Timbo

I agree 100%. The only good thing Leo the CEO did was to build a new terminal in BOS...but then Delta ran away from it?!?

When I was a newb, (1985) Delta flew five L10-11's a day out of Boston to Orlando, all full, all the time. Also, full L10-11's BOS-PBI, FLL, MIA. in the 90's I remember flying FULL 767-300's BOS to YUL all summer, full 727's, then 757's BOS-BGR and PWM, all summer, taking kids up there for summer camps. And we flew 767's from BOS-SLC, and 757's from BOS-DFW, and BOS-TPA.

Right now, Delta flys 2 flights per day, BOS-MCO. One is an 88, the other an A320 or 737, depending on which day.

I ran into a Marketing guy once about 5 years back and asked him WHY did we get out of the Boston to Florida market. He said, "Those passengers are Low Yeild Leisure Travelers. They are familys going on vacation, they only buy the cheapest tickets, they don't buy full fare first class seats."

I replied, "You mean to tell me there are NO Business men trying to fly from Boston to Florida?"

He said, "Yeah, there might be a few, but they buy coach seats and use their frequent flyer miles to upgrade to F/C, there's no money in it."

I said, "You may want to tell Air Tran and Jet Blue about that."

I remember when we had 10 full 737's a day flying MCO-BOS on Express, then after Leo got rid of Express, we had 5 full Song 757's (199 seat configuration, no first class but free TV) flying MCO-BOS. Full all the time, and they got rid of it, said it wasn't making money... So who's fault is that??

Raise the Friggn'n ticket prices you IDOTS!

Boomer

Delta considers BOS-DFW to be a regional route.

qball

Delta considers ANYWHERE to DFW a regional route.

Bucking Bar

Everywhere else is a route that could be better served by Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air Europa, Air France, Alaska, Alitalia, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Czech Airlines, GOL, Kenya Airways, KLM,Korean Air,
TAROM, or, Vietnam Airlines.

shoelu

Doesn't Delta consider ANYWHERE to ANYWHERE a regional route?

qball

Especially if it's out of MSP or CVG.

Timbo

When Delta closed Boston in 1996, I only bid into ATL so I could fly the inargural ATL to ATL route.

That's the one where you push late, then taxi for an hour, take off, have a mx issue, the same one you were late pushing for, then dump gas and return...

gloopy

This is where our marketing team is dropping the ball big time. Going after HVC's is great and we need to do that. But you can not run an airline off of just HVC's. You can, however, run an extremely successful airline off of nothing but coach and leisure passengers. That is the critical part of this we are missing on VA Ave.

We have to be able to compete and win the low fare, leisure passenger. If for any other reason than when times get tough, less business/high yield people fly and many of those that still do suddenly become fare sensitive coach passengers that will only upgrade with miles. We need to focus on competing and winning every passenger because when times get tough (they are already and will get far tougher) we need every passenger we can get. The failed late 90's internet bubble mentality of a first class full of high rollers paying for the whole flight and the back half full of expedia loss leaders sitting with their knees in their faces isn't going to cut it anymore.

Our marketing neglegence and strategic blunders coupled with JB's superior coach product (IFE and especially legroom) are why we aren't winning Boston when we very easily could slug it out and dominate if we so chose.

AmEx Black card slinging power players come and go but fare sensitive coach passengers are the vast majority of your customer base and always will be. Marginalize them at your peril.

Kellwolf

Or MEM. Or any domestic out of JFK. Most domestic out of DTW. And any point to point flying like ORF-BOS or DCA-almost anywhere.

Sad thing is, according to Delta's website, almost 10% of their aircraft are RJs. Looking at the numbers, those are just the ones DELTA is responsible for as far as payments go, which means that's just Comair. Airframes flown by Pinnacle, Mesaba, ASA, Chautauqua, GoJets, Compass, Shuttle America or Skywest aren't even counted....

DirectTo

And from the un-aviation-educated perspective, there's no difference. Walk on a CRJ-700 or -900 or big ERJ and what's the first thing you see? First Class. Who would have thought we'd have RJ's running around with First cabins on nearly three hour routes?

Let's just hope other companies do what jetBlue and US do and keep 190s at the mainline level. That's a start to bringing 170s/CR7s back to mainline. Will it happen? Doubtful. Nice thought though.