Quote:
Originally Posted by yuriandrade
What explains this surge after decades losing ground? Is this strong growth likely to be kept in the next years?
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Upgauging of equipment mostly. 50 seat RJs being swapped for 70 seat RJs, 70 RJs being swapped for 737s, etc. The number of actual flights has been pretty flat.
The growth from that should continue for another year at least and I don't see any reversal in sight with gas prices so low and the (US) airlines printing money. Frontier is also continuing to grow at ORD, announcing flights to 7 new cities just last week - Portland, Seattle, St. Augustine, Kansas City, Nashville, Charlotte, and Minneapolis. They are still peanuts compared to UA and AA though.
On the international front, there are a few additions/changes this year:
China Eastern 777-300ER daily to Shanghai starting in April, bringing ORD to 3 daily flights to Shanghai.
Icelandair is starting 4x weekly service to Reykjavik also in April.
Korean Air to Seoul is swapping out the 777-300ER for the 747-8i on their daily flight.
Finnair to Oslo will operate 5x weekly this year, up from 3x weekly last year with A330-300 equipment.
Lufthansa has canceled seasonal service to Dusseldorf for 2016.
And a couple minor changes to Canada/Mexico.