wnflyguy wrote:

Well it Looks and sounds like the Political pressure from the NIMBY crowd has pressed the FAA to do another PAE environmental traffic Impact study. First Report was based off of only 15 daily flights. This will mostly likely push the openings date well into 2019.

WN should stay committed to PAE when it eventually opens up. But for the time being maybe 5 flights a day to Bellingham should be considered.

Flyguy

SANFan wrote:

A couple of thoughts on WN vs. AS in CA.

AS has 2 hubs and 2 focus cities in CA. WN has major ops in SAN, LAX, OAK, and now SJC and they're working on SMF as well. In SAN, both AS and WN have large ops -- WN #1 in town in every category while AS is #2 in destinations served and # daily departures & possibly # gates -- and they certainly do compete with each other. With SAN serving 22-23M pax a year, and there is no hub op'd by anyone, I think there's room for both cx to thrive and I don't think AS is going anywhere. Both cx continue slow and steady growth at Lindbergh Field.

In SJC, an airport that sees ~13M pax, and also has no hub, AS has grown a lot and I expect will continue to do so. It now appears that WN has decided to declare war on AS there while they throw everything they've got at the airport. I would guess too much. It seems there is a lot of excess capacity showing up at Mineta lately while WN adds flights and routes. AS seemed to carefully add flights where they could see either need or potential (as they do everywhere) with the ability to add EMJs or 737s (or now, 'Buses) as the required. For example, AS has a single EMJ r/t between SJC and TUS -- discussed above -- that apparently sees lousy LFs. Here comes WN with a 737 in the market! Maybe WN will be patient with all these new markets and they will all do really well. I personally will be very surprised if that happens.

OAK remains WN's rock, and AS remains pretty much hands off. IMO, SFO is a developing AS stronghold where WN maintains a core of service but is not interested in battling everything that exists there. LA seems sort of slow and steady for both cx, neither making any huge moves lately. SMF seems to be another target of WN, determined to grab everything possible there while AS has remained rather uninterested for the most part. (The airport used to be very expensive but I think that issue has reversed itself somewhat.)

SJC seems right now to be THE epicenter of the battle for California and I'll be interested to see if the traffic is there to support everything that is coming its way... Good luck to all involved in this war!

bb

AirFiero wrote:

tphuang wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

Yeah, I’ve noticed that. WN has declared war. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out. Does AS stick it out at SJC? Does their product (F seating, reserved seats, AAdvantage miles, etc) mean they have a different type of customer, and does it gain them loyalty? Is there room for both types of airlines?

Imo As is not going away, but they could cut some of the marginal routes if things get bad at sjc.

I think wn sees that they are not competitive out of sfo so they are concentrating on their strengths.

Very interesting. Have you seen some numbers?

AS has been cutting a bit at SFO and growing at SJC. I wonder if the trend will continue with WN.

jplatts wrote:

Is WN going to get access to extra gates at SJC this fall? WN currently only operates out of 8 gates at SJC, and WN will be really full at SJC with the increased WN service out of SJC. 100 departures a day out of 8 gates comes out to an average of 12.5 departures per gate per day.

tphuang wrote:

The number next to the city pair is the distance between the two airports.

After that each row contains airline code, the number of emplaned and the load factor. From number emplaned, you can see how much wn dominated some of these markets. And then you can see load factor percentag next to that.

Sjc San is like a typical west coast route with as regional and wn. Wn typically has a few percent higher load factor and their fares are also a few percent higher. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but when you consider that’s probably a 10% advantage over all in yield and 737 will have much lower cost per seat, a route that might be making money for wn becomes a money looser for as. And there is a bunch of routes like that out of sjc and San. When things are going well for as and fuel cost is low, they can maintain disastrous routes like bur sjc. But things are not going great for as right now and fuel cost is going through the roof. Wn sees this, hence all the added capacity.

AirFiero wrote:

tphuang wrote:

The number next to the city pair is the distance between the two airports.

After that each row contains airline code, the number of emplaned and the load factor. From number emplaned, you can see how much wn dominated some of these markets. And then you can see load factor percentag next to that.

Sjc San is like a typical west coast route with as regional and wn. Wn typically has a few percent higher load factor and their fares are also a few percent higher. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but when you consider that’s probably a 10% advantage over all in yield and 737 will have much lower cost per seat, a route that might be making money for wn becomes a money looser for as. And there is a bunch of routes like that out of sjc and San. When things are going well for as and fuel cost is low, they can maintain disastrous routes like bur sjc. But things are not going great for as right now and fuel cost is going through the roof. Wn sees this, hence all the added capacity.

Thanks, tp.

Just AS so far, but I think WN has entered this now?
SJCBOI 523.00
QX 8968 84.92

Yes

This isn't going to last either. WN dominates DAL too much, even on routes like SEA/PDX.
SJCDAL 1450.00
OO 1976 55.11
WN 19323 77.11

Didn’t AS just add a second flight, maybe for later this year?

f18raider wrote:

Looks like DEN-LBB was added.