More Flights, Smaller Planes: A Deeper Look at How Transcon Has Evolved


When I took a look at how the interisland market has evolved in Hawaiʻi, several of you wanted to see a similar peek at the transcon market. Ask and ye shall receive.

There is no market more important market in the United States than the New York/JFK – Los Angeles route. It’s a huge market connecting two of the country’s most important cities. It is also a remarkably premium market that has the ability to generate incredible revenue. How much? In Q1 of this year, it took in over $101 million. In second place was Newark – San Francisco with shy of $70 million. The top four markets are JFK/Newark to LAX/San Francisco and were worth $280 million. In fifth place was Long Beach – Oakland. Just kidding. It was LaGuardia – Miami with a paltry $36 million. (Long Beach – Oakland, if you were wondering, came in 883rd place with just under $3.5 million.)

But to start this look, I wanted to expand the definition of transcon. First, I decided to include all New York airports plus Boston. On the West Coast I thought it worth including all the LA Basin airports and all the San Francisco Bay Area airports as well. It’s a broad definition, but it’s helpful to see how this has evolved.

So, let’s start off by looking at seats by airline over time thanks to Cirium’s T-100 data.

Seats by Airline on Key Transcon Routes

Data via Cirium, transcon defined as Boston/JFK/LaGuardia/Newark to all LA Basin and SF Bay Area airports

Back in the 1990s, this was a market in flux. There was a lot of capacity from the big domestic players. But at the time, those were American and United, not Delta. Continental had its presence from the old People Express Newark hub as well. But the big international carriers also added a ton of capacity. We had TWA and Pan Am flying big widebodies across the country. For those who wanted a truly premium experience, there was MGM Grand Air which had DC-8s and B727s flying important people in style for big money.

It wasn’t long after the dawn of the decade that we had the Gulf War and a major recession. Pan Am (and MGM) failed which instantly helped the market, but by the mid-1990s, capacity had grown past what had existed in the Pan Am days. As the economy boomed, Tower came into the market with its rickety B747s that somehow never fell out of the sky. It had cheap fares and a lot of capacity, which worked (sort of) until the turn of the century.

The combination of the .com bubble bursting and 9/11 sent the industry into a tailspin and capacity tanked. TWA was absorbed by American, but American still shrunk. And Tower disappeared. On the other side, this was about the time when JetBlue got started, and it would enter the transcon market right away, albeit to secondary airports in California.

There were a handful of quirky, failed attempts to make the market work from a low-cost carrier perspective. In the early 1990s, America West flew JFK to Orange County but that didn’t make it through bankruptcy. The airline tried again from LAX to do transcon in the mid-2000s, but this Scott Kirby idea failed miserably and disappeared just as fast as it started. In 2003/2004, even ATA tried to get in on the act with Newark and Boston flying to San Francisco. That didn’t last.

What did stick was JetBlue and Virgin America, which brought a lower-fare operation with staying power. Then, the Great Recession hit, and capacity sagged. But it rebounded quickly into the era of consolidation.

When Delta and Northwest merged, Northwest had no presence in transcon, but it did spur Delta to build its own presence. The mergers of United and Continental plus Alaska and Virgin America were the ones that had the biggest impact on the number of players in the market.

Southwest briefly tried transcon from Newark but that didn’t last, and then COVID hit. In the current era, United remains a major player — albet to Newark and not JFK, as is well known — along with Delta and JetBlue. American is… not what it once was. Alaska is, well, it’s there still. And Spirit is trying to skim off the top.

But just looking at the airlines doesn’t tell the whole story. Let’s look at the airplanes as well.

Data via Cirium, transcon defined as Boston/JFK/LaGuardia/Newark to all LA Basin and SF Bay Area airports

In those early days, it was three-holers, B747s, and yes, even the DC-8 and some A300s/A310s that flew the majority of operations. But even then, the B767 was a major player. By the end of the decade, the B767s and B757s were almost exclusively operating the route. I had no idea but apparently Continental had some B737-300s flying from Newark. (I really have to think this was a data problem, no?) And JetBlue had its Airbuses. Interestingly, over time, it’s the Airbus narrowbody that has become the primary aircraft to service these markets.

