Air Canada JFK Route Rumors

We're listening to dots, lines and destinations, a travel podcast withith host Stehen C. Grapes, Fazma Moon Hello and welcome to episode five hundred and ninety four Dots Lines and Destinations. I'm Steven Seagraves, joined by Mr. Phazma Mood today Good evening Sh is He's celebrating his anniversary. So for him by going to the same baseball stadium that he and I went to just a few days ago. Were you celebrating his anniversary with him the other day? No. we were just talking about planes and other stuff Well, how was Manchester? It's an interesting place, man N Hampshire is a vi Oh yeah, but how's the airp The airport's great. It's great little airport. Enjoyed it thoroughly Good alnative good alternative to Logan Oh yeah, and the drive was much easier. I didn't take three down Re corctic, this is the toll road. I took ninety Born eighty five. Well, three, you have to take from, I guess depends on where you are. Th is only a total road north of the airport I think not south of the airport if F remember correctly. Okay Yeah was it was' bad. I mean it's a great little airport. Avis stayed open for me. We'll talk about that on the bonus topics about A my experience Um, but yeah, How you doing lain No no travels Recently No Noally Wh are you going tomorrow Vegas Oh, you got to check into the Hotel, don't you well that and go see potentially. You're gonna to go see Ed? You probably have Starlinked on your flight then and our other friend or acquaintance, if you will What? I think someone who lives there Why do you keep going to Vegas The Rio All right, some news, some delta news. So the trarainer facility, which is a refinery near Philadelphia which they're ref the only refinery they own It's the only refinery that they own. It's the only airline owned refinery that I know of. had a fire I think it's out now. hasn't really been talk about much, but it's out now, but they had a pretty large fire Yeah, I was driving by it. Thats like that's why I texted you because I was driving by it. I'm like, that black smoke is not supposed to be there lack smoke at a refinery, usually not good Well, the thing is there's like two or three refineries right next to each other in that area So I might I thought that it was the trainer one and my gut was right. Um, and it's it's the one that's owned by Monroe Energy, which is a subsidiary of Delta and it's mostly jet fuel and some other transortation fuel but it's mostly j fuel U, and it was one of the cracker units. so It sounds like maybe the Kracker unit had an outage and then when they brought it back online, it caught fire We'll see what happens Will this be what causes Delta to get out of the refinery business I don't know. I feel like I feel like this is actually during this time, like where we're at with gas prices and fuel supply, being able to produce your own jet fuel is actually quite nice, evenven if it does catch fire every now and. But you still need the oil to bake the jet fuel Yeah but you can get the oil Some of the onees from Damam, but a lot of it comes from other parts and other places around the world Doesn't that one that refinery heavy crude, though which like the the Sams, the trainer one Where did you use the sand oil Oh yeah, that so then yeah, they can definitely take thing take tar sans then yeah, they're good. They have to pay a little bit more, but truck it down from T train it down from Alberta. Yeah no big deal Well just the question is how will this impact Delta's operation at JFK H where do you Right. There's an outage. The whole reason they bought this refinery allegedly was to reduce their cost burden. at their New York presence. none of thetles articles I see say anything about a shutdown of the whole facility So if it's one cracking unit, that's probably a quarter of the capacity So a slowdown, not a shutdown So Maybe you'll see less fuel or They'll have to bring some fuel in at JFK Right O don't I don't think it ever produced enough fuel for all of their flights but a lot of it but some substantial amounts so they're going to have to go to the street to bu to buy fuel. So I wonder how that impacts Yeah, I think that would that probably hurts a little bit Um And then in kind of strange news Delta is going to start LA Newark O a domestic configured three hundred and twenty one And to be clear, the only reason they're doing this on the three hundred and twenty one is because on the domestic three hundred and twenty one is because they don't have the liI flat seats configured, right I don't think that's necessarily the case because you They're not flying the forty four seat one Oh Okay They're flying a regular domestic three hundred and twenty one So it means it will not have premium economy Interesting So the question then becomes like and twice a day, like Ed and I were going back and forth on this and Ed thinks it's going to be a big, it's going to be an impact on United. I'm like this is ankle biting to United Yeah, I mean, what's the point, right of flying? Is this simply to pick up traffic for some of their long haul stuff