CLE question
 

Does anyone have an accurate number of 737 departures out of CLE? I’ve been told by gate agents that there aren’t that many. It has been on the chopping block since before the merger. Just wondering if it will stay around for a while or have a displacement bid and consolidate the hubs. Of course with all of the growth that is promised in this round of rumors, they may need the gates when ORD and IAH are saturated.

16 mainline and 33 express scheduled today.

How many of those 16 are 737 flights? Hard to justify a crew base with those numbers.

Time to bring back the rumors about closing CLE and opening MCO, TPA, or wherever the most FL commuters live.

Are you a UAL pilot? The information you seek is on the SSD on flyingtogether front page.

I’m UAL but not familiar with ssd. What is that and where do I find it? About the only thing I look at on flying together is pay and vacancy/displacement bids.

Flying Together Home page - look at the Operations Snapshot frame. In the very bottom left corner there is a little SSD hyperlink. It links to an alternate reality universe which is mostly inhabited by management. I don't know much about it either, but after a few minutes of poking around I found the 16 CLE mainline departures today - all 737s. I've counted over twenty daily mainline departures during summer months. Sad. Judging by all the Express flying, we could easily grow O&D flying there short of it becoming a hub again (prime example - currently flying CLE to BOS on 50 seaters twice daily vs. Jetblue/Spirit doing the same route on Airbii). Maybe we will upgauge as more used 319s come online.

I have a feeling the subject of CLE's future is probably being put in front of our NC as we speak.

Don't know why Cleveland has always received favoritism.... For those that are local it has been a good deal..
.It's a special carve out domicile and they were the chosen ones to do all the Hawaii flying for a long period of time...go figure..

I wish them continued good deals... though it would be great to see more of the same offered around the system...MCO, LAS, SEA

The Hawaii stuff was not a good deal for CLE....unless you you consider a 20 hour 5 day trip a good deal... the only reason CLE was given the original 737 Hawaii flying was because CLE was by far the smallest Continental 737 base, so there were far fewer pilots to give ETOPS training....it was the cheapest option for CAL to test the 737 ETOPS flying.

As far as CLE still being a base...I am surprised it is still around for so long after they dehubbed it....I don’t think it is favoritism....I think it is just not a top priority....my guess is as soon as the company hits some financial headwinds, CLE will be gone....being based in CLE I hope it never closes, but unfortunately I think our days are numbered.



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Do a google search and you should find CAL made a long term commitment to the City of Cleveland and had them build a terminal and provide support. It isn’t about favoritism, there was a lawsuit.

http://media.cleveland.com/business_...%20%282%29.pdf

All of the CLE mainline departures are 737. Around this time about 2 years ago, the crew resources guy said it’s all forced flying simply because of the domicile. Hence, no airbus or 757 like the days of old.

There is a rather large maintenance facility in CLE. That is helping out the base. That and I think the loads are pretty good for the flights we have left. I don’t know what the margins are.

Looks like a 5 year commitment...

We should be beyond that now.

$1M/mo for 10 more years.

“A restating of the airline's financial obligations for concourse D, the now-shuttered Hopkins expansion built in the 1990s for Continental Airlines, which merged with United in 2010. United is still on the hook for paying off the outstanding debt on the $110-million concourse; it should be paid off in 2029.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/articles.cleveland.com/travel/index.ssf/2016/03/united_airlines_reduces_gate_o.amp

I’m biased but it seems like a reason to use the terminal. Guessing, the local government has made that somehow cost prohibitive for us as they tend to do most things.

The fact they can’t lease those gates to SWA/NK/F9 etc speaks volumes to the demand from CLE.

They don’t get along. Entrance from C terminal to D was dry walled over a long time ago. United saw that the lights were turned off in the mothballed terminal. City said they did it to save money. United said that wasn’t allowed in the contract. City had to turn the lights back on. $. So someone said.

I don’t remember the details but from what I understand is that CAL and CLE had some arguments over terms and money. Rather than give in to what the city wanted, they took their ball and went home.

Even if they force a little flying into the airport, it seems like a crew domicile isn’t needed to cover 16 flights. The CLE pilots are a good group of people and I hate to see the crew base close, but with only a few flights a day, it’s really hard to justify.

They can get four 737s at once inside hangars for heavy checks. That contract was renewed recently I believe, so some of the costing includes planes having to come in and out of there anyway.

Couldn’t a crew just deadhead out after a plane is delivered for maintenance without needing a base? I get the commitment to the city for gates but the crew base seems odd at this point being that we have other cities in the system with many times the flights and not even a rumor of a base. Florida is the exception. That rumor will never die.

Yes, or a crew could overnight as well. Both have associated costs. The requirement to regularly bring planes in and out may be just one of many variables when they cost out paid moves and PS transportation in 8-H-3, Closing a Base. So does leaving it alone. Apparently the lines on the graph haven’t crossed yet.

CLE is a profitable O&D market, capacity in increasing starting this summer and beyond. Won't be a hub again, but it holds its own as a focus city. Mx causes it to be predominantly 737's passing through for overnight checks. The pilot base is currently overstaffed by about 20 crews to be optimally balanced but manpower is allowing attrition to get it to equilibrium. Once it gets to that point there will be an evaluation to keep it, further reduce it, or decide to wind it down. As always, subject to change. Non hub to hub CLE routes are: (Express): BOS, DCA, LGA, and summer seasonal CHS. Mainline non-hub routes are: MCO, CUN, seasonal FLL and RSW (SJU may return this fall). Other than that, we serve all hubs.

Never understood why there are arrivals to cle. I can see departures, as people want to get out of there, but don't know why anyone would want to actually go there.

Yeah it’s kinda like EWR.

What's your desire to see CLE close? You're not happy until others aren't happy?

No desire at all. Just curious why they staff a crew base with only a handful of departures. Good people in CLE and I wish them the best, but when the company is streamlining and trying to be more efficient, keeping CLE as a base seems odd. I was just wondering if there was some type on long term contractual or other requirement in keeping a crew base in a city with very little traffic. Without that, it doesn’t make much business sense.