Originally Posted by
Spyro
Delta is slowly cutting the hubs to allow businesses and people to adjust. This gives large companies (especially in CVG) to close their operations in the city and move out before all of the flights leave. Since the "overnight pull outs" like in DFW and PIT (good ol' US Air) airlines have learned to slowly pull out and tell little lies along the way to keep the pressure cooker of passenger complaint down.
Is that a serious position? That an airline would look after large businesses and shut down operations in an orderly fashion so they (the business) can look for a new place to move?
- Does an airline really gives a rat's tail about the impact their flight operations has on a business, beyond the extent to which that business represents revenue to them (the airline)?
- Very few businesses would even consider "following an airline" when the airline decides to shift its presence elsewhere. Exceptions would be for a business dependent upon proximity to an efficient hub for shipping, such as the businesses that depend upon FedEx's Memphic hub (an ironic example!).
Having said that, nature abhors a vacuum, and if there's enough business to warrant reasonable service to a location, it will happen.
It is touching to see people in this day & age believing that an airline truly cares about its customers. Perhaps that's realistic in the Delta world. Over in the United playfield, they'd assume sarcasm if I were to float such a thing there.
Originally Posted by
MPLS1969
If Delta cuts much of its MSP hub, I guarantee you the airport commission will make a sweetheart deal with another airline....a real airline like United.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the tracks. If you spend some time slumming where I hang out, you might think otherwise.
Originally Posted by
Vuelos
UA adding MSP flying to do what, compete with its ORD mega hub?
Wake up and smell the coffee, MSP is on the decline... I doubt it'll get to what MEM is at, it will retain major business & leisure markets, but it won't have long & thin markets that can be best served by DTW or ATL...
Say it ain't so! Many of us will remember our first trip through MSP after the movie "Airport" and think wow, I've been here before... when? Not a bad airport for food either, and you can brush up on your Fargo-speak listening to ramp workers. The only reason I can see United (we're not allowed to call it UA anymore... Jeff Smisek says so) increasing its presence at MSP would be as a strategic move to weaken Delta, but I don't think there's enough "there there" to warrant that. As you say, United has ORD a very short distance away. I was very surprised last month that I had a mainline flight, not regional, from ORD-MSP and then MSP-SFO (an indication that United is taking that market seriously?).