out of LA So Delta a few weeks ago Someone from Delta was quoted as saying, they have a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a hub at LAX And so they're going to try to really like be dominant there. I think they're going to end up giving up just like the last time last two or three times they've tried building a hub at LAX No one owns LAX. That's the reality of it. And I don't think any one airline will be able to own LX Time will tell, but A whopping two flights a day with a domestic configured plane I don't really see an impact on the market.s If anything, it'll just feel fill in some of the void that Chee Llue is leaving U The irony is I started looking at pricing They're pricing like United, but their offering is like Alaska. Yeah, I mean, you can't do that on a Tance gun. likeike you can't like United Coastliner Pricing is two thousand dollars Ish round trip and J Um If you're doing that for a domestic seat No one's going to pay that. They're going to go to United Yeah. well and on both ends, you get pololararsis access So if you're you're going If you're going to fly that flight and you're going to do it on domestic F, you should be charging I don't know, five hundred bucks Yeah, so I looked at a in April when A couple of weeks after Delta launches these fights Um, United and Delta were around fourteen hundred oneay. Alaska is at seven hundred price race And Alaska will fill those seats. He well will because they're pricing it appropriately Do you think eventually Delta brings in life flat seats here Like do you think they could throw a seven six on it? I think they'll try I don't think they'd throw a seven six. The seven sixes are leaving slowly Right And they they just need them for the international s likeike the reason JFK gets LA JFK LA gets all these seven six is because they go from JFK beyond to Europe. they would have to dedicate a bird to do LA., Newark at that point, or do ferry flights from Newark to JFK I don't think they could do like a meanah, maybe they could do like an A three hundred fifty or something That's really like maybe you could do the morning flight out of Newark to LA to catch the Sydney departure that they have Well, it would be the evening flight, not the morning. Okay Nonetheless, I don't The Prom is The two flights a day doesn't give you many options Right, when United has a flight almost hourly Right. And the United offering is wide body. United will also have Starlink These are all and United has a dominant position at Newark I mean, I come back to my previous point, which is you think they're doing this just to get the feed for LA. and they're like, hey, well only use two flights a day And it'll take enough away from United and their connection operation at LA for us to do better L o Fed to Sydney, what else? All of Asia, like their Shanghai flight. Okay, so let's think about this. Sydney starting in April is low season Doesn't make sense What about Haneda? What about the new flight to the rumored flight to Manila and the flight to they're rumored to go to Singapore all definitely impossible Right? The problem is Delta doesn't really have a cashmind of customers in New Jersey G you. Right? That's the fundament like United has the people flying LA Newer. Jenary and either end or United Flyers Yeah Right. So they andA United has had market dominance in LA. for a long time Right notot just LA., but Southern California becausecauseuse it's not just Eiot, right? It's the L.A basasin and beyond I mean, so how do you think United responds to this There's nothing. I don't think United needs to do anything Right? That's the reality. And I think Alaska is the one most at risk They should bump up their transc service out of Seattle But to your other question, right? L about live flats Look at Seattle JFK Delta can't commit life fls to that route. And that's in theory a hub to hub route R? Why would they do it here Fair enough, that's a good point. Um, other story, Bastian The CEO of Delta. U, he was on Fox businessus And he said Here's what he said for U pricing and why prices haven't fall. People ask me all the time, what's happening with prices? Bashion told Fox Business, Maria, B Bar T Romo. You can never pronounce her name in an exclusive entgity in Tuesday. Prices will come down when we can fly more. When there's more supply, it's a supply and demand Right now, we're kind of log jammed. There's a lot of supply we can bring in because air we can't bring in because the air traffic control system is congested. As you open up the skies and you bring in more flow, that's going to help bring pricing down and enable us to bring more people to more places. I have I have a lot of comments As do I So O ATC is not the log jam at some point you reach capacity And you're just not able to fit the planes the airport It's finite space If you had infinite supply You would run out of space So prices will never do what he's saying. The other thing I want to say is They don't they don't have the planes E if they wanted to do what like what we just talked about LA. Newark, they don't have