Impact on Amtrak of CO/UA Merger

[jis]

The DoJ has completed its investigation into the CO/UA merger and has approved it subject to CO/UA leasing 18 round trip slots at EWR to Southwest Airlines.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38886914/ns/business-us_business/

CO/UA has agreed to lease the slots as required by DoJ. So the issue that CO/UA has to deal with is to find 18 slots that are currently occupied by CO/UA flights and vacate them for leasing to SWA.

The speculation is CO/UA will pick short distance flight slots like flights to Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre and such.

This opens up a potential opportunity for Amtrak, some of which it can easily cash in on with some minor changes.

1. The Philly to EWR flights are mostly to feed into CO flights out of EWR with Philly O/D passengers. This can be very adequately served by an Amtrak codeshare replacing the 4 daily roundtrips thus releasing 4 slots. In addition Amtrak could consider doing codeshare with SWA to feed EWR/New York O/D to its PHL O/D flights and vice versa, thought this latter seems less likely given SWA's operating philosophy.

2. Similarly, the 4 daily RT to Harrisburg can be replaced by Amtrak codeshare releasing those slots. but this will require at least select Keystones to stop at EWR. Perhaps it may be a good idea to have many of them stop and be co-listed as UA flights. If this is done then it should be an obvious extension of this to make Lancaster a codeshare location too.

Now the risks that arise for Amtrak is if SWA starts EWR - BWI flights. Current speculation is they may do as many os 5 RT per day to feed their flights out of BWI. This could have an impact on Amtrak's BWI ridership from the NYC area. The speculation is SWA will not waste slots on EWR - PVD. Of course we will know for sure in Feb 2011 when this goes into effect.

Other impact on New York are rail ops likely is on Atlantic City and service to Atlantic City. Speculation is that SWA will start at least twice daily RT to Las Vegas. If you can get to Las Vegas for not a huge amount more than what is charged to get to Atlantic City, why bother with Atlantic City when you can go to the real thing?

The other thing that is almost certain is that SWA will do at least 2x to Denver, which has little impact on Amtrak or rail operations. But it opens up the Denver route to competition which is currently almost 100% dominated by CO/UA out of EWR. But this is getting OT, so I'll stop here.

The ultimate dream rail service in addition would be a service between Ronkonkoma LI (Islip McArthur) and Philadelphia Airport with stops at Jamaica (JFK), NYP, Newark, EWR, Metropark, Trenton and Philadlephia 30th St. That will connect 4 significant airports in the area with easy transfer opening up all sorts of additional convenience for people coming into and departing from this area.But we know that this is extremely unlikely to happen unless a bunch of airlines take it upon themselves to fund such.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

1. The Philly to EWR flights are mostly to feed into CO flights out of EWR with Philly O/D passengers. This can be very adequately served by an Amtrak codeshare replacing the 4 daily roundtrips thus releasing 4 slots.

That seems quite reasonable, with the 30th Street Station to Newark Airport train time being a minute or two over an hour. (It would be nice if the Northeast Regional would stop at the terminal instead of having the AirTrain transfer, but there's not much that can easily be done about that at this point.)

2. Similarly, the 4 daily RT to Harrisburg can be replaced by Amtrak codeshare releasing those slots. but this will require at least select Keystones to stop at EWR. Perhaps it may be a good idea to have many of them stop and be co-listed as UA flights. If this is done then it should be an obvious extension of this to make Lancaster a codeshare location too.

The other potential drawback to that is that Harrisburg to Newark Airport looks like about 3 hours by train, and I suspect the plane takes under an hour.

The ultimate dream rail service in addition would be a service between Ronkonkoma LI (Islip McArthur) and Philadelphia Airport with stops at Jamaica (JFK), NYP, Newark, EWR, Metropark, Trenton and Philadlephia 30th St. That will connect 4 significant airports in the area with easy transfer opening up all sorts of additional convenience for people coming into and departing from this area.But we know that this is extremely unlikely to happen unless a bunch of airlines take it upon themselves to fund such.

I suspect a train like that would find that the airport to airport station pairs will not get much traffic. If you need more than one long haul flight to complete your trip, you can probably book it in a way that avoids a long train transfer in most cases.

