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Every couple of weeks I am going to do a post to see what the airlines have been up to on their U.S. domestic flight schedules.
Who is dumping flights? What cities are getting new flights or worse having flights removed? What sort of planes are they changing out and all sorts of geek information.
I picked today as a start for this type of post because of the the recent run up in fuel prices to see how the airlines are reacting:
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First a bit about the methodology, it is pretty simple, I took the flight schedules as they existed for all filed commercial flights on October 29, 2007 and compared them with the flight schedules as they existed on November 19, 2007 – I chose a typical relatively well traveled Monday (March 10, 2008) as the travel departure date for comparison (I only pulled U.S. domestic flights — those with the country code “US”)
To start here are some overall statistics by airline on how many flights they have added/removed for travel departing on March 10, 2008 within the U.S (daily = typical Monday for this comparison):
It was interesting to see Northwest, United and US Airways drop so many daily flights; they have been saber rattling about oil prices and possibly grounding some fleet, especially their gas guzzling planes — looks like a bit of activity in that direction may have started.
Normally I would say some of these changes could be seasonal, but this is a simple comparison of the same travel day 3 weeks apart, so it should be pretty indicative of what is going on.
Virgin America and Express Jet were by far the winners on new flights (for consumers more flights is a “winner”) as they both continue to expand their route systems.
The cities with the most lost flights were:
The cities with the most added flights were:
I also noticed some interesting activity related to the removal and addition of certain types of planes.
I am not an expert on fuel consumption of certain aircraft type (maybe someone can enlighten me), but these are the interesting things I noted:
- American Airlines dropped 46 daily regional jet flights (Embraer and Bombardier)
- Alaska Airlines dropped 5 prop daily flights and added 7 Bombardier regional jet daily flights
- JetBlue Airways added 2 Airbus narrow body jet daily flights
- Continental Airlines dropped 52 Boeing 737 daily flights and added 37 Boeing 757 and 28 regional jets (Embraer and Bombardier) daily flights
- Delta Air Lines dropped 30 regional jet (Embraer and Bombardier), 11 Boeing 757 and 8 Boeing MD-90 daily flights.
- Frontier Airlines and dropped 1 Airbus daily flight and added 16 regional jet daily flights
- Northwest Airlines dropped 158 Boeing DC9 and 44 Airbus daily flights, added 58 Boeing 757 and 50 regional jet daily flights (Embraer and Bombardier)
- United Airlines dropped 96 Airbus , 26 Boeing 737 , and 37 Bombardier regional jet daily flights, added 69 Boeing 757 and 20 Boeing 767 daily flights
- US Airways dropped 35 regional jet daily flights (Embraer and Bombardier) and added 12 Boeing 737 daily flights
- Virgin America added 56 Airbus daily flights
- Southwest added 34 Boeing 737 daily flights
- Express Jet added 200 Embraer Regional Jet daily flights
I’ll be posting some statistics on the magnitude of the changes shortly to provide some overall context.
Rick im in a dispute with US Air re: changes in schedule and not reciveing proper notification–any idea how i can locate Air flight schedules from fall 2007?
I also need some old information: Flights landing in Anchorage from Seattle on May 7, 2007. Everywhere I’ve called at Alaska says they don’t keep that information. .of course they do. . .but where else can I look? Thanks so much
Carol,
You’ve got me stumped, but if I come up with anything, I’ll let you know.
One thought: Don’t call, write to someone at Alaska Airlines, and tell them why you need this information. Be clear and concise. You might get some help. Let me know.
Regards,
Rick