<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ITRADE:
Well, US would dispute that Caribbean is solely AA's territory. From MIA - yes. From, elsewhere - no. IIRC US is easily the #2 carrier in the Carribean and is adding routes like there is no tomorrow.
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Outside of thier Caribbean hubs in Miami and Bermuda:
From New York City/JFK, American offers Caribbean service to:
San Juan, Port-Au-Prince, Santo Domingo, Santiago, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, La Romana, Port of Spain, Grand Cayman, St. Thomas, Aruba, Bridgetown, Kingston, Montego Bay, and Providenciales.
From Boston/BOS, American offers Caribbean service to:
San Juan, Port-Au-Prince, Santo Domingo, Grand Cayman, St. Thomas, Aruba, and Providenciales
From Ft. Lauderdale/FLL, American offers service to San Juan, Port-Au-Prince, and Santo Domingo (SDQ/PAP start 01Nov).
In addition, they serve San Juan from Caracas, Orlando, Tampa, Raleigh (seasonal), Dallas, O'Hare, St. Louis, Baltimore, Dulles, Newark, JFK, Philadelphia, Boston, Hartford, and Los Angeles (starts 19Dec).
Not in the "real" Caribbean, but they serve Belize City from Miami and Dallas. San Jose from Miami, Dallas, and JFK. Cancun from Miami, Dallas, St. Louis, O'Hare, JFK, and Boston. Bermuda from JFK, Boston, and soon if everything works out, Miami. The also serve the Bahamas from Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, and Tampa.
USAirways is the #2 carrier to the Caribbean, no doubt. They make huge money there, they will keep growing. However, American offers a much more extensive network not just from Miami and San Juan, but all over the Eastern seaboard, as well as the midwest and, soon, the West coast.
PHL and CLT will not decrase at the expense of MIA, but you will see USAirways add some MIA-Caribbean flights to feed some Star Alliance flights to Europe and Latin America. MIA also allows many more oppurtunites. For example, they could profitably serve La Romana daily, like AA, because there is a lot of O&D demand on that route. Also, a destination like Grand Cayman suddenly is not only a leisure route, but a major business route (MIA-GCM has a lot of business traffic thanks to banks). Charlotte and Philadelphia can only expand so far. Miami is the O&D and business traffic to the islands that takes that limit much higher.
We'll have to wait and see what happens. Any Star Alliance Caribbean growth at MIA will be faced by a big reaction from American Airlines, which is the main problem.