American Eagle changes at LAX

Lots of you guys caught the appearance of SkyWest in American Eagle colors last week. I haven't yet taken any better shots, so here's the other side of that plane:

As several of you mentioned in the comments, AMR, the parent company of American Airlines and American Eagle Airlines, has chosen to use 50-seat SkyWest CRJ200s at LAX in place of the 44-seat American Eagle E140s. The larger American Eagle CRJ700s will continue to be operated by American Eagle Airlines. The American Eagle Airlines crew base at LAX will also be closed at the end of the month; American Eagle CRJ7s will have crews from the Chicago base. These changes have been brought about, at least in part, by a bankruptcy judge throwing out an American Airlines pilot contract provision that limited American's use of regional jets.

Following this story is made more complicated by the fact that "American Eagle" is the brand name for American Airlines' commuter/feeder service as well as the company name for the AMR-owned regional airline that has been providing most of that service. American Eagle Airlines (callsign: Eagle Flight) is expected to adopt a new company name next year, which may make it a bit easier to keep track. In the future, American Eagle will be the marketing brand for American's regional feeder service, regardless of which contractor is providing the service (be it Eagle Flight, SkyWest, Mesa, etc.)

AMR has moved the E140s to DFW; we saw a number of them ferried out late the eve of the change-over on November 14th. These shots are of the last before-dark E140 arrival at LAX:

An unexpected discovery was the white tail on this E140. Shots taken on November 14th - the last day of American Eagle E140 operations at LAX

Here are a couple of better E140 shots, taken a few weeks earlier:

References:

AINonline:  SkyWest to fly as American Eagle

Dallas Morning News:  SkyWest signs on with American Airlines

Dallas Morning News:  Garton talks about SkyWest

Flight Global Airline Business blog:  SkyWest's quiet takeover of LAX

 

What's wrong with this picture?

The title is a bit misleading, as strictly speaking there's nothing really wrong with this picture. But there definitely is something unusual here.

Arrivals and Departures

It's been a busy week at LAX tower, my home away from home. Besides the first real rain of the season, and the transition off of Daylight Savings Time, we've had several notable comings and goings:


As mentioned in an earlier post, Qantas began scheduled service here with the first of their A380's. So far we get one flight a week each from/to Sidney and Melbourne. The new is starting to wear off now, and the day-to-day reality is that this thing is a royal pain. By sheer luck of the draw, I have yet to actually work the Super, as we have to call it (mere B747's and such are 'heavies'), but I have gotten to observe as various of my coworkers have worked it. 'Worked around it' is closer to the truth - there are a number of airport restrictions that apply to and/or because of the A380 that I'll enumerate some other time.


Emirates began their service to Dubai, UAE, this week, using B777-200's. I think we're getting three flights a week. This has doubled our offerings to the Middle East; previously all we had was El Al's flight to Tel Aviv, Israel, also using B777-200's. So far, whether by plan or chance I can't say, they aren't both here at the same time.



Midwest has started using a regional carrier partner for its LA to Kansas City route - currently the only service they have out of LA. The Midwest 106-seat B-717 (nee MD-95) has been replaced with the 70-seat E-170, operated by Republic Airlines (based in Indianapolis, their callsign is "Brickyard"). During the summer Midwest also went from here to Milwaukee with MD-88's; that went away along with many other flights from many other carriers right after Labor Day. The E-170 is the smallest of Embraer's "E-jet" family; there's also the 100-seat E-190, which we see at LAX in Air Canada colors:

A pair of Air Canada E-190's; the Northwest is an Airbus A319, seating capacity 124.

Aer Lingus, whom we know as 'Shamrock', flew its final flight out of LA yesterday. There was to be a ceremonial send-off water spray from the fire trucks, but as it was already raining, I think they called it off. I've been told that they have plans to resume their LA to Dublin service in the spring. However until then, we've no direct service to Ireland.


The rumor was true - American Eagle flew one of their SF-340's out this afternoon, destination the boneyard in Kingman, Arizona. Hopefully there'll be more. No word yet on if they're being replaced with something else. I heard that DFW's Eagle Flight Saabs were replaced with ATR's, which would be nice - those are much more compatible with the rest of our traffic mix. They're also a good deal bigger than the Saabs though, so unless they're adding capacity (not the prevailing trend in the industry right now) it's not likely.


Notes:

Today (November 2nd) is the anniversary of the first (and only) flight of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose in Long Beach harbor.

The Republic Airlines mentioned above flying for Midwest is not the Republic of old, which became part of Northwest Airlines in 1986. This Republic Airlines operates or has operated regional flights for flag carriers, including Delta, Continental, US Air, American, Frontier, and United.

Where can we go from here: Additions and Corrections

In an earlier entry, I mentioned several cities that only receive cargo flights from LAX. Since then, I've worked an overtime day shift during the week, and found a couple more:

Toledo, Ohio, is a cargo-only destination from LAX. The route is flown by Air Transport, using DC-8's. Flight time is about three and a half hours.

Another cargo flight to Brussels: Singapore Cargo lifts off from runway 25 right.

