Looks like United has given in and agreed to modify its Palmdale flying schedule. Beginning in September, instead of two daily CRJs to SFO, there will be four daily Brasilias, the 30 seat turboprop that United has slowly been phasing out. Anyone want to bet that this will work? Anyone? Bueller?
If you read my post earlier this month on the subject, you’ll know that I’ve been critical of LAWA’s efforts to pour time and money into Palmdale. And if you haven’t read the comments section, I’d highly recommend it. I apparently hit quite a nerve with someone doing work for LAWA, and it’s an entertaining read to say the least.
But my position hasn’t changed. I still don’t see this working right now. Let’s look at the fundamentals. Palmdale is in the heart of the Antelope Valley, an area that has seen rapid growth over the years because of its relatively affordable housing. But guess what? It’s an exurb, and those distant communities are taking the biggest hit in the current economic downturn. If you’d like to do a little reading, you can see this article from the LA Times in April 2007. Things have only gotten worse since then.
So it’s a probable that Palmdale alone isn’t going to be supporting major flights. There has been an effort to get people from the Santa Clarita area, the next major popular center, to use the airport by establishing bus service. Now if you don’t know where that is, it doesn’t really matter, but you can see it on the map at left. What matters is that it’s about 20 miles further to go from Santa Clarita to Palmdale than it is to go to Burbank. Even with the traffic, why would you go to Palmdale from there?
You wouldn’t. If you want to go to the Bay Area, you can fly Southwest or United from Burbank for less money and on more frequent flights than out of Palmdale. And it’s not like we’re talking LAX here. Burbank is a nice, small, and easy airport to navigate.
So can service work in Palmdale? Eventually. However, I don’t think San Francisco is going to be sustainable for a long, long time, even with more frequency. My guess is that any sustainable service at all is a few years off still at best. That’s why LAWA, the federal government, and others have had to pour $4.6m into this new service just to see if it can work. So far, the results haven’t been good.
Admittedly, the schedule will greatly improve with these new flights. Instead of northbound departures at only 6a and 11a, there will now be flights at 6a, 1015a, 1220p, and 645p. And instead of southbound flights at only 918a and 925p, there will be flights at 830a, 1035a, 5p, and 1020p. That being said, the flights will now take 18 to 33% longer on the northbound flight in the slow Brasilias. Block time increases from 1h9m to 1h32m northbound and from 1h13m to 1h26m southbound. That gives the Santa Clarita residents yet another reason to drive to Burbank.
I just have to wonder why United has decided to honor this request. They must still have a bunch of Brasilias under contract that are sitting around in the desert somewhere so they figured they’d give it a shot. All I know is that in May, the airline filled 42% of its seats. That means 42 out of the 100 seats flown each way per day were filled on average. Now there will be 120 seats in the market, and even if you can stimulate traffic by 50% because of this new glorious schedule, you’ll still only have a 52.5% seat factor. That seems quite optimistic to me, and it’s not going to cut it unless you’re getting some fairly incredible fares.
You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as time goes by. I’m heading out of town this afternoon and won’t have email access again until Sunday, so please write comments and I will approve them (if necessary) when I return.
United Agrees to Double Palmdale Flights
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20 Comments on "United Agrees to Double Palmdale Flights"
We live in Santa Clarita and at this point don’t even consider Palmdale Airport for anything. Neither do our relatives who LIVE in Palmdale. They prefer Burbank. We use LAX mainly because we can get the flights & connections from there easier and cheaper at this point. I will cherish the day I can book a flight from Burbank to Akron/Canton without 4 stops and a hefty pricetag.
I agree with James–I would never consider having visitors arrive in Palmdale. Um, yuck.
Cranky:
If this plan seems dubious, do you have any thoughts on the recent direct UA flight from San Fran to Victoria, BC? SkyWest appears to focus on the tourism sector and less the other segments (ie., business).
See news release:
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/business/story.html?id=8146473c-f39e-4201-a137-4d223195d45b
Some posts have discussed the high use of private aircraft out of Victoria, likely small prop planes servicing SEATAC and Vancouver. So why not go into that market with 30 seaters and clean up after the Beavers (the float plane – not their national symbol of industry):
http://www.vibrantvictoria.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=67814
Thanks – always enjoy reading the site,
James
> I’m heading out of town this afternoon and won’t
> have email access again until Sunday
Good timing with the CO/UA announcement :)
I remember Helijet’s Lear jet service to Victoria from Boeing Field. It was wonderful- BFI was a piece of cake for security, faster than Kenmore Air, LOTS faster than the Clipper.
It also folded, hard- BEFORE $130/bbl oil.
For reference on how US-Canada operations are going, Alaska just shut down their SFO-YVR service (which actually was YVR-SFO-PSP).
Oh, and…
http://www.united.ca/core/english/AU/companyinfo/pressroom/releases/2008/february/ca_0205.html
CR7, huh? Interesting. Horizon’s actually shutting down their CR7 jets as fast as humanly possible for Q400 turboprops to save on fuel. I wonder how long United’s going to last doing that, though apparently their RJ’s have 3 class service…
http://www.unitedexplus.com/
I can understand giving out subsidies to encourage service, but this seems to be getting insane, especially because federal tax money is being used on this.
> and fly Southwest for cheaper and more frequent to OAK.
I live 5 miles from SFO (= one stop on the SamTrans express bus). There’s a long bridge between me and OAK, with lots of potential for nasty traffic. This pretty much limits my “LUV” for Southwest at the moment. I do hope they increase their SFO presence and offer flights to ONT, so UA gets some competition on that route.
If this high speed PMD – downtown L.A. rail ever comes to fruition it could also extend east from PMD to Victorville where it would connect with the Anaheim/Vegas Maglev Train. (Also not built.)
Should PMD ever become a mega-airport it could then channel in residents from the Inland Empire and Apple Valley via that route.
Robert – So you think that it’s simply a matter of increasing advertising in the Palmdale area to make this work? If that’s the case, then they should eliminate United’s subsidy and pour that money into advertising instead. I can’t imagine that would make this successful, however. While there are many connections in SFO, it’s a difficult airport to connect in due to delays. It’s also a backhaul for anyone flying domestically. I just can’t see it.
[…] on June 7, 2007 and committed to stay for 18 months. The flights never did well, but LAWA did get United to double the number of flights. Of course, LAWA knew the writing was on the wall, because they applied for another federal grant […]