KCI Flight Schedule Adjustments

[KCK]

American will discontinue three nonstop flights from NY to KC on 6/8/05. Not really sure why yet. Hopefully some other carriers will pick up the slack.

I can tell you why. American Airline, like all other major carriers except Southwest, is losing a lot of money. They probably are being forced to cut back flights.

[hartliss]

Well that does make sense DMW, however they would have cut these flights a long time ago if that was the case. Instead after they started two non-stop flights to Laguardia in Aug of 2002 they bumped the number up to three N/S flights per day. However I understand how volatile the industry is and they are probably re-allocating their aircraft in order to make money.

Ignatius:
I was referring to non-stop flights to the NY area. Of course you can make connections to fly into any of those area airports. This leaves Midwest with 2 or 3 non stop flights to LGA and Continental with 4 flights to EWR. So a total of 6 N/S flights to the area, still under supplied when you consider that 950 people travel between the two metro areas per day. I am sure another carrier might jump in there two pick up the slack or Midwest and Continental will bump up frequencies.

[Missionite]

Hmm. I thought that route was doing well with AA. If they were trying to cut back, I would have thought they'd start by dropping one or two of the routes and not all three. Oh well. Hopefully this means Midwest picks up some slack. Or, if we're lucky, jetBlue could come in and service MCI-JFK. That would definitely be a welcome addition.

AA also announced today that their upping frequencies at DFW all across the board. Included is one additional flight to KCI bringing the total MCI-DFW routes to 12 a day by July, replacing one of the dropped Delta routes. Not sure on the exact date that the extra flight begins though.

Let's just hope that come February 17th, our friends at Southwest announce MCI-PIT nonstop(s). Please?

Matt

[hartliss]

I agree with you Missionite, lets hope SWA does add flights to PIT. I think there is a decent shot of that happening down the road, just not on the initial expansion. I think you will see BNA, BWI, MDW, LAS, MCO, etc on the Feb 17th card.

[ignatius]

BTW, have a source? I couldn't find anything about American flight cuts.

[DanCa]

I quit flying AA from CA to KC after my last DFW layover nightmare. It got to the point where half the time I didn't have enough time to make my connecting flight (gates are 10 miles apart usually plus delays on the ground getting in) and would have to take a later flight. The last time was in January and I missed their last flight of the day to KC and had to go to a hotel at my expense. And if that weren't bad enough, they wouldn't give me my luggage that had my toiletries and winter clothes/coat in it so I had to wait outside in a t-shirt in 20° cold waiting on a shuttle and then had to run from the hotel to a gas station to get toothpast/brush and a comb. Unless AA can offer a $50 roundtrip flight to KC, I won't risk it again. I've switched to Frontier through DEN and had no problems - plus Frontier has DirecTV in the seats.

[hartliss]

Ignatius:
Airlines don't normally announce when they are cutting flights via a press release. I have heard this through various aviation forums. If anything try to book a flight from LGA-MCI N/S after 6/8/05, that should tell you if it is true or not.

[ignatius]

^The KC Biz Journal typically tracks lost/gained flights. Nothing mentioned yet.

[Missionite]

I have heard this through various aviation forums.

Are you a regular at airliners.net? I wonder around over there quite a bit, just don't ever post. There's some interesting conversations and insight over there though.

Matt

[hartliss]

Yea I read a lot of the posts over there. That is where I heard about this posting. I don't post that often just because people are hard core over there. Interesting points within the forum though.

[Missionite]

I think you will see BNA, BWI, MDW, LAS, MCO, etc on the Feb 17th card.

Looks like your guesses were head on (almost) hartliss. For those who don't know, Southwest chose MDW, LAS, MCO and PHL service at PIT with a total of 10 daily nonstops. I figured there'd be more.

Let's just keep our fingers crossed for at least one MCI-PIT nonstop in the future. I think there's definitely enough demand for it. On average, there's about 167 people flying from KC to Pittsburgh each day, not to mention possible connections to cities in the west.

Meant to post this the day of the announcement, but didn't get around to it.

Matt

[hartliss]

Midwest Airlines will begin serving Boston and Los Angeles beginning May 1. The carrier will bump daily flights from 16 to 21 in an effort to bolster their schedule. New Orleans and Ft. Lauderdale will become permanent as opposed to seasonal. This is good to see the return of the Boston N/S as well as LA nonstops. I am glad that Midwest still remains committed to the area.

[Missionite]

The press release can be found here:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050225/cgf011_1.html

I too am excited to see Boston. It's long overdue. New Orleans and Ft. Lauderdale are also good to see go year-round. Overall, I'm very happy. What I am disappointed about though is the loss of Orange County. Because they're adding two non-stops to LAX, they're dropping their one non-stop to Orange County.

I love the convenience and access of that airport and that was the route I flew most often on Midwest. Now I have to contend with the mess of LAX or pay outrageous prices on Southwest for connecting service to OC.

Here's a rundown of the complete changes:

KC - Boston, 1 daily roundtrip
KC - Los Angeles, 2 daily roundtrips
KC - Milwaukee, increased to 6 daily roundtrips
KC - New York La Guardia, increased to 3 daily roundtrips
KC - Ft. Lauderdale, changed from seasonal to year-round
KC - New Orleans, increased to 2 daily roundtrips and now year-round
KC - Orange County, service discontinued as of May 1.

Matt

[NVJunkie]

Great news for our airport and for Midwest. I worked for YX in 2002, and the people at MCI are a great group. Nice to see Boston back as nonstop, as well as Ft. Lauderdale and New Orleans going to year-round. BOS and New Orleans were previiously served and always had fairly decent loads. New Orleans was never below 60/84 seats, and BOS was 2x daily at one point, so this is good news. LAX is cool, basically filling what Frontier has left behind and filling in the cracks from the collapse of Vanguard back in '02.

[ignatius]

Glad to see Midwest pick up the potentially lost flights from American to LGA. I go to LGA a few times a year and only take American because they have had more options than Midwest. I prefer MW so this be good.

I hope that MW will pick up more slack as Vanguard used to do.

[Missionite]

You make an interesting comment ignatius. The former CEO of Vanguard, Scott Dickson, was recently hired as the VP of Marketing for Midwest. Now we hear that Midwest is adding/increasing flights on several former Vanguard routes. Coincidence?

Let's hope this trend continues.

Matt

[NVJunkie]

My Wishlist:
Seattle
Colorado Springs*
Pittsburgh*
Dallas-Ft. Worth
Reno/Tahoe*
Buffalo/Niagara*
San Juan, PR*
Austin, TX*
All Vanguard Routes, *= routes not served nonstop from MCI as of now

And for the real dreamers, how about Midwest bringing back their Codeshare with Virgin Atlantic in the next 5 or so years, giving us a nonstop 3-7x weekly to London? Now that would be sweet!

[Missionite]

Vanguard flew to San Juan?!? What hole was I living in?

Matt

[hartliss]

Vanguard never flew to San Juan. Austin used to be served by Midwest a couple of years ago. It is nice to see all of this expansion going on, lets just hope these flights last.

[nota]

I'm voting for Indianapolis. Airline service to Indy is kind of spotty and expensive as well. At least more expensive than it used to be.

We have a good friend who is a pilot for Midwest. He says that they have called almost all of their pilots and flight attendants back. Now with this announcement, things should be great for them.