In the same posting about cargo operators, I mentioned that Fedex flies out of here to hubs in Memphis, Indianapolis, and San Jose. The first two are correct, but Fedex's west coast hub is actually in Oakland. Mea culpa. If you want to get to San Jose, you'll have lots of passenger options: American Eagle, Skywest, and Southwest all offer jet service from here to there (and back again). Flight times run from forty-five minutes to an hour. Skywest and Southwest also go into Oakland; those flights seem to run about fifty to fifty-five minutes.

In addition, I said that the Fedex flight to Fort Worth Alliance is usually done with an Airbus. So naturally, this week they had to do it with a DC-10:

A Fedex DC-10 departs off runway 25 left. On the parallel taxiway in the background is an Eva Cargo MD-11. The MD-11 was the follow-on model. Obvious differences are the MD-11's longer length and winglets. Less obvious in this picture is the MD-11's much better climb performance.

Speaking of DC-10s, a while back I mentioned former Northwest Airlines DC-10s that had been retired only to re-enter service with ATA for their military charters. Here are a couple of shots I discovered in a back corner of the iBook's hard drive:

As you can see, the transformations were not full-fledged makeovers.

One more ATA shot from the archives. ATA was the last scheduled US carrier to operate the Lockheed Tristar, my personal favorite of the first generation wide bodies. This was the last Tristar to show up here, sometime last year.

Where can we go from here: Props versus jets

Last time I discussed a few of the various destinations for flights out of LAX. This time we'll continue that theme with a look at destinations served by both jets and turboprops. As you might imagine, there are not that many places that have such dual service. JFK, for instance, currently does not have any scheduled turboprop service from LAX. All of these are cities served by one or more of the regional airlines operating at LAX: American Eagle (callsign: Eagle Flight), for American; Horizon, for Alaska; and Skywest, for United (primarily).

Boise, Idaho, can be reached from LA via Horizon's Dash 8, seen here in the foreground, or via Skywest's CRJ-200, in the background. The CRJ, while somewhat faster, also has less seating capacity: 50, versus around 70 for the Dash 8. Ironically, although they have different brand names (Canadair builds the CRJ's and de Havilland the Dash 8, which is officially the DHC-8), they're both built by the same parent company, Bombardier Aerospace of Canada, who also owns Learjet. Bombardier is better known to most Americans as the builder of Ski-Doo snowmobiles; producing snowcats and snowmobiles was how the company got its start in the 1930's. Just as the CRJ series was an outgrowth of the Challenger CL-60 business jet, the Dash 8 was a descendant of the Dash 7, which was in turn preceded by the de Havilland DHC-2 Twin Otter. Bombardier actually calls the turboprop the Q400, but you'll never hear pilots or controllers refer to it that way. The flight plan times are about 1:35 for the Skywest CRJ and 2 hours for the Horizon Dash 8. At LAX, the Horizon gates are a good deal closer to the preferred departure runway than are Skywest's.

Monterey, California, is another destination with turboprop and jet service from LA. In this case, American Eagle E135's and Skywest E120 Brasilias. Both of these aircraft are built by Brazil's Embraer, which has made itself a major player in the regional airliner market. The ERJ series is itself a development of the E120. The E135 is the smallest of the ERJ's, with a seating capacity of about three dozen; the Brasilia seats thirty. The jet is less than 15 minutes faster to Monterey than the turboprop; flight plan times are about 50 minutes and 1:04, respectively.


Another destination that offers a choice of jet or turboprop service also offers an additional choice of carrier: Reno, Nevada, can be reached from LAX via Horizon Dash 8, Skywest CRJ, or Southwest B737. The Skywest flight seems to be the shortest, by a whopping one minute. The CRJ's and 737's average just under an hour, while the Dash 8 takes about an hour and ten minutes.

San Diego and San Luis Obispo, California, offer not just a choice of jets or turboprops, but different models of turboprops as well. Skywest uses the Brasilia for these routes, but American Eagle uses E135's and Saab Fairchild 340's. Flight plan time for the Brasilia is about 25 minutes to San Diego. The jet is only a minute faster, but the Saab is about five minutes slower. I've mentioned before that the SF34 is the doggiest of all the aircraft regularly operating at LAX, and we controllers were encouraged by rumors that the Saabs were going to be phased out. If so, it hasn't happened yet (sigh). The E135 flight plans about a half hour to San Luis Obispo, the Brasilia about five or six minutes more. The Saab needs about forty-five minutes for the same flight.

On all of these routes, the jets are slightly faster, but what's not reflected is the greater fuel and maintenance requirements. That stuff doesn't show up in the flight plans, so I wasn't able to figure it in. Turboprops are generally more fuel efficient than jets, however, and don't have to climb as high to achieve efficiency. This plays in their favor, especially on short routes, as the airspace congestion in southern California often means that certain routes are held to pre-designated altitudes, regardless of what altitude the pilot files for. For instance, the San Diego flights are capped at nine thousand for the turboprops and eleven thousand for the jets. Below ten thousand, all aircraft are limited to 250 knots, and on these shorter routes there's just not much chance for the jets to go any faster.

On the other hand, the flying public has a definite preference for jets, even little ones, over prop-driven aircraft. The perception is that the prop aircraft are smaller, slower, bumpier, noisier, and more dangerous than the jets. I don't have any factual information to hand on whether any of these is in fact the case . . . but then neither does the flying public.