But ever since the end of the 2010s, widebodies have crept back in. That’s almost entirely Delta and United putting their big planes with fancy flat beds on these routes. I would expect we will see that shrink or even disappear when United gets its B737-10 MAX aircraft and Delta gets its A321neos with flat beds. I still wouldn’t be shocked by some hub-to-hub widebodies, but it will be less.

And now, let’s circle back to the JFK – LAX route specifically. The story of this route can be told through one, single line.

JFK – LAX Seats per Departure

Data via Cirium

In the early 1990s on this route, there were few departures, but they had a LOT of seats. These were the widebodies serving the most glamorous route in the US. Reality hit hard during the Gulf War. When Pan Am went away, so did a good chunk of those widebodies. The number of seats per departure dropped as more efficient, smaller airplanes (read: B757s) were used.

Interesting, TWA’s failure didn’t even register. It was just part of a long, downard trend until we reached a mini-cliff in 2004.

That was the year that United replaced its B767-200s with B757s using p.s. service. There were very few seats on this airplane, so the number of seats per departure dipped noticeably.

The market stayed steady for awhile, even climbing a bit when, I think, United started putting more seats on those airplanes. But there was another cliff in 2014. It’s a tale as old as time… American did the same thing as United but 10 years later. It took its B767-200s out of service and put the A321 with few seats onboard into service instead. That brought us to the current steady state.

Oh, that COVID spike? Remember, nobody could fly internationally, so widebodies made their way on to premier domestic routes. That was just a short-lived move that was never going to last.

Transcon today is in a pretty steady place, but that will change again when United’s B737-10 MAX’s arrive along with Delta’s A321neos. Both will have flat beds and fewer seats onboard than the widebodies. The seats per departure may shrink again, but what really matters is how many flat beds they can cram on there to generate the big revenue. Flat beds on JFK – LAX today account for about 15 percent of total seats, and in this market, there seems to be an insatiable appetite for more.

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Brett Avatar

55 responses to “More Flights, Smaller Planes: A Deeper Look at How Transcon Has Evolved”

  1. SEAN Avatar
    SEAN

    So in short, fewer seats while generating maximum revenue from the remaining seats is the moral of the post.

    1. Chris E Avatar
      Chris E

      Actually, the distinction “fewer seats PER DEPARTURE” is key. The number of departures are up, but seats per departure are down due to the smaller airplanes now prevalent on the route and new premium seats/beds that take up far more real estate onboard. But the sheer number of departures helps to ensure there are still plenty of coach seats flying. For those who can afford to sit upfront, the products are vastly superior to those offered on the fabled old 767’s and DC-10’s (as much as I loved those airplanes).

    2. Kishoreajoshi Avatar
      Kishoreajoshi

      More seats (per flight) = JUNK fares. Why do you think UAL kept 777 for other TYO flights but immediately put 787s on LAX-NRT??

    3. kishoreajoshi Avatar
      kishoreajoshi

      Then there’s United which has converted its Tokyo flight to a 787, its Sydney flight to a 777, and stopped flying 747s domestically.

      1. kishoreajoshi Avatar
        kishoreajoshi

        According to Dim Tunn, this route should be flown exclusively with an A350, or in worst case an A330-900, both with dOne…

  2. Alan Z Avatar
    Alan Z

    Brett,

    Remember the good old days well. Talking about when Pan Am flew from JFK to LAX. Was on a 747/SP!

  3. Kilroy Avatar
    Kilroy

    Thanks so much for doing this analysis.

    The “Seats per Departure” graph is especially telling and a great creative way to look at things. The fact that (COVID blip notwithstanding) it has been essentially the same (+/- ~5-10%) for the past 20 years with only a few short term blips outside that range is particularly telling. That suggests that the “steady state” of transcon planes has long been reached, though as you point out, that may change with more premium seats on narrowbodies coming.

    I didn’t see RASM mentioned in this analysis, but that might also be interesting to look at if possible and if the data is there.

    1. abcdefg Avatar
      abcdefg

      I believe, based on analyses elsewhere, that the growth is in all the other markets which did not used to have transcontinental service obtaining it because of the capabilities of the 737-700/800 and A319/20 families in the early 2000s and moving connecting traffic over to those flights.

      In the 1990s had to connect somewhere but since those planes hit the skies in mass numbers many markets opened up.

