Originally Posted by
cbn42
None of my statements were intended as facetious.
The argument that CLE was safe because ORD was too crowded and subject to too many weather delays was made. I don't know how many people agreed with it, but I remember reading it in the UA forum. The point is that additional capacity can be absorbed by the network as a whole, it does not have to be "moved" to another hub.
True. My point was that just because a hub is a "fortress", it is not immune. Fortress hubs can and are shut down.
Actually, that wasn't as facetious as it may seem. When a company goes on the defensive and starts reassuring the public of something, it is often because there is some sort of problem.
Those were all announced prior to the merger. After the merger, the schedules were actually reduced due to poor demand, presumably because some of the passengers can now go through an AA or oneworld hub instead.
We've gone through that debate already, no point re-opening it.
I guess your point with additional capacity being absorbed by the system is where I start to have trouble with the CLT argument. CLE could be absorbed because it was small and close to multiple other hubs. But at some point, I have to believe there's some sort of equilibrium in terms of the number of hubs and number of passengers. I'm not sure if we're there yet, or if further hub consolidation can occur, but I just have trouble picturing where 45 million passengers/year would go if CLT were no longer a hub, because that's a lot of capacity for the system to absorb, especially when your next closest hub (PHL) is almost 500 miles away, the closest one after that (JFK) isn't going to be a connecting hub, so on and so forth.
Look, I'm not trying to be a US hub or CLT apologist. I recognize that there are certain challenges/shortcomings. CLT has a relatively small O&D base, which usually doesn't go hand-in-hand with a hub. I get that. And I wouldn't be surprised if much of the TATL service from CLT goes away. But I just don't see the place disappearing.
I've said it before, but I ultimately see CLT as analagous to MSP for Delta - serves as a collection point for a specific geographic region, has a couple international flights, but overall serves as a decent sized, but not huge, domestic hub for the airline.