Right on cue, Continental Airlines has announced deep capacity cuts, just like American and United had previously. Continental is speeding up retirement of their 737-300 (124 seat) and 737-500 (114 seat), with 67 going by the end of next year though this will be partially offset by deliveries of bigger, more modern 737-800s and 737-900ERs. Overall, their fleet will shrink from 375 planes at the end of this month to 344 at end of 2009. Separately, the airline reached an agreement with ExpressJet on a new seven-year capacity purchase agreement that cuts costs.
CLT impact: Continental is a three-hub carrier; it has big operations in Houston and Newark, and a secondary hub in Cleveland. Continental mainline in Charlotte has been very rare recently; I had to go back five years to find that photo of a Continental 737 in Charlotte. CO has instead been serving CLT with a horde of regional jets. Until recently, they were peaking out at about 16 flights a day total.
In the past nine months or so, Continental has really increased service to Charlotte. Their schedule for Monday has 20 regional jets, eight each to Newark and Houston, and four to Cleveland. Of course, 50-seat RJs will only get you so far. In their summer schedule, CO goes to nine flights a day to Newark, including two 737-500s and seven 50-seat regional jets.
We can pretty much kiss those 737 flights goodbye come the fall. And my guess is we’ll be back down about 16 flights a day or so soon.
