is, clearly, the primarily source of demand between the U.S. and Cuba and, if the market were left to its own devices, would naturally dominant frequencies between the U.S. and HAV. That said, while the preference for sub-daily frequencies first is interesting, I still doubt AA has much chance of getting much if any additional frequency - despite any of AA's compelling arguments, I suspect the DOT will still opt to "spread the wealth." In fact, it wouldn't at all surprise me if, when this is all over, JetBlue ends up with more overall HAV and Cuba frequencies than AA.

Fedex
5 weekly frequencies - MIA-HAV using Cessna 208 Caravan

jetbluefan1 wrote:

Also notable is WN's relatively low LF from FLL. Could this hurt their application for 7x more frequencies? Does the DOT even consider historical LF's when allocating awards? (I know it's a gauge of demand in the market, but it can easily be manipulated by pricing and connecting traffic flow...)

WN FLL schedule is a bit different from others. For instance, no morning flight out of FLL and very early flight from HAV. Probably works better for connecting flights, but I guess that is the best for WN.


I hope B6 and AA get at least 7 weekly freq each in this distribution. When other carriers were interested in the low hanging fruit (HAV), these two tried their best to keep their non-HAV flights as much as they could.

LAXintl wrote:

Fedex
5 weekly frequencies - MIA-HAV using Cessna 208 Caravan

This is the right size aircraft for most of the Cuba authorities!

flymia wrote:

MIA/FLL-Cuba is not loss making, especially to HAV. Delta is not looking at adding ATL-HAV they want another daily MIA-HAV. Most other routes will not work right now. I won't put it passed them but not giving them to MIA/FLL routes is a waste IMO. But we will see what the DOT does.

MIA-HAV is most likely loss making even for an airline like AA.

Just go pull average fare info and you will see how anemic the pricing in the market is. DOT and MIDT/BSP data show airlines are getting barely $100 per pax round trip!

Looking in GDS the fare AA is selling for the entire month of October for instance is $193/rt of which $113 is US and Cuban fees and taxes meaning AA is netting merely $80 on the roundtrip.

Fares like that will not cover cost like handling, facility leases, equipment etc for international flying.
Matter of fact the $100 average roundtrip fare needs 100% loadfactor just to cover 737-800 direct operating cost for 2-hours of round trip block time.

I would agree that MIA-HAV is likely break even in best case, but more likely loss making these days.

During days of charter flying, even high cost airlines like AA could price to cover their cost and provide a little profit, but now with scheduled flying they are at fully mercy of market ticket pricing, which has significantly declined for consumers since charter days.

DOT invites airlines to submit proposals for the vacated AS frequencies.

Procedural schedule:
Petitions for Reconsideration November 28, 2017
Answers to Petitions December 1, 2017
New Submissions December 8, 2017
Answers December 18, 2017
Replies December 22, 2017

OST-2016-0021

SY gave up it's slots. Probably glad they saved the $$$.