      Here’s one, though the pictures seem to be gone: https://theaircurrent.com/analysis/visual-approach-can-the-a321xlr-replace-wide-body-aircraft-across-the-atlantic/

  4. MK03 Avatar
    MK03

    As a non-American, why does “transcon” mainly refer to California-New York (and Boston), as opposed to any non-stop West Coast to East Coast flight? For example, something like SEA-MIA.

    1. Doug Avatar
      Doug

      Most cross-country flights (like SEA-MIA) are just sold as standard domestic economy and first, just with particularly long flights. You’ll occasionally get a wide body as a happy accident, but the service up front will still be domestic first. The “trancon” markets are the only ones where US airlines sell their international business class as a product.

    2. SEAN Avatar
      SEAN

      In the technical sense you would be correct. However the definition carries two elements. The first is historic & the other being frequency/ breath of service.

      SEA – MIA may have a few flights a day if that while JFK – LAX has a flight every few minutes between all carriers on any given day. All one needs to do is look at http://www.flightaware.com or any site like it to see just how many flights exist along the route.

      As an aside, I remember when NW had a BOS – SEA non-stop flight & was not considered to be a transcon.

      1. Alex B. Avatar
        Alex B.

        Maybe this was more of an industry insider term, but I never knew that “transcon” was supposed to apply only to premium flights between NYC and California. Silly old me would’ve thought anything that is, you know, transcontinental would be a ‘transcon.’

        1. Outer Space Guy Avatar
          Outer Space Guy

          I agree. I think transcon should include any non-oceanic flight over say 4 hours. Or maybe 3.5 hours. Let’s say 3.5h. So that gets you everything from Phoenix+furtherWest to everything from Atlanta+furtherEast.

          I think that is a reasonable definition of a transcontinental flight. And Im guessing that would show not much of a difference up in the seats at the pointy end of the plane. The old Usair 737-301s and 737-401s (the ones with the TVs in the aisles) got replaced with A319s and A320s, and now grew slightly and mostly are 737-maxes and A321s, for example.

    3. CLT Flyer Avatar
      CLT Flyer

      I agree – and I think part of the downward trend at JFK is because many other east and west coast destinations now have direct links. I think a redefined transcon definition should take into account – at minimum – all airports/city pairs that are truly directly on either coast with a non-stop connection. There are non-stops from Miami, Fort Lauderdale and even Providence, Rhode Island to LA. The greater LA area has more airports, such as Ontario (not the one in Canada!) which also has non-stops to Boston, NY and Miami. As an example going the other way, there are non-stops to NYC from Seattle, San Francisco, LA and San Diego. Now add in non-stop combinations between any of these east and west coast city pairs (i.e. Seattle to Miami is served by 3 airlines; San Diego to Boston – also served by 3 airlines, or Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco which JetBlue serves 2x per day), and you have a lot more “transcon”.

      1. Kitsune4px Avatar
        Kitsune4px

        I suspect there is a bit of an interesting subplot here, related to the Alaska/Virgin flying. The market is generally growing up to COVID and then takes what looks like a permanent dip, if you stare closely enough at CF’s plot it looks like that’s mostly Alaska taking seats out of LA/SF – NY/BOS. My guess is if you look at Alaska growth in SEA/PDX/SAN – NY/BOS you’ll find those seats that appear to go away in this version of the plot. That would be consistent with their strategy over the last few years.

        Also as a regular of the SFO-IAD flight on UA I would consider it a transcon, has many of the same features, though I will note there seems to be some relationship to who is in power in DC with demand to CA destinations.

  5. SubwayNut Avatar

    Now a graph I would be curious to see is what percentage of these Transcon flights offered complementary inflight meals in the economy cabin?

    My most memorable Transcon was getting an operational upgrade up to business class (an aisle seat right in front of the door staring at the flight attendants) flying to JFK to SFO on a pre-re-retrofitted ps 757 (it was when they were transitioning) in a barcalounger seat, getting a digEplayer to watch movies on because economy was oversold, and ordering a bloody merry with my breakfast. I’ve never had status on United but did have Amtrak Select+ status at the time and did use the UnitedClub with my Amtrak status so perhaps that got me priority? I just remember going to board and the gate agent saying “Just give me a moment please sir, I need to give you a new seat and you are going to like it.”