I wonder how hard it would be to get NJT to run the Trenton to Ronkonkoma subset (or even Trenton to Jamacia as a starting point) of that at least outside of peak commuting hours, as a variation on NJT's NEC trains. It seems like it would probably need a dual mode diesel/catenary locomotive, which presumably will be reserved for non-NEC lines during peak commuting hours, and it might have more intermediate stops in New Jersey than you are asking for. (And of course, there is the problem that someone would have to subsidize it. I suppose in addition to considering asking the airlines directly for money, there is the question of whether JFK Airport would be interested in paying to extend some NJT service to Jamacia.)

 

[railiner]

I doubt that SWA getting those slots at EWR will have any impact at all on Amtrak, but rather on the other air carriers at EWR or NYC airports.

 

[jis]

2. Similarly, the 4 daily RT to Harrisburg can be replaced by Amtrak codeshare releasing those slots. but this will require at least select Keystones to stop at EWR. Perhaps it may be a good idea to have many of them stop and be co-listed as UA flights. If this is done then it should be an obvious extension of this to make Lancaster a codeshare location too.

The other potential drawback to that is that Harrisburg to Newark Airport looks like about 3 hours by train, and I suspect the plane takes under an hour.

But still it would make sense for CO/UA to use slots that are currently used for places that can be ground connected even though for a little longer time of transit, than to use more lucrative cross country and long distance slots. Hence the thought. Not because it will be time equivalent with the air service.

The ultimate dream rail service in addition would be a service between Ronkonkoma LI (Islip McArthur) and Philadelphia Airport with stops at Jamaica (JFK), NYP, Newark, EWR, Metropark, Trenton and Philadlephia 30th St. That will connect 4 significant airports in the area with easy transfer opening up all sorts of additional convenience for people coming into and departing from this area.But we know that this is extremely unlikely to happen unless a bunch of airlines take it upon themselves to fund such.

I suspect a train like that would find that the airport to airport station pairs will not get much traffic. If you need more than one long haul flight to complete your trip, you can probably book it in a way that avoids a long train transfer in most cases.

Considering how many people that I know who actually do the connection transfer between EWR and JFK and extrapolating, it would not be a very small number between EWR and Jamaica. Also remember, this will also serve as the better airport connector train out of NYP and Newark and at least all the way out to Trenton, with better baggage facilities etc. So I'd expect very significant ridership coming from NY area O/D passengers in addition.

I wonder how hard it would be to get NJT to run the Trenton to Ronkonkoma subset (or even Trenton to Jamacia as a starting point) of that at least outside of peak commuting hours, as a variation on NJT's NEC trains. It seems like it would probably need a dual mode diesel/catenary locomotive, which presumably will be reserved for non-NEC lines during peak commuting hours, and it might have more intermediate stops in New Jersey than you are asking for. (And of course, there is the problem that someone would have to subsidize it. I suppose in addition to considering asking the airlines directly for money, there is the question of whether JFK Airport would be interested in paying to extend some NJT service to Jamacia.)

The problem with NJT is that it will have to use its sluggish equipment and the train will take record time (as in large amount of time) to make the trip' This sort of a service to be world class will need catenary/third rail EMU. Look at all the really good airport connector services in the rest of the world. They are all high performance EMUs

I doubt that SWA getting those slots at EWR will have any impact at all on Amtrak, but rather on the other air carriers at EWR or NYC airports.

As I said, any service that SWA starts from EWR to other NEC points will have an impact on Amtrak NEC (specially Acela) ridership, not as in reducing, but as in not increasing as much as it could, I'll grant you. The effect on other airlines at Newark will be mostly in terms of downward pressure on fares, but not necessarily in terms of significant loss of riderships. This would at least be true for CO/UA. Some secondary legacy airlines may get forced out of the Newark market. The other LCCs in Newark will just continue doing fine. It is not like SWA will be able to compete in every market out of Newark with only 18 slots, and it is not likely that they will be able tog et a huge number of additional slots in short order. And Newark, unlike most airports that SWA serves is slot restricted.

 

[saxman]

I may start dreaming here, but would love to see more codesharing in Chicago or California. Granted no other United hubs have an Amtrak stop right now it could happen. I know there are plans for HSR connections at ORD and would great for codesharing.

