Recently in Americas Category

United Airlines returned its fleet of Boeing 787-8s to revenue service on 20 May, with an inaugural flight from Houston Intercontinental to Chicago O'Hare.

The flight, United 1, fittingly flew from the former home of Continental Airlines - the North American launch customer of the 787 in 2004 - to the United's current home, not to mention the corporate headquarters of manufacturer Boeing as well.

Jeff Smisek, chairman, president and chief executive of United, and James McNerney, chairman and, president and chief executive of Boeing, spoke before the flight. Both commended the aircraft, with Smisek joking about it being a "fairly expensive piece of sculpture to have on the ground" and McNerney apologising for the delay.

United's 787s had been grounded since January, following two separate battery related incidents onboard aircraft flown by Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines. 

Onboard the flight, which was flown by N27903, the mood was festive. Passengers were keen to play with the dimmable windows and clapped after took off from Houston and upon landing in Chicago.

Inflight, economy passengers had their preference of food from United's Choice Menu, all for purchase with a major credit card.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International is a bustling domestic airport, with competing hub operations on both Southwest Airlines and US Airways. If you are flying around the American southwest, odds are that you will pass through Phoenix at some point.

City of Phoenix

But if your destination is somewhere abroad, Dallas-Fort Worth or Los Angeles are much more likely to be in your future. 

International service from Sky Harbor is limited to mostly Canada and Mexico with a daily nonstop to London Heathrow on British Airways. International traffic represented just 5.4% of overall passenger traffic, or 2.19 million passengers, in 2012, according to airport data.

"We want more nonstop [international] service to places where there is demand," Deborah Ostreicher, deputy aviation director at Sky Harbor, tells Airline Business on the sidelines of the Phoenix International Aviation Symposium on 25 April. She names Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Tokyo as well as an additional flight to London as markets where the airport sees demand for nonstop service.

Airlines may be coming around, too.

The proposed American Airlines-US Airways merger creates a huge amount of possibility for the airport. Ostreicher says that the airport is targeting the merged carrier for new service as well as its Oneworld alliance partners, naming Japan Airlines to Tokyo as a possibility.

Andrew Nocella, senior vice-president of marketing and planning at US Airways, says that there are no specific plans for international service from Phoenix after the merger but that it would create many opportunities for the hub, at a media event on 24 April. He cites the combined fleet and networks.

Together the carriers had 148 widebody aircraft with an additional 62 on order at the end of March. The orderbook includes 42 787s, which - along with the Airbus A350 - is seen by many analysts as ideal for international service from Phoenix.

"The 787 is the right type of airplane for a Oneworld airline to serve Asia from here," says Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Hudson Crossing, on the sidelines of the Phoenix symposium.

Ambitions and possibilities aside, the reality for international service to Phoenix is very much up in the air. The merger has yet to be approved while no route launched by an airline specifically with the 787 has flown long enough to prove its worth. 

International travellers would be well advised to keep up on the dining options at Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles for at least the near term.

American Airlines will begin upgauging its regional aircraft fleet with Embraer 175s this August, following the lead of Delta Air Lines in rejigging its regional feed.

The Fort Worth-based carrier will use the 76-seat E-175s to replace 63-seat Bombardier CRJ700s and add capacity in nearly all of the 12 markets that they will serve from Chicago O'Hare beginning 1 August. Only two - Minneapolis-St. Paul and Washington National - will result in a reduction of capacity.

American Airlines

While not surprising in light of an industry that wants to dump its 50-seat regional jets, the move is a switch from American's previous position where it presented 66- to 76-seat jets as an alternative to its mainline fleet.

"Larger RJs [regional jets] have lower per departure costs than our 140-seat MD-80s, which enables us to offer a better schedule without increasing capacity, since each larger RJ has far fewer seats than an MD-80," the airline said in an employee newsletter in May 2012. "With this superior frequency pattern, American can earn higher yields because we can better schedule flights at times when customers are most willing to pay higher fares."

American had this to say in its reorganisation plan that it filed with the bankruptcy court on 15 April: "The debtors plan to accelerate the retirement of smaller regional aircraft - those with 50 seats or less - thereby increasing their ability to acquire a significant number of larger regional jets with 51 to 76 seats."

The airline will place 15 E-175s in service and remove 11 37-seat Embraer ERJ-135s and three 44-seat Embraer ERJ-140s from its regional fleet during the second half.

With American's plans now clear, it is easy to extrapolate that the 32 E-175s slated for delivery in 2014 and 2015 will continue to replace smaller regional jets. 