the planes to do more So it's not an ATC. It seems like he's kind of like grasping at straws to try and get the government to do something to help him out. That's not. That's exactly what he's doing. He's try to get the public to turn on the government Yeah. right. we need we need no inir traffic control We rememove the slack controls at JFK And it's just going to make the problem much much worse at JFK. The reality is and what all the airlines fail to do is you can add capacity by upgauging. But nobody wants to do that because it cost money It costs money. But it'll not just not just going to cost money It will drive down prices That's the bigger driver R right? It's over Yeah, they're perfect fine with high prices. Yeah But it works to their advantage It's a BS excuse people unfortunately will buy and not reallyig dig into Yeah, I did not I did not like his comments. He really comes He really thinks people are stupid, I feel like. But people are stupid. That's true So the last as someone recently said to me Person is smart People are stupid Lastly about Delta, they're opening a second Delta One lounge at LAX Allegedly, it's coming soon Where Where was where's this going I don't know. I mean, they have two terminals, right? They have two and three now Yeah, I guess they have one and if they have one and each, it's it's no big deal I guess. I mean are both connected to immigration Uh I think so, but I don't know I don't fly Delta, so I actually wouldn't really know. And Iven't been to that site of LAX and God knows how long. I think three is. I flew through there I feel like it is, but I can't remember if two is. Um, maybe. I think there's a connector now, but I would be like a long walk A very long to go from, but two might have had immigration before because International Airlines did fly out of it. That's true Beuse a lot of the Everything but one I think, had immigration at some point, one in eight. That's right I think you might be right. I'm like looking here I don't see anything like notated on the terminal map, but I think you might be right 'Cause I know like all the Y body stuff leaves out of three or has historically left out of three Okay Um, And allegedly, Atlanta will finally get a lounge and twenty twenty nine Which is wild to me that your premier hub doesn't have a Delta one lounge H But there's no competition. Why invest Why invest in newer Wh hadt united build a Be don't because what well United because you have to compete with JFK And United has a different approach then Dota Delan Delta as much Traffic as they shove through Atlanta does not get a lot of love right from a facility standpoint So but that's because they have ninety plus percent of the market share Okay, then why why build a pololaris lougeet? u ohH Why was it so small for so long Why build one intercontinental? because United took a different approach. Like look at how far behind the premium lounge game delta is right United led with that United American led with that R Delta is years behind us They're trying to play catchup. right. And so if you're Delta, are you going to invest in the lounge where it might be a market differentiator versus where it's not going to matter ue I also wonder if they struggle with where to put it in Atlanta because their flights leave from everywhere. But the international ones are generally E andF Tue Yeah, I guess you're right Do Skyclubs still have showers Maybe we should start flying Dlta. Market research. Oh Gods no Don't like that. Why As a whole, I don't view Delta as a safe airline We can get into that another day Okay But I just saf and like is like a safety like Yeah, like the most startling thing was a couple of years ago. There was, I think a prog to JFK flight. They lost control of the plane somewhere over Northeast Canada figured out something was freezing and rather than diverting, they kept finding a JFK , that's where you can service your jet Yeah, but if you lose control and you suddenly get controlll, get down on the ground as quickly as possible. Yeah Yeah. Okaykay. Um, All right Air Canada. There's a rumor that Air Canada is not going to return to JFK. from Toronto. and Montreal Uh, this is kind of sad. I mean Well but they didn't fly a ton of flights from Montreal and Toronto to JFK, right And then the reason they flew it was all connecting tracks It was ant O andD to like to like the European carriers and stuff to go to Europe No. actuallyually the other way around. For people would go search for JFK thinking at's a synonymous New York airport And they would never see anything from Air Cana as an option Or if you book like, you know, as an example, you're coming from somewhere in Europe to JFK, you book an itinerary on Brussels, it wouldn't show up on the way back Gotcha So it was really about connecting flow. It wasn't about O and D So they they do these flights. I mean, they still have the Lagordia flights, which they fly like once an hour or maybe a little bit a little bit less than that, but very frequently and then they fly Newark And they also find L Guardia Billy Bishop Oh that's right on their Q four hundreds. