Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

There is a study relalted to the A380 but not quite in the way you might expect. The report says...

"Long-haul travelers also prefer nonstops to connecting flights. While the A380 is wellsuited to handle significant volumes of passengers in â??hub-to-hubâ? service, this type of operation forces travelers to endure additional connections that may not be necessary.

For example, to travel between Indianapolis and Bremen, Germany, today typically requires two connections, with routings such as IND-IAD-FRA-BRE, or IND-DTWAMS-BRE. The use of smaller aircraft such as the 7E7 or the A330-200 (or the 767, for that matter) to add an Indianapolis â??spokeâ? from Lufthansaâ??s Frankfurt hub, would reduce the IND-BRE trip to a single connection and clearly would be a more desirable alternative for high-yield business travelers than a double connection.

While individual city-pair markets like Indianapolis-Bremen are small on an individual basis, the aggregation of such markets from Indianapolis that can be served on a singleconnection basis via a European hub such as Frankfurt could produce enough traffic to make nonstop IND-FRA service economically feasible. This would also enhance the Frankfurt hub; it should be apparent that having more, and diverse spokes makes that hub more competitive."

Source: http://www.raes.org.uk/raes/research/KeithH/KH4.pdf

I can think of a place where someone would get flamed for putting together a report like that. But it is absolutely correct in what it says. I didn't bother reading the rest of the report. This part was what related to IND and it was dead on.

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

I've heard this argument before in many different forums. It's the basic argument for the 787 vs. the A380. The example you gave is dead on. The 787 is exactly suited for a long distance route from a secondary market to a primary hub airport. And the fact that the 787 can connect just about any two points on the globe makes lots of things possible. IND-FRA certainly, but how about IND-NRT and IND-HKG? Or even more intriguing - IND-DXB! There wll still have to be demand for the route, but it opens up a lot of possibilities.

The one thing we can count on is that the leadership in this city and state are all on the same page when it comes to getting air service here. Democrat or Republican, doesn't matter - the people running our governments know the importance of good air service - and in particular, international air service - to making Indy a world-class city. I have every bit of confidence that they're working on any opportunity to get international service here. And with NW's longstanding alliance with KLM, IND-AMS is a real possibility. If there's anything that NW wants the city and/or state to do in exchange for adding nonstop service to Europe, within reason, they'll find a way to do it.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I can't wait to see what that 787 looks like in flight. I hope they don't go with the terrible 17" seats with 31-32" pitch.

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

I seem to remember some talk on a.net about all the seats being bigger and more comfortable. Almost the size of domestic first class seats. But that will, of course, depend on the specific airline and how they configure the plane.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Yes it is an old thread but I'm updating this to reflect a new location of the study I reference in the first post.

http://www.leeham.net/filelib/050416-shadow.pdf

This talks about the use of a jet like a 787 (7E7 at the time of the study), A330-200 or 767 would be ideal for a route like IND-FRA.