And what about the proposed merger with US Airways? Doug Parker, chairman and chief executive of the airline and future chief executive of the combined American and US Airways, said in July 2012 that he would like "some larger regional jets to offset some of those 50-seaters" - a sentiment that will undoubtedly be carried over through the merger.

Now only United Airlines is alone in refleeting its regional feed, a move that executives say will occur in 2014.

So Delta Air Lines is expanding at Los Angeles. What else is new?

The Atlanta-based SkyTeam alliance member has been dribbling out the expansion since December when it loaded flights between Los Angeles and Seattle (from 8 April). Flights to Nashville (from 8 April) were added in January, Anchorage (from 21 June), Bozeman (from 22 June), San Jose, California (from 1 July) and Spokane (from 10 June) in February. It will also begin flights to San Jose, Costa Rica, from 1 July.

Delta will boost frequency to Guadalajara, New Orleans, Oakland, Phoenix, Puerto Vallarta, Sacramento and San Francisco as well, it says.

Flickr user InSapphoWeTrust

Stephen Hedden, team leader for network planning at Delta who focuses on the US west coast, said that the airline is taking advantage of "opportune flying" on aircraft that have down time at either Los Angeles or outstations with its new flights, on the sidelines of the Network USA 2013 forum in San Antonio on 4 March.

Delta is testing markets to see where best to allocate its aircraft out west beyond its third quarter schedule, he added.

Even with the expansion, Delta will still be third fiddle to United Airlines and American Airlines in terms of available seat kilometres (ASKs) out of Los Angeles in July, according to Innovata FlightMap Analytics. United will have a 14.1% market share with 1.9 million ASKs, American a 12.7% share with 1.7 million ASKs and Delta a 10.3% share with nearly 1.4 million ASKs.

While it may be third, Delta benefits from a large network of partner airlines at the airport. Its strategic partners Alaska Airlines, Air France-KLM and Virgin Australia, and codeshare partners Aeromexico, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Hawaiian Airlines, Korean Air and WestJet all serve Los Angeles.

It will be interesting to watch what routes Delta sticks with and what it does not as it tests out markets Los Angeles, especially as the competitive landscape changes with the American-US Airways merger.

American Airlines new "soaring spirit", in the words of chief commercial officer Virasb Vahidi, livery is definitely a change.

It replaces the carrier's polished aluminium aircraft with the iconic red and blue eagle logo with an enlarged American across the fuselage and a stripped red, white and blue adaptation of the American flag on the tail.

Good or bad (and the popular consensus seems to be bad), American's tail design certainly has company - whether it is the company it wants to keep is another question.

Defunct US regional carrier Colgan Air flew a red, white and blue flag on the tails of its aircraft.

Flickr user wbaiv

Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Hudson Crossing, says that the livery reminds him of "the liveries of both Dominicana and Cubana".

Flickr user BriYYZ

The more one digs, the more it appears that American's design consultants got their inspiration from a variety of past liveries of state-run (and formerly state-run) Latin American carriers (Cubana being the exception).

Then again maybe they just watched Team America: World Police the night before the big pitch.

Frontier Airlines will have 10 routes from Trenton-Mercer airport from April - barely six months since it began service to the airfield.

The Denver-based low cost carrier began flights to Orlando in November 2012, is adding flights to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, New Orleans and Tampa later this month and in February, and announced flights to Atlanta, Chicago Midway, Columbus, Detroit and Raleigh-Durham from April on 7 January.

Frontier is the latest a long line of attempted commercial operations at Trenton. These include Eastwind Airlines in the 1990s, Shuttle America (when it operated as an independent airline) in the late 1990s and early 2000s then later as US Airways Express, Delta Connection in 2006 and 2007, and Boston-Maine Airways until 2008. 

The airline's build up in Trenton is curious. While it is an established carrier out west, it lacks a significant presence on the east coast and only has four weekly flights to Philadelphia (it ended daily flights to Denver this month) and none to Newark (flights ended in April 2012) - the two airports that Trenton competes with.

Frontier Airlines

Eastwind and Shuttle America as start-ups were unable to make the airport work, neither were the operations by Delta Connection and US Airways Express - mainline carriers with well-established brands and large frequent flier bases in the region. And Frontier is not even trying Boston, the one route that everyone else has flown.