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so they you think they'll just sell like if you search for JFK, they'll show you results for all the other airports I don't I mean, I don't you have if you do NYC, you'll see the other airports. I don't know if you'll see it for JFK Do mean there's not going be an option then to get to JFK. No, but and the other thing is like that only makes sense when you're booking through them What if you're booking through like Lefty or Brussels or Swiss? Yeah or go to the other side A and A. Wh which Swiss and Luftana both fly to JFK and Ner So big of a It much for people sorry. Interesting. Who do you think gets the slots at JFK then I mean, look I don't know if it's like Heathrow, but Air Canada like United could buy them through a private agreement Where did the Aana operate out of? I want to say four, but I'm not sure Get on that serium I a hess? I't I don't think United wants to operate out of four do you No, they were out of seven. which is gone now Is it g yet Is it not? That's what I'm confused about. Like I don't think it's gone yet I think, um Who's gone I think the the East end of the airport is going to get dealt with first the south end depending on how you look at it Okay where one, two and three are. I think that's gonna be done first ANA Airlingus, Condor, Frontier, Iceland Air, Kuwait Airways, and Norse all U use seven Data And frontier. It's supposed to it's scheduled to close in twenty twenty seven Okay, so we think got another year. And by then six is supposed to be open, I think. Yes It its closure and demolition will coincide with T six fininishing So I mean, I guess that's where United used to fly out of it would actually work Wait, is Alaska not out of there now? No, they're out of the U T Also United can get its own land space back. There you go What What's old is new again? Exactly spent a lot of time in that lounge. So what would they what would they do? Yeah, delayed Um, So what would they out you? Lots of delays in that louge delayed every day Um would they do like once a day between JFK in San Francisco and L.A. again. I think it' be at least twice because I think AC was running four flights a day. Okay. So it'd be like the old days, it'd be like R those flights ended at, you know, twenty twenty two ish Uh, United flights. so it'd be like twenty twenty two all over again in be super interesting . Oonder they consider Wonder if they we consider it coastline or service I mean, I think they would have to I sit with a seven six again. Oh What they would do is they put a three hundred and twenty one non premium seats And that's with how they would apply it. just to stick it to Dlta No, I don't see them doing that I don't see them doing that. I think. I mean about candidly, I wouldn't be surprised if they ran a wide buddy if it's only a couple fights a day Like a triple seven O seven eight C that'd be better than any product Elta has Um, London City is getting a lounge Yes, it is I don't know I don't know if we should be excited about this I'm a little concerned because The whole thing of London City is You show up just in time for your flight Exactly. A lounge and like so now if there's a lounge, are you encouraging people to come sooner, which The building does not have space to have more people in it. Yeah, it's kind of like you clear security and you're sitting in a giant lounge whole airport is alone Yeah, so I don't understand And this is this is going to be a part of aspire lounges. so it will be a priority pass lounge Um, And I just U Air can had three flights to JFK. We three three sets of slots. so to to Toronto and one to Montreal. So it' mayaybe two to Sanrancisco in Deliia to start There you go U, so I don't know. I'm kind of with you like Part of London City is beauty of it is showing up just before your flight and just getting on the plane and going. and all the flights within that are from London City are like two hours in linkedI at max Um Like. Unless they're going to bring back London City shhanon to JFK. That would be amazing would I would take that flight since I haven't been able to do it. I was going to do it and then I had to cancel Do you think a seven fif two could take off their runway Oh yeah Half loaded? abbsolutely Like all business config? Absolutely. Who's got a seven five two to do that though. United, United I mean, that's the thing about the Rolls Royce ones, right? They' wayay more powerful than the Prnt Whitney one I think the problem will be landing. It is a very short runway with a very, very steep I don't think you can get the seven fifty two slow enough Don't think you can configure it. I'll try it in the flight simulator. I'll give it a shot the shot. See how it goes I mean, didn't someone startfing a three hundred twenty into era recently? No, they don't allow three hundred twenty s Remember, there's noise restrictions. I thought someone flew a three hundred twenty in there recently. I think the three hundred eighteen' the biggest you can fly. Let me see, London City now