    I still remember after buying my ticket a screen flashing trying to get me to upgrade to business class for $2,000 on my computer, the kiosk then offered me like $900 to upgrade when I checked in that morning. When the gate agent upgraded me all I could think of was “No Thank you, free at the gate I’ll take it!”

  6. See_Bee Avatar
    See_Bee

    For years, the legacies wanted widebody product on the Transcons to win over the premium customer (i.e. direct aisle access, superior flat-bed product, etc.). However, overall flight profitability is really optimized with a narrowbody (especially the latest generation), as the airlines aren’t able to squeeze as much revenue out of the coach customer compared with a similar length of haul (e.g. JFK-western EU)

    The shrinking widebody fleets for US carriers (proportionally) has also exacerbated this as Network teams must make fleet/route trade-offs. An old saying in Network Planning departments: “it’s better to have not enough wide bodies than too many”

    1. JT8D Avatar
      JT8D

      Until the 757, there was no transcon capable twin-engine narrowbody. Even 727s couldn’t do it. And the economics of the four-engine jets (at least with their original engines) was horrendous. So they got swept away pretty quickly in the 1980s.

      So the presence of widebodies was originally capability-related as much as anything. Even the first A320s were marginal for transcons – JetBlue often had to divert against wintertime winds. It took the 737NGs for it to be possible for a non-757 narrowbody to do it without drama.

      1. See_Bee Avatar
        See_Bee

        That’s certainly correct in the period prior Cranky’s charts. My comments were primarily focused on the recent years highlighted in the charts, so 00s & 10s when the trade-off was viable with the 757 already flying

        1. JT8D Avatar
          JT8D

          Looking at the chart, other than a few years immediately after 9/11, there’s hardly any widebody flying thereafter, even though in the 00s at least, the legacies still thoroughly dominated the market. The 767 is still in there, but it looks to be at most 10-20% of the flying.

  7. Tim Dunn Avatar
    Tim Dunn

    welcome back, CF.

    There are a couple markets including JFK/EWR-LAX and SFO that have sustained widebody usage for years. The real question will be if airlines continue to use at least some widebodies even with premium configured narrowbodies. I suspect the answer will be a combination of widebodies and narrowbodies in some markets; the transcons are also big cargo markets in addition to the high levels of demand that exists at certain times of day. All of the NE airports are congested and/or slot controlled so it doesn’t make sense to operate narrowbody flights every 30 minutes – even for a short time – if a single widebody can do the job.

  8. GKK Avatar
    GKK

    CO leased a few 737-300s (I think 3Q8s?… not sure if the 3T0s did transcon, but I could be wrong) with aux tanks and video systems for transcons before the NGs arrived. This is in the 1995-1998 period IIRC.

    As far as widebodies on the transcons, I am certain UA will continue to fly them extensively on EWR-LAX/SFO even after UA is back in JFK. That’s as much a high-volume market for UA as it is premium.

    1. FrequentWanderer Avatar
      FrequentWanderer

      I was coming here to say this. Both CO and US had these “special” 737-3xxs in the 1990s that could do transcon length flights, although the furthest US used them was PIT-west coast. So it is not a data problem, there really were 737-3xx on EWR-LAX at non-peak times. Of course it was never a problem eastbound.

  9. southbay flier Avatar
    southbay flier

    I remember flying CO from JFK to SFO in 1999 and was surprised to see a 737-800 on the route. I always remembered the 737 being a plane for regional routes, not transcons. It’s a trend that makes flights more uncomfortable. I miss the days when these routes were flown by a 767, which is much more comfortable than any narrow body.

    1. Brad Avatar
      Brad

      I always thought that the 75 was a comfortable ride for longer flights, it is just a different beast than the 73s. Still like the 75 flights today and will miss them when they eventually go away.

      Have had a couple of brand new UA 321s on 2 hour hops in the last few months, seem a bit more comfortable than the 73s, but I haven’t been stuck in an econ seat for five hours on one yet so the jury is still out on those.

      Disclaimer: I always get at least E+ seating, so I get the extra legroom and most often in an aisle seat so this starts out as a better deal than those squished seats in the back. Every so often I’m amazed when an upgrade clears, but those are pretty rare.

