Author Topic: El-al dropping UP, adding new seating options, and flying direct to San Fran!!!  (Read 16233 times)

Online tavster

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LY just published a new strategic plan including:
- 3 weekly flights to SFO on the Dreamliner starting Q4
- By end of 2019 all of their 737-800 will have new retrofitted seats in both Y and C, and will all have wifi
- Introduction of "packages" for European routes as per chart below, and as a result they will discontinue their UP low cost brand
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 03:48:26 AM by tavster »

Offline David Smith

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner starting Q4
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2018, 03:11:48 AM »
Why do they feel such a need to fight UA for SFO when they already have a west coast presence in LAX? They should fly to ORD instead.
Who do you think you are fooling? You think you are going to pull a quick one on your Creator? Good luck with that.
JTZ

Online tavster

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner starting Q4
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2018, 03:16:34 AM »
Why do they feel such a need to fight UA for SFO when they already have a west coast presence in LAX? They should fly to ORD instead.
Personally I fly from Israel to SFO a few times a year and ElAl wasn't competitive at all. Going through LAX meant that you couldn't get to SFO before 10ish in the morning as opposed to 6am for UA. Also they must have realized that there is strong demand from the all the tech / startup people for that route.

If at all I would have dropped the LAX route

Offline Proisrael

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner starting Q4
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2018, 04:49:40 AM »
Personally I fly from Israel to SFO a few times a year and ElAl wasn't competitive at all. Going through LAX meant that you couldn't get to SFO before 10ish in the morning as opposed to 6am for UA. Also they must have realized that there is strong demand from the all the tech / startup people for that route.

If at all I would have dropped the LAX route

LAX is a huge market for standard travelers. It is a completely different market.

Online tavster

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner starting Q4
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2018, 04:54:30 AM »
LAX is a huge market for standard travelers. It is a completely different market.
Understood. I guess that's why they are keeping both

Offline yandmk

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2018, 06:32:38 AM »
I personally think they are making a mistake. There is a very big percentage of every route that relies on connecting passengers. And being that they are that close to LAX, connections aren't so necessary.
Similar to the not-very-succesful BOS route where people can connect via NYC. Seriously, how many passengers on the BOS flight are actually originating/finishing in BOS? 20-30%? On the NYC route it's probably more like 80%. Even LAX and YYZ, I'd assume that more than 50% of passengers are not connecting. But is there really that much demand for non-stop to/from SFO after UA already operates a daily flight on the route?
Just MHO

Offline shapsam

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2018, 08:32:03 AM »
LY just published a new strategic plan including:
- 3 weekly flights to SFO on the Dreamliner starting Q4
- By end of 2019 all of their 737-800 will have new retrofitted seats in both Y and C, and will all have wifi
- Introduction of "packages" for European routes as per chart below, and as a result they will discontinue their UP low cost brand
Will they wait till 2019 to discontinue UP or will they do it sooner?

Online tavster

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2018, 08:37:51 AM »
Will they wait till 2019 to discontinue UP or will they do it sooner?
It's not clear yet. They said that the new packages will be launched on April 30th for flights starting October 15th, so I'm assuming that by October 15h UP will disappear

Offline chff

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2018, 08:47:27 AM »


- Introduction of "packages" for European routes as per chart below, and as a result they will discontinue their UP low cost brand

Looks like Fare Families / Branded fares

Offline shapsam

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2018, 09:33:26 AM »

Looks like Fare Families / Branded fares
What does that mean?

Offline shapsam

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2018, 09:47:56 AM »
It's not clear yet. They said that the new packages will be launched on April 30th for flights starting October 15th, so I'm assuming that by October 15h UP will disappear
It's actually an upgrade, maybe LY is starting to realize they have competition?

Offline yandmk

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2018, 10:24:49 AM »
TLV-SFO on LY (20:1 odds of happening by 2018)

Hmmm...

Offline yandmk

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2018, 10:25:51 AM »
BOS route is being canceled once Maimons kid finishes school there.

If they announce the SFO route soon, we know he's going to Stanford or Berkeley for Grad school

Prophecy?
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 10:30:27 AM by yandmk »

Offline raccah

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Interesting article:

https://www.themarker.com/consumer/tourism/1.5586212

Dan I thought you would have been all over this already! They are closing terminal one, and that crap brand of theirs.

They are selling out and going the way of most airlines, and will have three seat options: Lite, Classic, and Flex. Nothing new here but the pricing will go up for sure.

The only good thing here is the direct SFo-TLV competition to United!!Sadly, only 4Q of 2018, which means 2019 at least!

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Offline pashakym

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Finally!

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Finally!
You sound relieved or possibly excited.

I'd be much happier if a better carrier (UA, DL, or maybe something out of the box coming up with a fifth freedom flight) would announce a new route such as ORD-TLV.
I've been waiting over 5 years with bated breath for someone to say that!
-- Dan

Offline yitrap

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #17 on: January 03, 2018, 11:11:37 AM »
Why do they feel such a need to fight UA for SFO when they already have a west coast presence in LAX? They should fly to ORD instead.
They probably don't want to fight UA in their home base, SFO isn't as hard.

Offline David Smith

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #18 on: January 03, 2018, 11:15:56 AM »
They probably don't want to fight UA in their home base, SFO isn't as hard.
Fight UA? UA doesn't have a direct flight from ORD.
Who do you think you are fooling? You think you are going to pull a quick one on your Creator? Good luck with that.
JTZ

Offline yitrap

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Re: LY flights to SFO on the Dreamliner (plus a few other changes)
« Reply #19 on: January 03, 2018, 11:17:08 AM »
Fight UA? UA doesn't have a direct flight from ORD.
Yet.