Special American visitor to JFK tonight: Hello Mad Dog!

[s2vKJFK]

American operated Flt. AAL9210 KORD-KJFK tonight with an MD-83. The "Mad Dog" has become an unusual visitor to JFK for American. AA no longer has any scheduled flights into Kennedy with Super 80's.

[RDU-JFK]

Is this a scheduled flight or Charter? JFK-ORD is American Eagle only, no?

[s2vKJFK]

This was an American Airlines (AAL) flight operated by an MD-83 not an American Eagle (EGF) flight. Yes normally service between KORD and KJFK are American Eagle flights for example Flt. EGF999 KORD-KJFK.

I am not sure if the 9200 series flights on American are charters or not. I know the 9600's are Dead Head or Non-Revenue Equipment flights, and I believe the 9400's are unscheduled passenger flights but not charters some times you see examples of 9400's flights after a Hurricane like last year between KMIA and KJFK.

If anyone else knows if the 9200's flight numbers on American are charters or not?

[mirrodie]

hmm, I wonder...so are you saying a photo of an AA MD-80 in JFK is now classified as rare?

Who would have known. wow

between them and hte nwa dc-9s, once they go, the skies will be much quieter

[T-Bird76]

I think he's saying the MD-80 at JFK is rather rare, which it now is. Certainly a photo of an MD-80 is hardly rare. I wonder what the reason was AA stopped using the MD-80 at JFK?

[s2vKJFK]

The only time you every see these jets coming into Kennedy these days are flights like that 9200 series the other night, a 9600 Dead Head flight, of course a diversion from another airport like LGA, or on rare occasion an equipment change from another airport that effects the equipment cycle to JFK. Two examples I remember are several months ago a night where all the American ORD-LGA 300 series flights found their way to JFK with MD-80's instead of LGA, I do not know the reason for their visit that night. Also on one other occasion AAL2488 KMIA-KJFK operated with an MD-80 what made that even stranger was the fact American does not operate scheduled Super 80 flights out of KMIA either and normally when if any other equipment type is used it is an A306. You always know when AAL2488 is going to have an A306 instead of a B752 because AAL1819 will have an A306 out of JFK instead of a B752.

Those NWA DC-9’s are becoming a less frequent visitor I see to JFK as well, as NWA slowly is switching their flights over to A319’s and A320’s. Yes those DC-9’s are lowed and are certainly hard to miss.

[s2vKJFK]

From what I understand with exception of the B752's on the Caribbean, South American Venezuela Caracas (CCS/ SVMI) flight and the limited domestic markets of KMIA, KSAN, and KSEA out of Kennedy served by B752's (KLAX and KSFO as I am sure everyone knows are served by the B762 and B763 and of course the other KMIA flights have either a B762 or A306's). American is trying to only fly their heavy jets in and out of JFK for the time being. This I believe is the reason for the MD-80's not being used. Perhaps this will change if American every increase domestic service out of JFK when their new Terminal is finally completed?

[T-Bird76]

One thing that will be interesting is to see how AA responds to DAL's ramp up at JFK. Delta is moving into some of AA's markets and beyond. Aside from jetBlue, Delta is the most dominate carrier at JFK.

[s2vKJFK]

I agree Delta Air Lines has been far more aggressive than American in the New York market especially at JFK. I am very surprised at the lack of a competitive response from AA. Delta has introduced some interesting but probably very lucrative routs to Europe with the Indian and African flights still to be added to the International schedule. In addition they have not just stepped up their Domestic/Caribbean flight schedules by adding destinations and flights but have also added capacity with the B764's to KMCO and the B763's to KLAX. Comair also is growing in presence at Kennedy so Delta seems to be doing a good job of feeding the passenger traffic from smaller destination into the New York airports.

On a different note one airline the MD-80 is not a stranger for at JFK is Delta as I see more and more MD-80's than ever.

JetBlue also of course continues to expand with the temporary annex terminal 5 giving their terminal 6 more capacity gate wise and the continued expansion of its fleet of A320's every month.

[USAF Pilot 07]

AA's money at JFK are the London flights and the flights to the Carribean and South America.

Delta doesn't seem to be touching them in these areas, since they can't fly to London, and since they haven't really added any significant service to the Carribean or to South America.

Honestly, it's probably not in DL's best interest to go after AA on the Carribean and South American routes, and rather focus on Europe, Asia and Africa. They've got good loads on their ATL-South America, and ATL-Carribean routes, that right now it's not worth moving a lot of their equipment around and having to drop cities, to take AA head on in a market that AA dominates...

[hiss srq]

I do not hear many things sounding good at least recently on alot of flights. Me and Justin Idle were looking through the Deltanet info for flights out to Manchester U.K. for a two day or somthing and in coach along there were like 40 to 70 seats open on alot of the flights for dates we were looking at and a bunch of other JFK runs are pretty empty too. I hope the big dogs know what they are doing. I would hate to see that great airline go into the history books for sure.

[T-Bird76]

Continental's CEO didn't put to much stock into Delta's expansion a few months ago. His comments were something to the affect "Continental was international before international was cool." I think the problem is while NYC has a huge O & D market there is plenty of ways to get to cities like Manchester from JFK. Delta needs to feed these flights through a hub system, not what they have setup at JFK.

[hiss srq]

I agree. They could do way better with connections etc....

[s2vKJFK]

One difference between DAL and COA on Int. routs is the aircraft type used. DAL only uses B763's and B764's from JFK where COA operates an assortment of B752's/B753's, B762's/B764's and B772's from their EWR hub. COA can better match the load factors because they have a variety of different size aircraft in their fleet to choose from suited for the Int. markets. On the EGCC route for example that shows pour load factors for DAL not a real surprise, maybe COA would use one of their ETOPS B752's like they do Scotland and Ireland already.

Another example of why DAL shows pour load factors to EGCC is the competition from BA “Speed-Bird” on this route Flt. BAW1503 (B763) EGCC-KJFK/ BAW1502 (B763) KJFK-EGCC, these flights also happen to be a code-shares with AA.

Sorry to be a little of the topic of “Mad Dogs” as COA doesn’t fly them anymore and to my knowledge BA never flew them.