    2. AAflyer Avatar
      AAflyer

      CO really seemed like the narrowbody pioneer. All the 757 flying from EWR to secondary Europe seemed ahead of its time

  10. MRY-SMF Avatar
    MRY-SMF

    RIP ATA. Never had a chance to fly you.

  11. emac Avatar
    emac

    That chart buries American’s decline. Looks like they’re down 80% from the early 2000s to the 2020s. Would be interesting to see premium seat share, probably better for AA but still a decline as B6 launched Mint, DL committed and UA recommitted.

    B6’s superpower was (was!) timing. Unbelievable luck. Waltzing into the largest market (NYC) when the 2000 recession and 9/11 started a lost decade of bankruptcy and shrinking for the other carriers, being able to expand north-south and transcon practically unchallenged. Heck, across JFK, BOS and SJU, a lot of B6’s footprint is where AA has shrunk over the past 25 years.

  12. JT8D Avatar
    JT8D

    Interesting how the 757 and 767 are present the entire time. 1970s technology for the win, apparently.

    1. Brad Avatar
      Brad

      From a passenger standpoint, it is really hard to dispute that the 75-76 family along with the 74s, DC-1* family and L-1011s were all good rides from back in the day. But how much of this is the seat packing that all the airlines do now versus the larger seats and extra legroom of the 70s through 00s as well as the fact that almost all of these are widebodies which are just inherently a more comfortable ride.

      When pitch in the back of the plane for the majority of the seats went to 29-31 inches, how did that affect perception of the older planes being that much better?

      Way back when UA had the 73 classics, I worked VERY HARD to avoid them and it was a sweet day when the last of those went out of the fleet. Those were from that “golden” era and they were just an awful ride from my standpoint.

      None of this takes into account the two seats in Row 0, I’m betting that the occupants much prefer the new glass screens and automation to the classic flight decks.

      1. Brett Avatar

        Brad – It’s a great question. Seat pitch is one thing, but the L-1011 isn’t much narrower than a 777. I’d say it’s likely that if they were flying today, the 2-5-2 would be gone in favor of a 3-4-3 and it would be much squishier. (In fact, Pan Am and later Delta had L-1011-500s with 10 abrest.) The DC-10 was a bit narrower, so it might have stayed 2-5-2 (or 3-3-3 since airlines prefer that now), but Sun Country did run 10-abreast back in the day. I think Finnair had it on the MD-11 too. You flew on those, you were probably not going to be singing the praises of that airplane. Same goes for Air Transat on those A330s with 9 abreast (which I flew and was awful) or the rare 767 operator with 8 abreast.

        1. Brad Avatar
          Brad

          CF – the densification of economy has really been a bad trend for pax comfort. Again, I’m lucky that get E+ at a minimum so that makes the voyage much more tolerable – I’ve been stuck in regular E just a couple of times on very late bookings when E+ has been all gone and for a 6′ 2″ tall, long-legged person it is abysmally uncomfortable.

          The thing I didn’t specifically say above, is how much does the actual ride of a widebody enhance the impression of comfort. The size of the plane makes the turbulence less noticeable and thus less uncomfortable on the big boys versus the smaller planes. Between the fact that the older widebodies had more personal space per seat and a better overall ride than the narrow bodies today, is that part of our subconscious calculations?

          I don’t have that much international experience, but have a boatload of “butt in seat” domestic time so that is what I know best. Lucky for me, UA has and still runs a fair number of widebodies on the hub runs so I see them frequently, DEN to LAX, SFO, ORD, IAH and even occasionally MCO. I don’t do EWR more than 1 or 2x per decade so I don’t see that run much but my sense is that there aren’t a lot of widebodies there.

  13. Guy Avatar
    Guy

    Really cool analysis. Would be awesome to see transatlantic in the same way, but I can understand if you’re tired of doing these. Thanks for putting these together!

    One request: it would be great to see each carrier (in chart one) as a percent of total, or each aircraft (in chart two) as a percent of total. Given the variation in total flights on a seasonal basis, the total moves up and down so much that you can’t clearly tell how each carrier/aircraft have changed as a percent of the whole over time. Having a chart that has % of total market on the y axis would be easier to quickly see the trends.