Frontier, like its predecessors, is likely hoping that low fares can attract travellers who would otherwise drive the more than an hour to either Newark or Philadelphia. However, it must also anticipate drawing traffic from both metro areas and the surrounding region - which had a combined population of more than 10 million in 2011 - as the Trenton-Ewing, New Jersey, metropolitan area only had 367,063 people at the end of 2011, according to the US Census.

The airline did not respond to questions regarding its service to Trenton.

If Trenton fails to draw the crowds that Frontier anticipates, flights would likely be pulled out as quickly as they went in but, if the service succeeds, you can bet ultra low-cost carriers Allegiant Air and Spirit Airlines will not be far behind.

Porter Airlines, United Airlines and Virgin America are waiting for the music to stop at Newark Liberty International airport. 

American Airlines is awaiting bankruptcy court approval to terminate its existing leases for 14 slots to Porter (four) and United (10) and lease them plus one additional slot to Virgin America for $10,000 per month each ahead of the California-based low-cost carrier's launch of flights to the airport on 2 April. The schedules of Porter and Virgin hang in the balance.

Flickr user PhillipC

If the deal is approved, Toronto-based Porter would lose two of its slot pairs that could prompt a 15% cut to its schedule of up to 13 flights per day to Newark.

If it is not approved, Virgin America would not gain the slots it needs to serve the airport with six daily flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco - routes that it already has on sale - and likely be forced to delay service.

"We have contingencies in place to continue operating the full schedule into and out of Newark pending the bankruptcy proceedings," says Porter.

Virgin America declines to comment.

United, which operates a large hub from Newark, says that they anticipate little to no impact on their schedule from the proposed slot changes.

The whole situation is reminiscent of United agreeing to lease 18 slot pairs at the airport to Southwest Airlines in 2010 in order to gain US Department of Justice approval for its merger with Continental Airlines. More recently, JetBlue Airways paid $40 million and WestJet $17.6 million for eight pairs each at New York's LaGuardia in December 2011.

American's request to the bankruptcy court also includes a deal to return three of its six gates at Newark to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), one of which would be subsequently leased to Virgin America.

With slots at such a premium at New York's three airports it will be interesting to see how the judge rules on the transaction. A hearing is scheduled for 23 January in, fittingly, New York.

San Diego International airport wants to build on its recent growth with new nonstop service to destinations mostly to the south and east, in the second instalment of Flightglobal's two-part series on the airfield.

Yesterday, we looked at Japan Airlines' new nonstop service to Tokyo Narita on the Boeing 787 and Alaska Airlines' growing focus city at the airport.

"A lot of our [US] hub markets are running at over 90% annualised seat factor, so we need to make sure that we have enough capacity to maintain our convention business," says Hampton Brown, director of air service development at the airport. "That kind of business is very important for our region."

Many of the routes that his team is targeting include nonstops to cities with existing traffic to San Diego but without a flight. Brown says that south Florida is an example of such a market the airport is working on developing. Others include smaller western cities.

San Diego domestic routes, January 2013

Innovata FlightMaps Analytics

Alaska Airlines would likely be well placed to offer some of these domestic flights as they expand from the city. Brown says that he sees "opportunities" for the Seattle-based carrier to further strengthen its network from San Diego.

International targets include cities in Central and South America. Brown says that the airport would like a nonstop to a "geographically strategic hub" in the region.

San Diego is also considering seeking additional service to Europe, likely to either a SkyTeam Alliance or a Star Alliance hub, and would like a flight to the Philippines to serve the large visiting friends and relatives market between the city and the country.

San Diego international routes, January 2013

Innovata FlightMaps Analytics

But San Diego's capacity constraints could limit future growth. Located in a bowl between two hills and surrounded by city and water on all sides, Keith Wilschetz, director of airport planning at the airport, says that they anticipate that the runway will reach its operational capacity of 260,000 annual take-offs and landings by 2040 but that the terminal and landside facilities will reach capacity before that.

Projects to address these landside issues include a 10-gate expansion to terminal 2, an overnight aircraft apron and a two-level roadway that are slated to open in the third quarter. A consolidated rental car facility, new cargo buildings and a new fixed base operator are expected to open in the second half of 2015.

San Diego is also studying options for the future of terminal 1, which is nearly 50 years old, says Wilschetz. 

Beyond these projects, the physical presence of the San Diego airport will change little in the foreseeable future as there are no plans to expand the boundaries of the airfield. This means that spotters will continue to be able to watch planes land over a cocktail at Mister A's and runners can continue to jog from the gate to the nearby Harbor Avenue bike path if they so please.