 

[amamba]

PHL-PVD is one route that SWA has distinct price advantages over amtrak on. I wonder what it would do the train market to have PVD-EWR on SWA available, but I have to say, I would much rather take a 3 hour city center to city center acela ride than be stuck out in EWR when I have business in Manhattan.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

2. Similarly, the 4 daily RT to Harrisburg can be replaced by Amtrak codeshare releasing those slots. but this will require at least select Keystones to stop at EWR. Perhaps it may be a good idea to have many of them stop and be co-listed as UA flights. If this is done then it should be an obvious extension of this to make Lancaster a codeshare location too.

The other potential drawback to that is that Harrisburg to Newark Airport looks like about 3 hours by train, and I suspect the plane takes under an hour.

But still it would make sense for CO/UA to use slots that are currently used for places that can be ground connected even though for a little longer time of transit, than to use more lucrative cross country and long distance slots. Hence the thought. Not because it will be time equivalent with the air service.

Especially when we consider the travelers willing to buy the more expensive seats, though, will people originating in Harrisburg and Lancaster prefer to fly to some other airline's hub if they can take a one hour flight to some other hub instead of a three hour train ride to Newark Airport?

Do United's 18 round trips a day duplicate existing Continental service at Newark to any extent?

The ultimate dream rail service in addition would be a service between Ronkonkoma LI (Islip McArthur) and Philadelphia Airport with stops at Jamaica (JFK), NYP, Newark, EWR, Metropark, Trenton and Philadlephia 30th St. That will connect 4 significant airports in the area with easy transfer opening up all sorts of additional convenience for people coming into and departing from this area.But we know that this is extremely unlikely to happen unless a bunch of airlines take it upon themselves to fund such.

I suspect a train like that would find that the airport to airport station pairs will not get much traffic. If you need more than one long haul flight to complete your trip, you can probably book it in a way that avoids a long train transfer in most cases.

Considering how many people that I know who actually do the connection transfer between EWR and JFK and extrapolating, it would not be a very small number between EWR and Jamaica. Also remember, this will also serve as the better airport connector train out of NYP and Newark and at least all the way out to Trenton, with better baggage facilities etc. So I'd expect very significant ridership coming from NY area O/D passengers in addition.

Do those trips tend to be domestic flight - train - international flight where the two different flights are on two different carriers?

And do people take the train ride to save money, or is that really the fastest possible routing with the current air route structure?

I wonder how hard it would be to get NJT to run the Trenton to Ronkonkoma subset (or even Trenton to Jamacia as a starting point) of that at least outside of peak commuting hours, as a variation on NJT's NEC trains. It seems like it would probably need a dual mode diesel/catenary locomotive, which presumably will be reserved for non-NEC lines during peak commuting hours, and it might have more intermediate stops in New Jersey than you are asking for. (And of course, there is the problem that someone would have to subsidize it. I suppose in addition to considering asking the airlines directly for money, there is the question of whether JFK Airport would be interested in paying to extend some NJT service to Jamacia.)

The problem with NJT is that it will have to use its sluggish equipment and the train will take record time (as in large amount of time) to make the trip' This sort of a service to be world class will need catenary/third rail EMU. Look at all the really good airport connector services in the rest of the world. They are all high performance EMUs

Is there any O/D city pair one can put into some website and get it to propose an airplane - train - airplane routing along these lines?

 

[jis]

Especially when we consider the travelers willing to buy the more expensive seats, though, will people originating in Harrisburg and Lancaster prefer to fly to some other airline's hub if they can take a one hour flight to some other hub instead of a three hour train ride to Newark Airport?

An add-on leg to an international flight or transcon leg is not that expensive usually. I have no idea if people would like to spend two hours on a train, or instead spend an hour doing TSA shenanigans followed by an hour block to block time for these short hop flights.

Do United's 18 round trips a day duplicate existing Continental service at Newark to any extent?

Some of them do. Specially the EWR - SFO and EWR - ORD. THos will both probably get upsized to 757. EWR -IAD is not duplicated. But those flights will get upsized to at least 737, since EWR - IAD will now become a hub to hub connecting flight.

Do those trips tend to be domestic flight - train - international flight where the two different flights are on two different carriers?

Today they tend to be domestic - airline connect bus - international, sometimes different interlined airlines and sometimes even the same airline.

And do people take the train ride to save money, or is that really the fastest possible routing with the current air route structure?

There is no convenient train to take today, so no they don;t take trains.

Is there any O/D city pair one can put into some website and get it to propose an airplane - train - airplane routing along these lines?

No. There is precious little convenient service to make it worth anyone's while to put together such a web site in the US. There are scads of such in Europe.