Thursday, January 08, 2009

More Shell Game Fallout & A White Elephant Is Born

Yesterday, 80 more pilots took a solid kick in the tenders. Most likely due to their net loss of 10 aircraft in the Great CRJ-900 Switcheroo of 2008-9, ASA will be furloughing for the first time in it's proud history.

Like I mentioned in the previous post, being "awarded" 10 CRJ-900's wasn't exactly great news for ASA. Delta is doing everything it can to get out of the 50 seat regional jet market and we should expect more reductions to come in 2009.

I'm truly sorry to see more pilots hitting the street. When recalls actually start happening industry wide, I wonder how many will actually accept?

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CVG: White Elephant?

As of January 1st, Delta closed terminal 3's Concourse C and moved all regional flights to Concourses A & B. Opened in 1993, the groundbreaking Concourse C has 48 gates and was the largest terminal ever constructed specifically for regional aircraft. The initial reasoning was to streamline the product and allow the utilization of jet bridges for more passengers. A large number of flights from both A & B will require passengers to ingress/egress via ramps to/from terminal level, in addition to RJ stairs versus convenient ground level Concourse C. Also, at times they will still be using a wing of Concourse C for boarding, requiring buses. However, no services (including restrooms) will be avaiable. Does that sound like seamless product?

With the increased passenger traffic in A&B from the loss of C, Cincinnati-Northen Kentucky airport will appear to be busy. In addition, the previous two evening pushes/banks have been combined in to one, to complement Cincinnati and Detroit's traffic patterns. Looks can be deceiving. With Comair alone having lost over 20% it's flying from CVG, passenger traffic at CVG has been drastically decreased and will probably see even fewer flights over the course of 2009-10.

The systematic dismantling of Delta's CVG hub has begun. Like St. Louis and Pittsburgh, CVG has reached "white elephant" status.

Has anyone seen the Travelocity commercial where the couple are just checking in and every time the husband tries to speak, a jackhammer interrupts him? I think the commercial sums up my feelings about the US airline business, at least until the economy turns around. Every time I think I've figured something out, the jackhammer of change interrupts and things change. I love the part at the end where he says in the perfect sarcastic tone, "It's gonna be great...it's gonna be a big week."



Well, it's gonna be great...it's gonna be a big year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I personally did not like concourse C at CVG. I won't miss it. I only traveled through there one time but I really didn't like the jammed seating area with no windows. It put quite a damper on my favorite pass time of watching airside operations while I wait for my flight.

JAFP said...

I didn't have any love for the blind layout, either. The terminal was innovative because it was the largest designed specifically for regional flights.

A & B will be uncomfortable for passengers because they're going to be over-utilized during pushes. They could handle the increased volume if it were spread out among more frequent push times. With the cuts in place, push time is going to be very inconvenient for many CVG travelers.

Anonymous said...

First...

let me start by saying... YOU'RE BLOG ROCKS!!

being a sim pilot on CRJ 700 (yeah yeah.. sim!! )

i was mostly interested by your journey!

i will keep reading your blog... and will surely show you pictures of my future fully functionnal crj-700 cockpit as it will progress...

if i may.. may i bother you with operationnal questions from time to time in the future?

anyway!

congrats again...