United — Dropping Regionals in Favor of Mainlines, May Lose Two Hubs

Murdoughnut said:
Yeah, I think that's the problem - it's a connection between two major cities, when what we need are connections between major cities and smaller spoke cities.
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It works in a few cities in the NE. I live in the vacation destination of Albany, with the exception of UAL flights to EWR, no one flies between Albany and NYC anymore. Amtrak has that market cornered. The issue we seem to be running into though is the national railway system. It has many bottlenecks due to efficiencies created by the Big 4 and other smaller class railroads. I know in Florida at least the FEC railroad is self funding a high speed rail network that shows promise. If we as a nation can rely on cost/time efficient rail travel then I think we will embrace it. Too hard to tell though since there are very few corridors that have the market and ridership to justify the expense. I wish you the best of luck trying to develop a sustainable rail service.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Great idea in theory, but we don't do mass transit very well here in the US.....
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For urban mass transit to work, the transit has to go where the masses live and work. That has changed over time. With one glaring exception, it works in the northeast because (A.) it has been there a long time, (B.) Is used by lots of people, and (C.) Enough of the economic and residential development has molded itself to fit the transportation.

The exception is Philadelphia. The rail in center city works, but the commuter rail is hub-and-spoke, in a city where the number of jobs in downtown is vastly eclipsed by the suburban manufacturing and job growth since WWII. To get from your home to work 10 miles around the circumference, you have to go into the city, change, and go back out. Then take a short bus ride to the leafy green industrial park where your job is, which was not built along the rail line or near the station. I lived north of the city for a decade, and could take the train to PHL, equally far south of center city. Get the train in my little town, go into the city, change, and take another train out to the station conveniently in the airport terminal complex. Elapsed time: ninety minutes. I could drive it in half that time, so I never used the train for that trip in ten years.

The cost of building rail infrastructure is tremendously high, so unless the neighboring cities already have track laid and bridges built that haven't rusted out, Murdoughnut's ATL solution won't work economically. Luxury buses might. Or, mount all those CRJs in the desert on railroad trucks and reconnect the APUs to power them.:eek2:
 
Murdoughnut said:
The regionalis shouldn't exist because we should have high speed rail connecting cities within a 2-3 hour drive of metropolitan hubs.

ATL is the perfect example. Nobody should ever connect in Atlanta and get onto a flight to Augusta, Chattanooga, Columbus, etc. What we should have is a rail center connected to major hub airports that offer high speed transit to these outlying cities. The price of such a rail ticket should be included in the airfare so that airlines generate revenue from this multimodal transport model. Smaller cities should build rail infrastructure at their own airports to handle these arriving passengers.

It's a plan I'm working on :)
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Not happening in Atlanta. They are building toll lanes on a highway right now, rather than anything for rail expansion. It's clear where the priorities are. The airport doesn't make money if people are sent on their way by rail do they? Isn't there that documentary about small airports disappearing and how bad that is? I want to be able to fly to Augusta or Chattanooga or Columbus. I might be the only person that likes CRJ's. ;)
 
tcco94 said:
Why not just keep the same jets and etc but make the crews mainline and axe the regional company? Get rid of older aircraft (like CRJ-200 models) and make it a lot easier for passengers to understand who they're flying with....or is that what you're saying pretty much?

Then we don't have the "What airline am I flying?! It says Delta on the airplane!!!"
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"Acquired, not hired" is not a career plan.
 
Avgirl said:
Not happening in Atlanta. They are building toll lanes on a highway right now, rather than anything for rail expansion. It's clear where the priorities are. The airport doesn't make money if people are sent on their way by rail do they? Isn't there that documentary about small airports disappearing and how bad that is? I want to be able to fly to Augusta or Chattanooga or Columbus. I might be the only person that likes CRJ's. ;)
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35% of our revenue is from parking. Another 30% is concessions (retail/F&B). Regional airports that primarily serve GA anyways (such as AGS) could adapt their business to become rail/air centers concurrently, and still take in non-aeronautical revenues transferring folks to ATL. There's a model where this works, but it requires a lot of things, namely people who've spent their entire careers in airports buying into the idea that maybe their future isn't in the air. In the south there are definitely cultural hurdles, which you refer to.

I'ts just an idea of mine right now - I may try and publish something on it in the near future just to stake my claim to it.
 
Murdoughnut said:
35% of our revenue is from parking. Another 30% is concessions (retail/F&B). Regional airports that primarily serve GA anyways (such as AGS) could adapt their business to become rail/air centers concurrently, and still take in non-aeronautical revenues transferring folks to ATL. There's a model where this works, but it requires a lot of things, namely people who've spent their entire careers in airports buying into the idea that maybe their future isn't in the air. In the south there are definitely cultural hurdles, which you refer to.

I'ts just an idea of mine right now - I may try and publish something on it in the near future just to stake my claim to it.
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Might as well try. But when ATL seems to focus on the being the busiest airport in the world, that would take away that all important title. Kasim Reed wouldn't allow for that. Granted, after his appearance at the DNC, maybe his career will take him away from puny titles like Mayor. I just don't see that involvement changing no matter who is in office. :(
 
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If the entire regional model collapsed into a vortex of pain and suffering I would be soooo happy.
 
Murdoughnut said:
The regionalis shouldn't exist because we should have high speed rail connecting cities within a 2-3 hour drive of metropolitan hubs.

ATL is the perfect example. Nobody should ever connect in Atlanta and get onto a flight to Augusta, Chattanooga, Columbus, etc. What we should have is a rail center connected to major hub airports that offer high speed transit to these outlying cities. The price of such a rail ticket should be included in the airfare so that airlines generate revenue from this multimodal transport model. Smaller cities should build rail infrastructure at their own airports to handle these arriving passengers.

