JetBlue seeks OK for Bogota-Fort Lauderdale flights

Robert Jorge says on Oct 17, 2007, 01:57:

That would be great. It would cut my travel time from 12 hours to 6 hours to get to an airport with a direct flight to Colombia. Actually, Atlanta is also 6 hours away, but I can't afford Delta.

As far as "next April" for the 7 flights out of Orlando: is that really next April - or the April AFTER next April ('09)? I assume the latter, but I would love to be wrong.

BEWARE of gold diggers.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Bill Turley says on Oct 17, 2007, 06:27:

Any Idea about what the fares migh be ? My granddaughters live North of Miami Beach and a sister in law in Ocala both would be better connections. If they were also cheaper than Avianca and American wonderful.

Mr. Bill Somondoco

0 funny, 0 helpful.

nine inch nails says on Oct 17, 2007, 06:52:

"Currently, American Airlines holds the authority for 42 weekly flights to Colombia, but it hasn't used 14 of those frequencies for five years." because they have tapped all the market they can with fares as relatively expensive as they are.

That is outstanding news about JetBlue. I've read where Spirit Air is looking to expand more in this region also.

"They know nothing, they know nothing." J. Cramer

0 funny, 0 helpful.

nine inch nails says on Oct 17, 2007, 06:54:

They talk about Spirit in the article link. Thanks. Didn't see it yesterday.

"They know nothing, they know nothing." J. Cramer

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Waterdawg says on Oct 17, 2007, 08:19:

Anything to bust up the hold the Big boys ( American/Continental /Copa ) have here ..

0 funny, 0 helpful.

slguy says on Oct 17, 2007, 08:20:

I read an article yesterday that AA has announced plans to increase by fourteen it's weekly Colombia flights- which would effectively shut out JetBlue for now. Apparently AA is worried enough about JetBlue's price competition to at least announce using routes that they laid dormant for years. The article did say that if AA doesn't begin flying the additional routes as announced- they lose the 14 forever...

Before you throw me out, make sure I pay my bar tab

0 funny, 0 helpful.

msaucey says on Oct 17, 2007, 08:27:

Heck if Jeb Blue can just get in a few flights, that will make it easier.... My experience with AA is that the service is poor to fly to Colombia... I avoid them as much as possible...

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Mr. Hollywood says on Oct 17, 2007, 08:31:

That would be terrific. AA's service to Colombia has been terrible in my experience and I've always preferred to take Continental to the US when possible.

Jet Blue would bring some fresh blood to the routes.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

ColombianoGringo says on Oct 17, 2007, 08:41:

I hope they vary the flight arrival times a bit. It seems that most flights from the US get into Bogota after 7pm. This sucks for me because I am usually headed to other cities and can't catch a flight out that late. I have family in Bogota, but I hate wasting a night there.

Luckily, for my next trip, I was able to get an AA flight that gets into Bogota at 1:40pm. The bad part is that it is AA and was almost $800(IAH - MIA - BOG).

We could certainly use some competition.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

msaucey says on Oct 17, 2007, 08:55:

Really... we always getting in at the crack of dawn... L.A. flights normally land in BOG at 6am, just in time for coffee and pandebono... And I can totally relate.. I just bought my mom her Christmas present/flight... $1,200 LAX to Pereira for the Holidays.... Ummm... My trip last month was like $600.... Apparently, it's the return flight that is expensive... Whatever!

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

0 funny, 0 helpful.

panthdave says on Oct 17, 2007, 09:22:

I heard AA is going to fill those spots...There adding two flights to fill those spots..

Lets see what happens..

panthdave Miami

0 funny, 0 helpful.

panthdave says on Oct 17, 2007, 09:22:

AA wants to fill those spots with more flights..

panthdave Miami

0 funny, 0 helpful.

ColombianoGringo says on Oct 17, 2007, 14:50:

Is the 10:15am MIA to BOG AA flight new? I have flown through Miami on AA before but it was always in the afternoon. I was pretty happy to find that flight, despite the price.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

ColombianoGringo says on Oct 17, 2007, 14:54:

Msaucey,

They always get you during the holidays. Last year, Avianca charged me $750 from Ft. Lauderdale to Bogota around New Year. When added to the $300 Houston to Ft Lauderdale leg and $250 for Bogota to Neiva, it got pretty expensive.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Robert Jorge says on Oct 17, 2007, 15:36:

Msaucey, check out the LAN Chile website. Right now, at least for the month of January, they are the cheapest direct flight from Miami to Bogota. The first flight of the day lands in El Dorado around 10:00am. What is real cool, is LAN might be the nicest airline I have flown with in the last 25 years. Just my opinion. If anybody knows about cheaper flights than LAN, tell me here in this thread. But if it is a $100 or less difference, I'll stick with LAN anyway. The closest I could find price-wise out of Miami was Avianca, at almost $200 more per round trip.

