News and notes from around the interweb:
- I argued (somewhat controversially) that Buffalo isn’t going to get transatlantic flights any time soon but they will be getting seasonal service to Miami.
- Well, duh: British Airways has huge first class cabins and an inferior first class product. Is anyone surprised they aren’t selling out?
Walsh: BA's paid first class load factor is under 50% #WorldRoutes
— Will Horton (@winglets747) September 24, 2017
- American will be running a Boeing 777-300ER from New York JFK to Buenos Aires and back January 8 to February 13. That means more seats, three cabin first, and access to Flagship Dining for first class passengers.
- Hong Kong Airlines has filed its flight schedule to serve San Francisco. They also plan to fly to New York and London.
- New app lets you pay to use the bathroom in New York City I guess this is the next extension in the sharing economy, monetizing underutilized resources.
- Things I didn’t know but learned in this week’s Airline Weekly: that Warsaw is the fastest-growing airport in Europe, and Saudia has a new low cost carrier subsidiary Flyadeal.
- Hotel occupancy and prices are up year-over-year and shocker (no doubt some will complain) where there’s the biggest increase in demand there’s the biggest increase in price…
In comparison with the week of 11-17 September 2016, the industry recorded the following:
Occupancy: +0.5% to 72.2%
Average daily rate (ADR): +1.4% to US$131.50
Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +1.8% to US$94.97Among the Top 25 Markets, Houston, Texas, reported the largest year-over-year increases in occupancy (+43.3% to 87.8%) and RevPAR (+58.6% to US$103.24). Amid recovery from Hurricane Harvey, Houston also posted an ADR increase of 10.7% to US$117.63.
Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida, posted the second-highest lift in occupancy (+13.8% to 70.3%), that coupled with the highest increase in ADR (+14.1% to US$119.06), led the second-largest jump in RevPAR (+29.9% to US$83.75).
“Walsh: BA’s paid first class load factor is under 50%”
Did they put an actual number on it? 5% and 49% are both under 50%…..curious as to which one the real number is closer to.
Although, given the inventory they have, selling 50% of their first class seats to paid customers would still make BA the biggest sellers of F in the world, no? Maybe Emirates sells more? I can’t think of anyone else that would come close. I’m also pretty sure that 50% is at the high end of most international F load factors.
I call BS on the significance of the hotel occupancy numbers. The impact of hurricanes Harvey (Houston) and Irma (Florida) taint any year-over-year statistics. It’s the equivalent of reporting unemployment statistics on a year-over-year basis in those areas. Meaningless.