New Crew Base ?
 

What new crew bases are being considered?

Decision date?

Im hearing SEA.

RIP AS if true.

After the major contract cycle completes expect the next round of merger attempts.

Similar to LAS, MCO and CLE, crew base doesn’t mean hub. It just means there are enough flights to justify the crew base staffing expenses over the cost of hotels.

So why is there no HNL base?

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7/21/23

Given that both LAS and MCO were big commuter cities, as is SEA, SEA was at the top of my list as the next crew base. But do we have enough gates there to make it happen? The last time I was there, I flew into one terminal and flew out of another. It was as big a mess as EWR is with the new A terminal.

I don't see that as likely under the current administration. They are opposing mergers pretty aggressively (and not just airline mergers). I'm still watching for the green light on Jetblue and Spirit. If that gets nixed, there's no way United/Delta/American/Southwest will be allowed to merge with another carrier.

I agree. SEA would be cool but we are definitely a guest in that airport. I wouldn’t expect it at current levels. Maybe if we elbowed our way into a few more gates.

Gates do not factor in a decision on adding crew bases….

I can tell you from a Delta perspective. You open a crew base for two reasons. A reduction in credit hours and or an improvement in operational statistics. Hotel costs can be a third but minor player. HNL because all legs are more than 5 hours block to get there offers little in the way of credit reduction. In fact it likely increases credit because long legs make it much easier to build low credit rotations. Pull those long legs out of domestic bases may increase their credit. Operationally you also gain virtually nothing. With the weather in HNL and a predominantly one way traffic flow irops requiring reserve crews are non existent. In short a HNL base for airlines like Delta or UAL probably increases costs.

SEA, BOS, PHX we’re on the list for the first round, the company stated there will be a second round on openings in early 2025. I’d expect those airports to continue to be on possible new domicile list.

BSO and PHX already also have FA bases (like LAS and MCO). I’d guess either/both of those are the winner.

TPA could be next as a crosstown base with MCO.

TPA is a done deal with the AIP, it is specifically addressed as a crosstown

The satellite base experiment isn't working out too well in ewr on the 737. Mco, iad, ord, iah ... have all grown to gain Captains but that doesn't allow for them to efficiently staff early morning departures out of ewr. Just take a glance at the 15 premium pay trips every single day, reserves flying every rsv day, and 90 hr lines for almost the entire base which is pushing people out even faster. We have a lot of retirements in ewr (especially 777 and 787) and now they can't backfill those seats without hurting 737 staffing even more. Unless their plan is to staff some of the widebodies out of somewhere else like ord 777 flying.

once upon a time UAL had HNL, like they did with SEA. I don’t see either coming back. We don’t connect Pax in sea, and with delta in town there really isn’t a market to add back the previous, and what was a small amount anyway, of intl flying we had. Plus SeaTac can’t handle more pax. Mia the same, and of course company choose mco/tpa. Phx is dead with Las open. I honestly can’t see any new bases coming anytime soon.

mco 777 is next

Any chance we see WB in LAS sometime?

Source?


Filler

You are confusing crew base with focus city/hub operations…..

Crew Bases do not require hub/focus city type operations. It will operate as a outstation crew base it was to become a crew base.

I heard direct from Ferris that it's going to be 787s. And this was confirmed by the MCO van driver. I've been told that MCO even has a big, brand new international terminal (C) built exclusively for United 787s.

Again, I'm disappointed at the failure of people to trust the normal channels of information. Unless the LHR van drivers say it's so, it's never going to happen....

BOS could be a good “Shallow Europe” launching point for the new Airbus’s replacing the 757…

LAS appears to be working just fine. LAS reserves are staffing LAX, SFO, and a little bit of DEN all within short DH distance.

Crew Resources has that stated part of the new base concept was to entice new hires. I would think that is also working at LAS, and it would certainly hurt the Eskimo a bit at SEA.

With zero ramp space left in hubs for overnight airplanes and the shear numbers of aircraft showing up, I’d say anything’s possible.

No. The reason for the outstation bases is due to lack of pilots willing to upgrade in the hubs. This is not a problem on the WB, there are no unfilled CA WB vacancies.

If it’s true SK wants to stick it to AA, look at BOS, PHL, PHX.

the XLR has longer range than the 757 already. Unless you just mean the regular NEO’s

Yep. One of the example routes Airbus has been touting is NYC-FCO. I think we’ll see ORD to shallow europe and east coast to most of Europe, especially thin or off season routes.

PHL would be amazing.

Mickey. Everybody comes to see Mickey.

I mean we don’t have a lot of overnights there and it’s close to EWR so I don’t think so. I can see phx

I mean, who DOESN’T want to come from Europe and start their Disney vacation by way of Newark?

EWR is full. PHL is an international airport. Could pick up some international flying to relieve EWR congestion. AA flies out of LGA and JFK and PHL.

you need feed for international. United doesn’t have near enough flights to feed international ops in phl.

PHL sits in the middle of EWR and IAD. So little need for us to fly international from there unless to supplement our existing Lufthansa flight.

the 321 could be a good way to add frequency in existing markets or to develop new ones, or allow seasonal markets to become year round, besides the planned replacement of the 757 ones.

BOS is by far the best bet for another, if any. 40 mainline departures scheduled tomorrow, 26 of which are on the Guppy. The rest are a mix of Bus/752 (and one 763 to LHR). CLE has 27 departures tomorrow, 100% Guppy and about 120 crews. LAS has 39 departures, 35 on the Guppy. The LAS base has actually gotten a bit smaller since the first VB it was offered (93 CAs now vs 100ish at open). I think they couldn’t grow LAS more because too many potential CAs would rather make the short commute to SFO/LAX WB than fly the crappy 737 trips they’ve built in LAS so far. And no point growing it further while NH WB FOs have been flocking in to break their seat locks. MCO 737 has grown to 150ish crews since opening. If LAS stabilizes and starts to grow above 100 crews, then I think BOS will likely happen within a couple of years because the percentage of Guppy trips into BOS will rise as the fleet grows. The percentage of Bus flying might grow a tad or remain stable as the 321LR assumes the 752 transcon role in the next few years. Because of LAS and its stunted growth so far, I don’t see PHX anytime soon. Believe it or not ATL, DFW, and SEA have around 30 departures a day across fleets, so further down the road they too might be candidates if the Guppy ‘factor’ grows high enough. God help us all.

BOS has too much competition from DAL/JBU to be a good play… especially since United already has two Northeast-ish hubs. If United is laughably weak anywhere, it’s the Southeast where DAL dominates from ATL and AA from CLT/MIA. I’d like to think expanding TPA (rapidly becoming a financial hub)/MCO can complement IAH nicely while expanding United’s footprint in the fastest growing region of the US… and providing a convenient connecting point for trips to the Caribbean islands. As someone who lives in the southeast, flying on United to anywhere in the Caribbean or Central America on United just doesn’t make sense when I can fly on DAL/AA through a much more convenient hub

If connecting pax there has anything to do with an airport becoming a crew base, a few weeks ago we cancelled a DEN-IAH 78 and I bumped into a poor soul who had his DEN-IAH nonstop rebooked DEN-SGF-IAH.

Thus we should put SGF on the list of potential new bases.