    1. Brett Avatar

      Guy – Can’t put charts in comments and I’m not going to edit the post. But United has dropped from a combined 50% share with Continental in the mid-1990s to about 40% today. American is down much more significantly to maybe 10%. Delta and JetBlue have grown the most.

      1. Iowa Airspace Avatar
        Iowa Airspace

        Has anyone gone down the rabbit hole of producing the definitive “how did AA fall so far in the past two decades?” business school narrative? It’s been a slow steady decline that has spanned multiple bankruptcies and mergers and mainly seems like a series of bad business decisions and some bad luck all contributed to bring them down. The chart at the top of this article is a great example of it, but not the only story either.

  14. JayB Avatar
    JayB

    Thanks, Cranky.

    Memories, travels from DC. on the big jets, like the UA DC-8, IAD to SF on iconic flight 51.

    Yes, for me those DC-8 landings were hard, hard, more than with any other aircraft I ever experienced, and landings at Denver Stapleton were the worst, but I still loved UA, for a while, but the company soon became a holy mess.

    In came competitor CO, and I switched, but darn it, they soon went with those little 737s, and I hated them more than the hard-landing DC-8s. So, back to UA I went and I never left, and CO came on.

    Well, wonder why FAA has such problems? Little planes fly everyone, everywhere. FAA could never respond to all of this, and here we are today.

    But I’ll never forget those big old UA DC-8s. I’m too old to fly anything now. But here locally (Lancaster, PA, where I grew watching those marvelous All American Aviation DC-3s “milk-run” make a stop, one engine kept running) this morning again I watched the 4-times weekly Breeze Airbus 223 flight to Orlando arrive and depart. What a beautiful painted aircraft Breeze has, just not a DC-8!

  15. Bill from DC Avatar
    Bill from DC

    Why are Washington and Philly to LAX/SFO not considered to be transcon? Comparing great circle map distances, PHL-SFO is 43 miles less than EWR-SFO and DCA-SFO is 123 miles less. Clearly I’m biased but, to me, NYC, BOS, PHL and WAS represent the East Coast side of the transcon equation.

    That being said, I’m not sure why Portland, Seattle and Miami aren’t in the mix but I want to stay focused on just the one point!

    1. MarylandDavid Avatar
      MarylandDavid

      And let’s not forget BWI which just added a slew of transcon makets on WN to Long Beach, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, etc.

    2. SEAN Avatar
      SEAN

      It’s about premium routes I guess, but point taken.

  16. stormcrash Avatar
    stormcrash

    One thing the pandemic did ruin though was Deltas efforts to make SEA-JFK a transcon of the same caliber as the LAX/SFO-JFK routes with elevated experiences even in coach like including food for all passengers in the ticket price. LAX/SFO had these called out in the service details and SEA was just getting elevated to that same level of service. Sadly none of it has come back post pandemic and the cheapest fare to the east coast now for me is usually via DTW (which is a fine airport if a bit bumpy on landing in an RJ going the other way)

    Kind of miss those 757s with bin extenders though, they were so old school inside

  17. Matt D Avatar
    Matt D

    Continental did in fact fly 73G’s between SNA-EWR starting at about the turn of the century. I took one once in 2003. Also, don’t forget about the short lived National flying out of LAS using 757’s. I also took LAX-EWR (via LAS) a couple times. LAS-EWR is almost transcon, no? Just a couple hundred miles off. Another footnote was that in the mid 1990’s, USAir flew 737-300’s and -400’s SNA-PIT and LAX-PIT. Both ways. Also not *quite* transcon. But pretty close. Definitely a very long length for that plane.

    And finally, I don’t think that any A310’s ever did any transcons post Pan Am shutdown. I know Delta inherited a handful of them. But I’m pretty sure those all did transatlantic flying. I’m not aware of any other passenger airline in the US ever using the -310.

    Curiously missing from this essay is any mention of the connection between delays and more, smaller planes.

    1. Brett Avatar

      Matt D – USAir actually did do real transcons on the 737 Classics. I apparently flew N587US from LAX to Philly back in 1997, according to my flight log. I think they also ran 737-400s from Tampa to LA. Those old PIedmont airplanes had quite the range.

      There were A300s that did transcons post-Pan Am shutdown. Oddly enough, it was… Pan Am II that flew them. I had no idea until I looked at the data.

