American Airlines

[David_itl]

ATL went 767, L1011, A310, 777, MD11, 767 before the 767/A330 transition last year
ORD had the MD11 in 1992 (it was AA 1st route using this aircraft) with extra services in 1994 and 1995. BD started in 2000 before stopping in 2008
BOS and MIA in the 2000s effectively tried to give MAN a 3rd daily service based on seasonal routes; the MIA route was truncated to 3 weekly in the last bout of operation by AA.
JFK had BA saying the market wasn't there for 2 carriers, barely 1 (which shows how much they knew...) AA started July 1991 to 1997, DL entered 1998 to 2000 and 2004 to 2006 but can't remember the ins and outs from them
EWR was CO 757s then DC10s and 777s before going 2 daily in 2004 then splitting it to 1 daily EWR and 1 daily IAD in 2012
IAH is the PK anomaly!
MCO had BA from 1987 to 1991 then VS with a summer only A340 then they leased in a Martinair 767 for winter ops for 1 year only. 747s came along with them using Air Atlanta 747-300s for 1 summer which was a deeply unpopular move. Then it's been a case of them boosting the 747 frequency with MT starting (initially to Sanford then to MCO)
PHL went from 767 in 2000 to A330 in Feb 2001 with double daily 757s thrown in when the A330 fleet went in to maintenance

 

[User001]

Orlando is the funniest one,

1992-1994 no passengers
1995 it carried 203 passengers

Then........

1996 over 149,000 passengers!

In terms of PHL, it's a reason that passenger numbers only tell half the story, they may have

 

[Land23R]

David, what a fascinating chart of pax numbers to the US. Many thanks.
It just hadn't registered with me that there were over 400,000 pax to the 2 New York airports combined in 2000.
Then 9/11 occurred and numbers fell, but we were back over 400,000 in 2007 and 2008. I wonder if we'll hit that figure again in 2016.

And Chicago at 283,000 in 2005. I guess the pattern of transfer/connecting pax over US hubs has changed, and a big winner with more non-stop flights has been Orlando with over 450,000 last year, but also Las Vegas.

 

[David_itl]

the 787s on the ORD route start 10 days later than planned so 1st one is now expected to arrive here on 21st June according to Routesonline

 

[User001]

And with the B787, it is of course, not the first time AA have sent their newest equipment to Manchester. Back in the day, Manchester was the first European route to see the MD-11.

 

[michael]

Interesting that PHL is doing almost double of what Washington is doing - but I wonder is that a capacity issue of the B757 v A332? Orlando heading towards the half million mark!!

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Thanks for your list, David. Very interesting reading. At first I was puzzled by the Orlando numbers ... they didn't seem to add up. But then I realised the title was passengers on scheduled (as opposed to charter) flights. This explains the relatively low single-season number for Sanford. Whilst the recent 450K total for MCO is very encouraging, I wonder whether we have actually surpassed MCO/SFB totals from levels enjoyed in the past. Those daily high-capacity Travelcitydirect B743's, regular Monarch A300's, Britannia / Air 2000 / Airtours, American Trans Air L1011's etc, in addition to the Virgin Atlantic schedules. I suspect that we're still trailing the MCO+SFB totals from that time?

 

[David_itl]

I'll put up the combined total passenger numbers later today so there will be a few destinations like New Orleans featuring.

 

[David_itl]

Well here we go. Hope this is as clear/non-blurred as the other table! The total number of passengers to the States from the CAA's statistics from 1986 to 2015

 

[Land23R]

EGCC_MAN was certainly right about the Sanford charters. The memory plays tricks, at least mine does, so I was surprised to find the total for the 2 Orlando airports exceeded half a million in the years 1996-2000. Note the big increase in 2004 as things continued to recover after 9/11 and then >600,000 pax in 2006-2008. We're back over 500,000 again in the last 2 years but a long way short of the 670,000 in 2007. Has Disney lost some of its appeal? Is it because other regional airports have won their own flights, or has the exchange rate made it too expensive for some folk?

David, could I ask you to put totals in for the US for each year? It's probably easier for you to do it on your spreadsheet and would be much appreciated. The recent surge in capacity to the US may have given the impression of significant growth but it would be interesting to see overall trends over those last 25-30 years.

 

[David_itl]

I was toying with having a total row last night so i'll put it in and amend 'Sanford' to 'Orlando Sanford' to make it slightly easier to compare.

 

[David_itl]

Been grappling with this for the last hour trying to squeeze in extra rows and trying different fonts. Here goes the amended version of the total passenger numbers to the States from the CAA's statistics

So we are around 400,000 passengers down on the peak in 2007

 

[Dobbo]

2009... Ouch.

Chicago, Newark and Orlando Sanford roughly halved...

 

[Land23R]

Many thanks for your efforts David.

The growth in 2015 and hopefully this year is to be warmly welcomed, but the 2015 total needs to increase nearly 30% to get back to the record set in 2007. I guess the figures serve as a reality check on the ups and downs of aviation arising from financial crisis and other world events as well as trends within the industry itself.
Fortunately, MAN has seen very significant growth in recent years in some other markets and sectors.

 

[Dobbo]

Hopefully the increases and planned increases in transatlantic services from VS, TCX, DL, AA will address much of this.

There is also a range of other factors at work that might skew the numbers for example the operation of Icelandair and the recent expansion of Dublin's US services. The O&D might be at a similar level, just spread though other hubs as opposed to direct services.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

To understand the market changes, we need to think in the context of that time. Firstly, MAN for a while had high-density Travelcitydirect B743's operating to Florida every day, in addition to the rest. Fares on this programme were very cheap ... it would be difficult for passengers to find a deal like that today. Don't forget, the Monarch A306's were high density too, and the ATA L1011's. There were more names in the fray ... more competition. And we mustn't underestimate the impact of USD/GBP exchange rates on long-term booking trends. The bottom line is that holidays to Florida are relatively more expensive now than they were then.

 

[David_itl]

So lets look at the the operational performance of AA54/55 since the 787s started:

Remember this table shows the Chicago departure. 3 cancellations and 3 changes in the last week. Not the most auspicious of starts when they made big play of the 787 being used on the route.

 

[Dobbo]

How has the performance been on the JFK and PHL routes? Is ORD an outlier (as far as MAN is concerned) or is it a reflection of AA more generally?

 

[David_itl]

PHL/JFK over the last 2 weeks

 

[Dobbo]

PHL is not too bad. JFK a bit hit and miss bit not ideal - certainly better than ORD.

Might it be an airport rather than airline issue?