Pelham Aviation by Michael Gutta

Icelandair’s US Disappearing Act February 15, 2020 By: Michael Gutta Over the course of time from 2017 to the present Icelandair has faced several headwinds, notably the competition from fellow Icelandic (non-defunct) airline WOW Air and the Boeing 737 MAX grounding. In this analysis for Pelham Aviation, I will give a brief overview of 4 US destinations briefly served by Icelandair that have since had service terminated. By total number of departures during the period of service these destinations were: Tampa (TPA), Baltimore-Washington (BWI), Cleveland Hopkins (CLE), and Kansas City (MCI). The data shown below is departures data from the 4 mentioned airports with service terminating at Keflavik International Airport (KEF). Icelandair B757-200 TF-FIR in Vatnajökull glacier livery at TPA on 11/17/2018 (Michael Gutta). Tampa International received its first Icelandair flight on September 7, 2017. Service was initially twice weekly, which was later expanded to 4x weekl...

Year 1 of Frontier Service at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport September 8, 2019 By: Michael Gutta On September 8 th , 2018 Frontier Airlines began service at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP) as the first new airline to the airport since Southwest in 2011. So, for today’s 1-year anniversary of the start of service, I’ve decided to look back at the available passenger data to the 4 destinations served: Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Tampa. Since the publicly available data published in T-100 forms lags by several months, only data through May has been made available covering the first 9 months of service. This blog is an overview of the service including total passenger numbers, a breakdown by destination city, and some developments that may affect service moving forward. As usual, all numbers are for departing passengers only (from GSP), so the total passenger numbers flying Frontier through Greenville-Spartanburg would be approximately double. ...

ROUTE ANALYSIS: Atlanta to San Francisco Market Share Surprise? July 29, 2019 By: Michael Gutta In this article from the Pelham Aviation blog I looked not at past travel data but at future schedule numbers for the route from Atlanta to San Francisco. During some searching on Google Flights for potential vacation destinations I was very surprised at the available service between these Delta and United strongholds. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International (ATL) is of course the world’s busiest airport and Delta Air Line’s largest hub. Meanwhile, San Francisco International (SFO) is dominated by United Airlines. When I began my search, I expected to see a somewhat even split of flights for the two US legacy carriers. I also wanted to find out capacity by day of the week, and I wanted to find the largest aircraft on the route. I was quite surprised by the search results, and also found a third airline option for this route. Delta Air Lines Boeing 757-200 N681DA departing ru...

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 ...

CARRIER ANALYSIS: Copa Airlines at Tampa International Airport May 5, 2019 By: Michael Gutta With my first five blog reports I have reviewed domestic airlines, routes, and fleet changes. For my first investigation of a foreign air carrier, I have chosen to evaluate the service history of Copa Airlines at Tampa International Airport. Copa Airlines is the flag carrier of Panama, with a major connecting hub for Latin America at Tocumen International in Panama City. Copa began service to Tampa International on December 16, 2013, offering four flights weekly each way. For this blog report I decided to look back at the USDOT data all the way back inaugural flight. Unfortunately, the full-year of 2018 international flight numbers will not be published until June 13, so for now this study encompassed 4 years (2014-2017) of data, plus December 2013. Copa Airlines Boeing 737-700 registered as HP-1371 at Tampa International Airport (Michael Gutta). In the first 4 years of ser...

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 ...