      1. JT8D Avatar
        JT8D

        I flew a 737-400 nonstop on US Air from the Bay Area to BWI one time, also in the 1990s. A long way on a Classic. I was also surprised by how far it could go.

      2. Matt D Avatar
        Matt D

        I knew about the short lived Pan Am II. I have pictures of them at LAX. Too bad you can’t post them here. No, I was talking about the shorter A310, not the regular A300. And speaking of that plane, you really want to go into the weeds, remember Presidential? They were an upstart that lasted about five seconds. And ran A300’s out of LGB to I don’t remember where in around 1995, plus or minus a year. Never got a picture of one.

        1. Brett Avatar

          Matt – Holy moly, I didn’t know about this Presidential. The only one I remember was the one out of Dulles. But sure enough…
          https://www.facebook.com/DepartedWings/photos/presidential-air-was-started-in-1993-by-ray-novelli-a-businessman-and-clayton-ba/360935420769094/?_rdr

    2. Brendan Avatar
      Brendan

      UA still flies (likely those same) 73Gs SNA-EWR 3x per day

  18. Brian W Avatar
    Brian W

    @Cranky Surprised you consider AA a non major player on the JFK-LAX route. Looking next Monday, the carrier is operating 9 non stop flights for the day. As a traveler, I am buying a seat, not the capacity of the plane so the smaller premium laden A321T still makes it a major player.

    1. Brett Avatar

      Brian W – All I said is that American is not what it once was. If you’re in the premium cabin, American is an important player specifically in the LAX/SFO – New York/JFK market. But there aren’t a lot of economy seats anymore, not like there used to be. But American will have more coach seats when the A321XLRs roll out.

      1. Ron Hermanson Avatar
        Ron Hermanson

        We will soon see business class replace first on the AA XLR’s with closing doors into private suites just like the new generation international business. Premium economy on the XLR will replace the current business on the 321T. Both first and business had full, multi-course meals on the 321T including dinner on 10 PM departures from west to east. It will be interesting to see what happens with inflight service for premium economy. If AA stays with profit over service, there may be nothing.

  19. Dale Avatar
    Dale

    I remember flying American Airlines DC-10 from BOS to LAX in the summer of 1979. I was in First Class on that flight.

  20. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    Is it for certain that DL and UA will replace their existing 767-300 / 767-400 / 757 / 777-200 with the customized A321neo or A321XLR?

    While AA replacing the A321T with the A321XLR will significantly increase their capacity by +50% unless they cut their frequencies (with premium seating basically replacing the F cabin with PE), DL and UA will reduce their capacity by ~50% each with their new planes while also slightly reducing premium seat capacity in the case of DL – it’s not like they have the option to 2x frequencies to adjust for this decrease given slot restrictions / FAA limits.

    Given the market share shifts you mentioned, this seems counterintuitive that both would give up so much share when they do so well on this route. I’m sure it would improve yields even further, but AA and B6 would likely be thrilled with those actions.

    1. Jeremy Avatar
      Jeremy

      Correction for DL and UA’s numbers – reduction would be by ~33% each. AA’s capacity would go from ~100-> 150 while DL and UA would go from ~220->150

    2. Brett Avatar

      Jeremy – We know that Delta will use A321neos, American will use A321XLRs, and United will use 737-10 MAXs as their flagship transcon products with flat beds. What we don’t know is if that will replace everything or just go into the rotation with other fleets.

      For American, the current A321T fleet will be eliminated and reconfigured into the standard A321 configuration, so that is a full replacement. I doubt we will see anything but the XLR on those routes going forward.

      For Delta and United, I would imagine we may very well see an occasional widebody to help feed the hubs, at least for awhile. But I’m not sure even they know at this point.

  21. Brandon Avatar
    Brandon

    This was cool. Now you have me curious about the market for overall coast to coast. I’m guessing that Alaska is going to show up in a large way with the ability of their 737-800 / 900s (and then the Max versions) to reliably go from SEA and PDX to anywhere on the east coast. JetBlue will have the same pop from the east coast with the A320. I used to be in Portland, and was consistently impressed as a traveling consultant at the ability to go non-stop to Boston, NY, Philly, DC, Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando and later Miami from PDX, often on multiple airlines. As easy way to frame the analysis might be any stage length over 2,500 miles.

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