It's a plan I'm working on :)
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Hahahaha! ATL cant even get rail service to their new baseball stadium, and has the worst commute time in the country. High speed rail?? Lolololololol!
 
mastermags said:
Hahahaha! ATL cant even get rail service to their new baseball stadium, and has the worst commute time in the country. High speed rail?? Lolololololol!
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Not the worst...even if it feels like it some days! I don't know how I will get home when the new Braves stadium opens. Already turning into a big challenge.
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RDoug said:
United wants to reduce its 250 regionals to 100, replace them with 120- to 130-seat aircraft. LAX and IAD could follow Cleveland on their hub chopping block.

United Airlines may be poised to drop one of its hubs
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Murdoughnut said:
With apologies to the regional folks out there, dropping the regionals is a smart move, which is why Delta did it when the 717s came online.
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flybywp said:
It will be interesting to see what regionals will still be around and what the industry will look like come 2019. Wondering if AA will follow suit or stick with their plan of strengthening the wholly owned's.
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I think that the article title is a tad miss leading. United is planning to drop it's 50 seat feed, not all of its regionals. This has been planned for quite awhile, expect it to probably hurt XJT and TSA's bottom line, pretty hard. 76 seaters, will probably still be around for a bit longer. Forcing several regionals to shrink, merge or simply to go out of business.
 
If there was money to be made in passenger rail (or alternative energy, or biofuels, or....), you can bet there'd be someone there doing it. We are not short of people with the vision or desire to think up ways to try and make a dolla doing these things.

Additionally, once that alternative is cheaper and/or more convenient than the status quo, people will switch to that alternative lightning fast.

That's the nature of capitalism.
 
I can't possibly imagine high speed rail connecting airline hubs to most outstations they serve, the costs would be staggering. Paying for right of way, engineering your way through terrain (tunnels, bridges, etc) fighting NIMBYs, building the infrastructure and maintaining it doesn't seem like a profitable business model for anyone not backed up by the endless piggybank of taxpayer dollars.
AMTRAK in the northeast corridor was mentioned before, don't they have to yield the right of way to the freight companies that own the track? They're also never on time.

Positing it would be much easier to maintain an existing airport and service it with RJs. If demand drops, you leave, no catastrophic Big Rail bankruptcies, and a multi-use asset that the community can still profit from.
I'm thinking future technologies in aerospace, avionics and weather forecasting will be able to make up for the shortcomings of regional airline transportation, more so than to step back into the 1800s and "turn it up to 11"
 
bimmerphile said:
I can't possibly imagine high speed rail connecting airline hubs to most outstations they serve, the costs would be staggering. Paying for right of way, engineering your way through terrain (tunnels, bridges, etc) fighting NIMBYs, building the infrastructure and maintaining it doesn't seem like a profitable business model for anyone not backed up by the endless piggybank of taxpayer dollars.
AMTRAK in the northeast corridor was mentioned before, don't they have to yield the right of way to the freight companies that own the track? They're also never on time.

Positing it would be much easier to maintain an existing airport and service it with RJs. If demand drops, you leave, no catastrophic Big Rail bankruptcies, and a multi-use asset that the community can still profit from.
I'm thinking future technologies in aerospace, avionics and weather forecasting will be able to make up for the shortcomings of regional airline transportation, more so than to step back into the 1800s and "turn it up to 11"
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Amtrak owns most of the rails and right of way on the NE corridor. They give trackage rights to fright and other commuter railroads. On the east coast there are plenty of right of ways that have fallen into abandonment or slowly turning into rail trails. A lot of mail lines used to support 4+ rails when railroads used to run both freight and passenger traffic. I know in California there is a lot of resistance from communities in northern Los Angeles county who are upset with the idea high speed rail lines will be in their community. It is going to take more than building it and hoping people will come. There needs to be a cultural shift in thinking in order for people to embrace high speed rail.
 
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Hacker15e said:
If there was money to be made in passenger rail (or alternative energy, or biofuels, or....), you can bet there'd be someone there doing it. We are not short of people with the vision or desire to think up ways to try and make a dolla doing these things.

Additionally, once that alternative is cheaper and/or more convenient than the status quo, people will switch to that alternative lightning fast.

That's the nature of capitalism.
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bimmerphile said:
I can't possibly imagine high speed rail connecting airline hubs to most outstations they serve, the costs would be staggering. Paying for right of way, engineering your way through terrain (tunnels, bridges, etc) fighting NIMBYs, building the infrastructure and maintaining it doesn't seem like a profitable business model for anyone not backed up by the endless piggybank of taxpayer dollars.
AMTRAK in the northeast corridor was mentioned before, don't they have to yield the right of way to the freight companies that own the track? They're also never on time.

Positing it would be much easier to maintain an existing airport and service it with RJs. If demand drops, you leave, no catastrophic Big Rail bankruptcies, and a multi-use asset that the community can still profit from.
I'm thinking future technologies in aerospace, avionics and weather forecasting will be able to make up for the shortcomings of regional airline transportation, more so than to step back into the 1800s and "turn it up to 11"
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It requires government to step in to create the infrastructure through imminent domain - but that's not unlike the airline business. No public money to build airports, no airline industry.

The thing about a hub/spoke rail system is that it wouldn't exclusively be a means of transporting air passengers - it would also be a traditional rail line. As more people move beyond the cities due to rising costs and population gains, connectivity to low cost, outlying areas becomes more valuable.

And we're not talking all outstations by any means. I'm more or less talking about areas that would otherwise be a 2-4 hour drive. I used Atlanta as a good example because of how many cities nearby fit in that range - Charlotte too.

Imagine if Denver had high speed rail connecting DEN to Pueblo/Colorado Springs to the south, and Cheyenne/Fort Collins to the north. Mostly barren flat land on that side.
 
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