Pelham Aviation by Michael Gutta

ROUTE ANALYSIS: Tampa to San Francisco on United Hits Two Years of Service May 18, 2019 By: Michael Gutta For this edition of the Pelham Aviation blog I’ve decided to look back on the first two years of direct service from Tampa to San Francisco on United Airlines. The airline announced on July 25, 2016 that it would be starting a once daily service connecting the two cities on February 16, 2017. Prior to the direct-flight service kicking off, the airport reported that roughly 600 passengers traveled this route daily, albeit with a connection. According to the Tampa airport this was the largest unserved route in America. With the daily service having begun in February 2017, it recently surpassed two years of daily service by United Airlines. The passenger data reported by the USDOT indicates, to no surprise, that this route has been successful. In fact, United Airlines has announced that beginning on June 6, 2019 the route will be served twice daily, with an evening departure ...

ROUTE ANALYSIS: Tampa Bay to Houston April 19, 2019 By: Michael Gutta Following a trip from Tampa Bay to Houston, I decided to explore the USDOT T100 data available for this sector. I considered all commercial flights between St. Pete-Clearwater (PIE) and Tampa (TPA) to both George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) and William P. Hobby (HOU) during the year 2017, the last full year of published data. For this year, there were no scheduled flights from St. Petersburg-Clearwater (PIE) to the Houston airports. The primary carrier at PIE, Allegiant Air, actually has no presence in the Houston market (either HOU or IAH). I also only looked at commercial passenger carriers, so the cargo numbers reported are only for belly cargo, not scheduled cargo carriers. This study was unsurprisingly dominated by the primary carriers at Hobby (Southwest) and George Bush (United), but I wanted to see who seems to be leading on this route, and how much of a contribution the ULCC carrier Spirit has made ...

ROUTE ANALYSIS: Tampa Bay to Washington DC Metro Area February 24, 2019 By: Michael Gutta After my previous data scrubbing and report about Southwest Airlines’s activities at Tampa International Airport revealed their most popular destination to be Baltimore/Washington International Airport, I decided to look more closely at the Tampa Bay to DC metropolitan area air travel market. For this investigation I considered all commercial flights between any combination of St. Petersburg-Clearwater (PIE) and Tampa (TPA) to Baltimore-Washington (BWI), Washington-National (DCA), and Washington Dulles (IAD) during the year 2017, the last full year of published data. For this year, there actually were no regularly scheduled flights departing St. Petersburg-Clearwater (PIE) to the DC Metro area. I also only looked at commercial passenger carriers, so the cargo numbers reported are only for belly cargo, not scheduled cargo carriers. United B737-800 (N18243) departing runway 19R at TPA ...

AIRPORT ANALYSIS: American Airlines at Tampa International December 30, 2018 By: Michael Gutta After recently flying from Tampa to Charlotte on American Airlines, I decided to look at American’s operations at TPA using publicly available data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics T-100 data tables. The last full year of published data is from 2017, and the 3 areas I wanted to study were: number of passengers by destination, load factor by destination, and aircraft type by departure. In reviewing the available data, I ignored any seasonality effects (month-to-month variation): I looked at load factor for the full year, and the number of daily departures and daily passengers are averaged over a full year. Additionally, I only looked at departing passengers, so the total number of passengers served would be approximately double (departing and arriving). On to the results… American Airlines aircraft at Charlotte-Douglas International with Charlotte skyline on Dec. 6...

FLEET ANALYSIS: Allegiant Air Retires MD-80 Aircraft December 2, 2018 By: Michael Gutta Allegiant Air flew their last commercial flight with an MD-80 series aircraft on Wednesday November 28, 2018 with a final flight from Fresno to Las Vegas as a huge step in the simplification and modernization plan laid out by company executives. With the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 retirement Wednesday and the company’s retirement of the Boeing 757 in October of 2017, the airline is down to a single type with the Airbus 319 & 320 combination. Operating a single fleet type of much newer aircraft will reduce maintenance costs, unexpected delays and cancellations, and fuel consumption for the airline. In this feature, the fleet of Allegiant Air over the last 10 years will be examined as different aircraft have been added and removed from the roster. Please follow along with the two charts provided to illustrate the fleet’s progress. Allegiant Air N865GA at St. Pete-Clearwater Internat...