Originally Posted by
MAH4546
Tampa is no small town. It's the second largest city and second largest economy in America's fourth most populated state. It has supported non-stops to LA for quite a while.
A few years ago Delta even tried LAX-JAX. That, however, didn't last very long.
I know... I lived there twice... once in the late 80s and again between 2006-2010. I even took the DL LAX-TPA redeye in 1998.
That being said, the UA 757 between MCO and LAX has always been excused away as entertainment industry/Disney/whatever. But that DL LAX-TPA flight just has never made sense to me. Professionally I've flown plenty of times to SFO and SEA and v/v from TPA. However, I've never flown LAX-TPA professionally. It's just one of those flights that has never made sense to me as an armchair CEO.
You can give me all the TPA to (DFW,IAH, SLC, ORD, DEN, WAS, NYC, CLT, ATL, MIA, CHI, DTW, MSP, MSY, BHM, JAX, BNA, MEM,) flights you want. Those "make sense". It's hard to believe that any flight between TPA and any non-hub, non-military, non-regional location makes a ton of sense.