Originally Posted by
grahampros
That's not really how you make your money in the airline business. Strong O&D is absolutely key. CLT is the exception not the rule here and that's largely because of US's low costs. will be interesting to see how the hub fares as those costs increase to AA levels.
Actually, I believe many of CLT's low costs are due to factors independent of US Airways and their cost structure. Namely, the airport authority is fiscally conservative and very conscious to fund airport enhancements, runway expansions, parking improvements, etc in a manner that won't get passed on to the airlines in the form of a higher CPE. I don't expect the cost per enplanement to really change even if the airline's cost structure changes.
The real question to me will be, is CLT's $0.77 CPE (which is crazy low compared to most other airports) be enough to make it viable as a connecting hub in a post merger airline despite the level of O&D traffic that you would normally associate with a hub it's size?