Guest Posts From My Favourite Bloggers : Benet Wilson – The Industry Journalist Extraordinaire

Web: www.thetravelstrategist.com — E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com

17/09/2009 – Guest Posts From My Favourite Bloggers : Benet Wilson – The Industry Journalist Extraordinaire

As a photographer, traveller and airline industry geek there are a few blogs I read on a daily basis. With the broad range of readers that Flying With Fish attracts I’d like to introduce to you folks to the bloggers I follow.

Today…we kick off a few days of Guest Posts with Benet Wilson, who currently Aviation Week’s Online Managing Editor for Business Aviation. Benet has worked for the airlines, within the industry and is now at the top of Top Five list of industry journalists. You can follow Benet on Twitter at www.twitter.com/avweekbenet …so here we go!

I’d like to thank Fish for asking me to do this guest blog post. In my day job, I write and blog about the business aviation industry for the Aviation Week Group. I also still dabble on the commercial aviation side with stories about airports, security and social media.

I asked Fish what I should blog about, and he left to me. Last night (Sept. 16), I went to the annual media reception for the Air Transport Association, the trade organization that represents the major airlines. The big buzz was that American Airlines was coming out with a major announcement today (Sept. 17), and we were all guessing what it would be. Guesses included the closure of the St. Louis hub, a signed deal with Japan Airlines and a big order for the A380 (we’re a bunch of jokesters).

Now it’s out. According to AviationWeek.com, American announced a major shakeup to its mainline and Eagle network, and as part of that, is placing new orders for Bombardier CRJ-700s that will almost double the size of this fleet. American plans on adding a first class cabin on its CRJ-700s, a move I like, since it separates you from the competition.

That’s big news, so let’s break it down. Bombardier has to be thrilled with American’s order for 22 CRJ-700s, which will bring the fleet up to 47 aircraft. And for years, American has been putting more regional jets in its Chicago O’Hare hub, and it looks like that trend will continue. American plans to add 57 new flights in Chicago, including 12 new domestic and three international destinations in 2010. The Miami hub gets 23 new flights, DFW gets 19, JFK gets seven and LaGuardia and LAX get 2 each.

American giveth, but American also taketh away, and – no surprise – the St. Louis hub (if you can still call it that) bears the brunt of the cuts, 46 daily flights to 20 destinations. This will leave St. Louis with 36 mainline and regional flights to nine cities, a shell of its former hub status when TWA was still in business. The dehubbed Raleigh/Durham loses nine flights and three destinations.

American, like the rest of the airline industry, continues to make adjustments to its route network to remain competitive. None of this kicks in until 2010, so we have to wait until then to see how things pan out.

–Below Are Four AA/TWA Photos From Benet—