BEWARE of gold diggers.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

msaucey says on Oct 17, 2007, 16:16:

Actually, since I fly out of LAX, LAN would not work for me... We'd have to go the scenic route by way of Chile or Peru.... But, if JB can get the BOG connection, then I wouldn't mind doing LAX to FL and then doing the FL to BOG....

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis

0 funny, 0 helpful.

goin_south says on Oct 17, 2007, 16:30:

I thought I remembered reading something in the news jus a few weeks ago, about JetBlue 'going_under'. No? Maybe this will, or is the thing to, help keep them 'in the black'.

Where do we go from here?

0 funny, 0 helpful.

El Piloto says on Oct 17, 2007, 16:59:

No reason you can't do LAX-MIA on one airline, then MIA-BOG on Lan.

As for AA's schedule, yes the morning MIA-BOG which turns for an afternoon BOG-MIA departure has always (or at least for a long time) been there.

The added 3rd frequency starting this December (the one they're starting just so B6/NK can't get any Colombia frequencies) will be another plane overnighting in BOG: MIA-BOG departure at 8:05pm, BOG-MIA at 11:35am.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

slguy says on Oct 17, 2007, 18:45:

AA is protecting their turf by adding the flights only after they were threatened with losing them, it seems. Who knows if they'll really begin the service? I've never seen load factors, etc on the Colombia routes. Might be worth it to them to fly the routes, just to keep JetBlue out- but I'm only speculating...or they could be adding them for the holidays, then lose interest. I wonder how long they have to use the routes before they can drop them again, without giving them up to someone else?

Before you throw me out, make sure I pay my bar tab

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Mr. Hollywood says on Oct 17, 2007, 19:55:

I'm not sure what "load factors" means exactly, but I've only rarely seen flights to Colombia that weren't full or close to it.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Robert Jorge says on Oct 17, 2007, 20:06:

I have very little flight time compared to a lot of people here, flying to Colombia; But I also have never seen a less than packed plane in my 6 flights. All near or at capacity. That includes Continental, LAN, and Avianca.

BEWARE of gold diggers.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

El Piloto says on Oct 18, 2007, 08:32:

Load factor = percent of seats on an airplane that are filled with paying passengers. Seats occupied by deadheading crews, space available employee travelers, etc. are not counted as filled for the purpose of calculating load factor.

(Technically when looking at the load factor of an entire airline, mileage comes into play too. The calculation is: Load Factor = Revenue Passenger Miles divided by Available Seat Miles.)

I only have first-hand experience with AA on MIA-MDE flights. They've never been completely full. Probably between 60%-80% most of the time. Less than full flights can still make airlines plenty of money though. You don't need load factor if you have yield!

0 funny, 0 helpful.

slguy says on Oct 18, 2007, 09:20:

My flights to Colombia on American are also very limited- but if they are always fairly full, why did they let the extra 14 flights per week lay dormant for so long? I guess they figured the exisitng flights were optimized, until they were told (about the other 14/week) "use 'em or lose 'em"?

It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out - the LAST thing the big boys want is for the discounters to enter a market...

Before you throw me out, make sure I pay my bar tab

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Brians says on Oct 18, 2007, 11:56:

Exactly slguy! It is amazing that EVERYTIME I have flown to Colombia it is PACKED yet there were 14 dormant flights. This is good eitherway as more flights will mean less in price and not as packed. BTW American is better that Avainca at least when it comes to customer service.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Mr. Hollywood says on Oct 18, 2007, 12:11:

The only time I think I ever flew from the US to Colombia where it wasn't almost full was from Ft. Lauderdale to BOG once. That was on one of Avianca's aging widebodies and it was half-full at most.

The airlines these days seem to really like to overbook their flights.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

El Piloto says on Oct 18, 2007, 12:22:

I love overbooked flights! Bring on the vouchers!!!

Sadly I've never experienced a Colombia flight (speaking about AA here) that was overbooked to the point they were asking for denied boarding volunteers.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

Mr. Hollywood says on Oct 18, 2007, 13:49:

These days I think they just take you to Gitmo instead of giving you a voucher.

0 funny, 0 helpful.

NJ C Rep says on Nov 29, 2007, 21:58:

updates yet?

0 funny, 0 helpful.