21 replies to this topic

[Squirrel]

With the American and Us Airways merger flying is going to get more expensive. First thing they will do is reduce capacity which will raise fares. Will be interesting to see what the Justice Department says. would not be surprised if they have to give up a hub or two, too get it passed them. Charlotte should be fine but will seem some reduction in flights. But it might open Charlotte up to other carriers to come in too.

[Panthro]

Southwest will come in and eat their lunch

[Scrumtrilescent]

When am I getting a NZ direct flight from LAX or Hawaii, Squirrel? Doing some work for people down there, and I'd feel much more comfortable handing them their data in person. Yeah, that's the ticket. And while I'm there, might as well stay a bit.

[Squirrel]

Hawaiian starts Auckland in the middle of March direct from Honolulu. Going down there at the end of march for a Familiarization ride. 3 day paid working vacation ftw.


Bad thing is trying to connect all teh way from the east coast to Auckland most likely will have to do a overnight in Honolulu.

Flight leaves out of Honolulu at 1345.

[Squirrel]

Southwest will come in and eat their lunch

That is what I was thinking, but dont know if Southwest would want two focus cities that close. They are probably going to ramp up Atlanta. Jetblue would be smart to move into Charlotte more.

[Zod]

high speed train is needed like they have been trying to do for a decade now.

[SCP]

I'm looking at tix to Indy right now that are double what they were last year

[Darth Biscuit]

high speed train is needed like they have been trying to do for a decade now.

Never happen, unless MAYBE on a small regional scale. Too much distance to cover.

[Squirrel]

I could see a east coast high speed trail. But you are right to much distants to cover. East coast to west coast would never work.

[Darth Biscuit]

I was approached by and engineering company 2 years ago and they had been tasked to look at HSR from ATL to CLT. The mapping (which is what I do) alone was gonna be like $2 million. Mapping is a literal drop in the bucket for a project like that...

The environmental hurdles that they would have to clear... the ROW issues... the actual construction of a track that could handle HSR... no way it would make money... and that's for what, 250 miles?

[Squirrel]

What would be the ride time from ATL-CLT on the HSR? That to me is the biggest factor on people riding it a long distants. Anything over 4 hours and people will either drive or fly. Instead of riding a train.

[Darth Biscuit]

What would be the ride time from ATL-CLT on the HSR? That to me is the biggest factor on people riding it a long distants. Anything over 4 hours and people will either drive or fly. Instead of riding a train.

Well I guess that depends on what kind of system it would be. I have no clue, but if you assume 120MPH, that's still 2 hours. Acela in the northeast runs at an avg speed of 84MPH google tells me... and gets up to 150 in places.

I would think that in between ATL and CLT you could run one up to 150 most of the time... so what's that, about 1.5 hours?

[Kevin Greene]

Hawaiian starts Auckland in the middle of March direct from Honolulu. Going down there at the end of march for a Familiarization ride. 3 day paid working vacation ftw.


Bad thing is trying to connect all teh way from the east coast to Auckland most likely will have to do a overnight in Honolulu.

Flight leaves out of Honolulu at 1345.

The wife is a Travel Agent and once got a 10 day all expense paid fam to Australia.





Bitch.

[Tensor]

Southwest will come in and eat their lunch

Southwest is already here in the form of ATA. They are rebranding all those planes soon to be SW...so SW planes will be in Charlotte, I think within the next year.

[Davidson Deac II]

Problem is that Southwest has become one of the more expensive airlines to fly, at least in North Carolina.

I have been searching for flights to Los Angeles this summer, and southwest was usually the most expensive airline out of raleigh. USAir tends to be more expensive out of Charlotte, but they have direct flights to many places. I finally ended up buying flights on Delta to LAX, direct flight and it was 50 bucks cheaper than any other airline, and a 100 bucks cheaper than Southwest.

Fwiw, I am not sure that the airline merger really will cause prices to go up. They said the same thing irt the other big mergers, and yet airline fares aren't much more than they were four years ago. IMO, the price of oil has much more of an impact than mergers.

And if the prices do go up, it will mean more discount airlines will move into areas dominated by the big boys. Case in point, Frontier airlines just announced flights from Greensboro to Denver at $198 round trip. From Denver, they have flights all over the western US.