DCA= Reagan National
Flew to Orlando today from Boston (only because I wanted to see what the newer JetBlue A320s are like) and had a connection to DCA. I really question why American isn’t flying there instead of JFK. There were so many American planes going to every east coast destination imaginable that they serve and a lot of flights looked to be fully booked considering the people outside of them.
I mentioned it before a couple of days ago that they should be flying to DCA and not JFK and I now fully believe that should be the case. DCA is definitely one of the biggest hubs for american for flights within the United States and there are a couple of JetBlue flights that go there too (there’s one that goes from Boston every hour and the one I was on today was 100% booked). If the alliance stays, I definitely believe American should consider switching the flight.
Plus, when my family went to Orlando in 2021 on a plane (I took the auto train down so we had our car down there), BOS to DCA then DCA to MCO was the cheapest route the Saturday before thanksgiving and it usually is one of the cheaper routes with one stop when you have busy times. I hope even with the runway work delaying potential new airlines, American can make that switch to a late morning flight.
Another thing that’s great about DCA is it’s not hard to go from the JetBlue to American area or switch gates for your next flight. They’re all super close and convenient to each other. Also, terminal C (JetBlue’s terminal now) at MCO is one of the nicest I’ve ever been in. While work is still being done to it, JetBlue has taken full advantage of it. Lot less traffic to that terminal (if you’ve ever picked someone up from MCO or flown out of there, you know how much of a mess terminals A&B are), bigger areas for pickup for ride shares and other things, lot more open space inside the terminal, and very accessible and easy to navigate. It’s also I believe the only terminal where you don’t have to take a tram to get to the main building.
There is still work being done to the terminal and there’s very limited gates (I believe less than 20 and JetBlue isn’t the only airline in that terminal) but if they decide to expand that terminal and add gates, there’s definitely room for it by the looks of Google maps.
The A320 that is being used into Worcester for the FLL flight, I’m sorry but If you’re flying out of any other airport you’re making a mistake. Regardless of the time at the moment, it is one of my favorite planes I’ve ever been on. While Delta’s flight entertainment is the best, JetBlue’s isn’t far behind it, and there’s plenty of legroom, seats are very comfortable, plenty of overhead space for carry on bags, the WiFi is excellent, and it’s very roomy and comfy. When you have the cheapest flight to FLL in New England with a bag, and it’s on a very nice aircraft at a place with the cheapest parking for an airport, why would you be flying out of anywhere else? I can see why a lot of seasonal people really enjoy the flight and I’m looking forward to going back on it next week Flying to ORH.
Comments
I still strongly believe that the only reason these airlines are here is to kiss up to Massport. You can't tell me that the higher ups at AA are happy with the 9% passenger loads they had that one month at ORH. These airlines have made no attempt to be successful here. And before anyone mentions pilot and crew shortages, if it weren't for these airlines wanting to kiss up to Massport to get what they want at Logan, they would have already been long gone to a different airport.
I'm glad they are going to dump another $250 million into ORH. Not really.... I think it would be better to spend some of that $$$ on promoting the service we already have that coincidentally is failing miserably. Does anyone really believe this new parallel runway is going to be the thing that saves ORH? We were told that the Cat 3 Landing System was supposed to open up so many more possibilities at ORH. Now we're told we need this parallel runway to get more service. Once that is done and ORH is still struggling, we'll be told they need to spend $500 million on a terminal expansion. Don't know if anyone has ever seen an aerial view of the New Haven Airport, but it is literally a building on a residential street with one gate/jetbridge. And that airport handled something like 600,000 passengers last year. But ORH apparently can't handle even half of that even though it has an actual terminal building and multiple gates.
My family used to fly out of ORH all the time when I was younger and I frequently used ORH during the DirectAir years. It was extremely convenient. Nowadays though, no matter how I look at it, I can't find a good enough reason to use ORH. Either the flight cost is too high, the connecting flight options are inconvenient, or I'd get to my destination really late at night. If they ever change some things with the scheduling at ORH then I'll have another look, but for now, it's not worth it to me.
The problem I see is on the flight schedules. Delta should be flying to Atlanta at least x2 daily to be able to provide decent connecting options for flyers; if Delta wants to keep the LaGuardia flight, it would need to have an earlier departure out of ORH. AA should be flying to Charlotte or DCA and not JFK. JetBlue needs to bring back the flight to Orlando. FLL will be back to an earlier schedule next month.
I would think with the lousy passenger flight loads ORH has, the airlines would be a bit more competitive price-wise, but that doesn't seem to be the case.