gonna look this up. Sorry, we're doing this on a fly. Guess, our audience Let see restrictions Uh, A two twenty U to the size of an HU twenty an E two are permitted So they've submitted an application for A three hundred twenty s Blendon City Airport is actively seeking money Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I remember.s the approach is very steep But they're actually requesting a shallower landing in a approach angle too Yeah because they're going to lengthen the runway, I think is part of it they want to link them normwally So there you go There you go. United could start it United could start it I wonder if the three hundred twenty includes the three hundred and twenty on But I think the three hundred twenty one will have a harder time getting up there three twenty one doesn't have enough power So what do they do reconfigure a seven hundred fifty two with all business class and premium economy The old PS config There you go There you go. I like this. I like the way you think U Allright, what else you got Oh, yeah. there was a triple seven. So it's in cargo livery. But it is not owned by Cutter carargo It is going to be owned by utter Cargo is actually owned by a company called U Jet Tan and limited liability And it was being converted to a freighter by Mammoth freighters So it was originally a deelta seven seven two hundred LR and was being converted into a freighter four cutter And as part of its's like delivery back down to one of the facilities It did a low pass over Horseshe Bay Resort. on the twenty fourth of June. This thing was it was super low ike Oh I think it was seconds from disaster And the pilot banked and then pulled up and it was, I mean, you're talking one of the wingtips was probably three to four feet off the ground It's a fascinating video if you haven't seen itet Yes, everyone thought it was fake at first because it's so low. and then someone they pulled up the data and it is real. It's a very real Cutter was not happy about this U they put out a press release around it U It was not our airplane, It was not under the operation of a cutter pilot Um I think someone got yelled at for this doing this. Well, and you know was stage because the video is clearly someone on the ground expecting it. and also someone else filming it as though they're expecting it to happen. Yes Oh yeah, totally. And so I think cutters it's one of these things of like You know, airlines even after accidents didn't want like their tail. livery shown on the news, so they would cover it typically with a tart This is this looks really bad. L this looks U I would say derelict or dangerous or I don't know the word to use. It looks irresponsible by Qutter and that's probably why they are upset about it. So the question is, will they now take delivery of this? I think they will. They've paid for it So why not I don't think they've paid for it yet You don't think so you don only think they put a down payment on and paid the conversion H I doubt they have fully paid for it. Okay I think they still take it though. I mean, they want they need the planes All right, but I mean, it gives them negotiating power, right op off Jop off a million And God knows if there's others that are being converted right now And that just works in their favor in that regards as well. Yeah, yeah Mammoth Freighters put out a statement as well and j jetw jet tran. Jet transrans is interesting. We are aware of a video circulated on social media showing a freighter conducting a low pass flight in a manner that does not reflect operational standards. While the aircraft is painted in utter Airways livery, it was not owned or operated by Qutter Airways did not carry a Qutter Airways registration, and the pilots on board were not utter Airways pilots The aircraft was undergoing a final pre delivery test flight prior to its planned entry into the Qutar Airways cargo fleet. We expect the relevant parties and authorities to investigate this matter thoroughly and take appropriate action Why aren't you investigating? It's your pilot. They probably are, but they if they said that, then they would be admitting that they're responsible Exactly. So Very, very interesting Um Anthing anything else? you want to talk about? I think we've rambled enough. I'll just remind folks the Points Travel Festival Pacific Northwest, which is in Portland is coming july thirty first through august first this year so you can look for links to that and be on the lookout U Yeahah. and in the in the bonus topic for our Patrons support, when we' talk about Alaska website just not working pereriod end of story. I mean, that's the whole story. So a little Yeah we just covered the entire story right there. Yeah. And then I want to talk a little bit about American. Weve spent a lot of time on Delton United today, but I want to talk a little bit about American and my trips that I had to Manchester And then we talk about the crash in Beijing So stick around for that. If you're a patreon supporter, if not Thanks for listening, and we will talk to you next time, Happy traravels. Take care