Delta and USAirways try again in DC and NY

Delta and USAirways, who previously (as we discussed here) tried to swap slots and gates at New York's LaGuardia and Washington Reagan National airports but were ultimately blocked by competitive concerns are at it again.

In the plan announced today, DL and US will still trade a similar number of slots and cash and will open up some additional slots for new competition and destinations from both LGA and DCA.

One major change this time around is Delta's plan to continue to operate the Delta Shuttle from the Marine Air Terminal at LGA (last time it was going to become USAirways home). USAir, Shuttle and all, will remain their current home at Terminal C at LGA in the new plan.

As before, Delta plans to operate 132 slots worth of flights (that is 66 departures and arrivals for those of you counting) with regional jet equipment vs. the prop-jets that USAirways utilizes on most of these departures. The cities may change, of course, but we expect that they will look largely as they do today.

One odd part of the press release is that the USAirways Shuttle is described as the "popular hourly Shuttle service between LaGuardia, Reagan National and Boston that is operated on dual-class mainline jets will remain unchanged as a result of the transaction." However, a quick scan of Sabre from our friends at Expertflyer.com reveals that while the LGA-DCA flights are, indeed, all operated with dual-class mainline jets, the service to Boston with the exception of the 6AM departure is actually operated with Regional Jets - USAirways' unions will probably have a field day with this...

Accuracy aside, we view this as a great move for both airlines, consumers and the cities served by USAirways from LGA today. Regional Jets will provide significantly more lift into LGA than the Dash-8s and such that USAirways operates today and Delta's much larger presence at LGA will create substantially more connecting opportunities from those smaller bergs than USAirways offers today. USAirways offers very limited connecting opportunities today unless you happen to want to fly from Portland, ME to Norfolk and such. Delta will offer those same connections from Portland to Norfolk but will also offer connections to many larger cities that Delta serves from LGA such as Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and the like. This is good for those cities and good for consumers who gain more choice and competition.

As for Cincinnati and Memphis - we expect the aircraft Delta will require to operate these flights will come from those operations. Both are largely duplicative with Delta's hubs in Detroit and Atlanta, respectively. Delta certainly is not going to acquire new regional jets to "fund" this expansion in New York and the small amount of flights they are giving up in DC are not nearly enough. Look for a final de-hubbing in CVG and MEM following the inevitable approval of this transaction.

Brian Clark Joins Hudson Crossing

We are excited to announce Brian Clark has joined the Hudson Crossing team.

Announced at this year's PhoCusWright conference and only slightly overshadowed by the Kayak IPO news, Brian's deep commercial airline and online travel experience will bolster the Hudson Crossing team's rich operational experience.

"Brian’s real-world accomplishments, creativity and strategic foresight are the perfect complement to the Hudson Crossing team" said Tom Botts, Hudson Crossing Managing Partner. “He has distinguished himself as a true industry visionary with his accomplishments at both Virgin America and Fly.com.”

Brian has spent nearly 20 years in the travel industry and was most recently Senior Vice President and General Manager for Fly.com. In this role, Brian was responsible for launching Fly.com in the US and Europe, including the business and financial plan development, product planning and site design, marketing and PR, airline and online travel agency partner contract negotiations, and overall operations of Fly.com. Prior to launching Fly.com, Brian was a founding officer at Virgin America where he was Vice President, Planning and Sales, responsible for all commercial planning functions including route network planning & scheduling, pricing and revenue management, distribution, sales, and loyalty marketing. Brian began his career with US Airways where he held roles of increasing responsibility in revenue and schedule planning as well as operations.

"Hudson Crossing has created an excellent brand and contributed to the success of dozens of travel industry clients over the last several years," said Clark. "I look forward to continuing the tradition of strong industry leadership and to creating new opportunities and delivering superior results for our clients."

Welcome Brian!

United Actually Reduces a Fee. Yes, You Read that Correctly

Today, United Airlines announced they were dropping last-minute fees for Mileage Plus frequent-flyer award ticket redemption. Yes, this is not a misprint but a case of an airline actually dropping an irksome fee. Currently, non-elite Mileage Plus members are charged $100 to redeem within six days of travel and $75 within seven to twenty days.

These fees have long pained consumers but have been revenue generators for the airlines. After all, it costs an airline the same amount to pull miles and issue a ticket for free travel two hours before a flight leaves vs. two months.

We can think of few other fee roll-backs that once they have been widely accepted by the industry. USAirways stopped charging for sodas but only after they were not matched by any of the major airlines. Similarly, Delta was forced to back down on new international baggage fees after the industry failed to match leaving Delta uncompetitive.

Indeed, prior to Northwest's acquisition by Delta, Northwest did not charge last minute ticketing fees. However, that perk (or should we say Worldperk) went away as soon as the ink was dry on the merger.

Bravo, United.