Originally Posted by
Piedmont767
The duration of the seasonal operating time was cut, you are right, but the flights do well, in most nights the aircraft on all routes willl be full, granted it may be low-yieldibg traffic, however full aicraft with low-yielding passengers will still make money,
Low-yielding TATL flights might have been profitable when the pilots and FAs had the lowest wages among the legacies, but it's not at all clear that they'll be profitable now that pilots are at AA's much higher wage scale (as of Dec 9, 2013, when they received about $200 million of retro to Feb 13m 2013). Your FA group finally ratified raises early in 2013 as well.
Originally Posted by
Piedmont767
the lowest available fares for the next flights to the 4 European destinations are-
BCN- $1,279
BRU- $1,483
MAN- $1,213
LIS- Econony Non-refundable Sold-out, next lowest fare- $2,146
Using Manchester as an example, as it has tye cheapest fare, if you divide $1,213 by 3,864 (miles between CLT and MAN) you will get the Yield: Per Revenue Passenger Mile, which is 31¢ a mile, according to my calculations. I and it seems most people think, that CLT-LIS/BCN/BRU/MAN will at least be tried again next year.
The US TATL yield this year will not break 15 cents per mile. I'm not concerned with anecdotal fare searches - I'm looking at annual data that US files with the DoT and with the SEC.
In 2013, the US Airways TATL yield was substantially less than the AA TATL yield - Parker detailed that in the January press release containing the 2013 annual financial results:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...R5cGU9MQ==&t=1
Originally Posted by
Piedmont767
You don't know that these flights are unprofitable, do you? You have not seen any figures, you are just guessing that European flying is unprofitable from Charlotte! There is a reason where international flying from Charlotte has built up over the years from two destinations in 2008 to 10 in 2014, becuase it makes money, an airline wouldn't start a new route unless they thought they could fill it up and make money, which all European flights must do otherwise CLT would still have London and Frankfurt as US Airways destinations.
US has had the lowest TATL yields and unit revenue among the majors since at least 1995. It's improved in recent years, but it's still the lowest. PIT did not attract high TATL fares and neither do CLT or PHL compared to NYC, BOS, WAS or MIA.
We don't have numbers on these new seasonal flights yet, but given that they're not key business destinations and are filled with connecting passengers, it's very unlikely that they're highly profitable, especially with the new higher post-merger US payscales.
Originally Posted by
Piedmont767
And the small O&D CLT has is high-yiedling and important, a German company for example buying up 8 Business Class Suites to FRA from CLT, taking there employees from the USA office and manufacturing site to the company's head office in Frankfurt.
Maybe new AA will keep a daily CLT-FRA flight, but if LH were to begin flying FRA-CLT, then it's a certainty that the German business executives (the ones based in Germany who fly all over the world on LH) would flock to that flight and abandon new AA in a minute. At that point, new AA would only have the USA-based subordinate employees of those German companies, and that might not be enough traffic to keep a daily FRA flight. LH still flies MUC-CLT, right?
What little O&D exists in CLT is, of course, high-yielding, like most other fortress hubs (ATL, EWR, DFW, MSP, etc). Problem with CLT is that it has the smallest O&D of any major hub. That's not a good omen for continued expansion.
That doesn't mean that CLT will be de-hubbed or closed or shut down. It simply means that CLT may not keep the same level of service it has featured in the past and that it may not expand. At this point, nobody knows.
Originally Posted by
Piedmont767
Can I have a source for your "but a US Airways executive mentioned recently to the Charlotte paper that CLT is also the lowest unit revenue hub" quote? And that does not bode well for Charlotte? Numerous US Airways executives have sais that Charlotte is a great hub, one we will keep forever and like to expand especially international.
It was in an article several weeks ago in your local Charlotte paper. I don't have time to look for it right now.
Originally Posted by
Piedmont767
Charlotte will NEVER loose service to FRA, the flight extremely well BEFORE US Airways joined Star Alliance in 2004. There is also fairly large German presence in Charlotte, that is why US Airways and Lufthansa both decided to and will keep service from FRA/MUC to CLT. Also there is a reason why the second daily CLT-FRA has ALWAYS resumed at least two months before the second daily PHL-FRA- becuase it does better; I have seen figures that I am not allowed to post, however I can say that CLT-FRA does better than PHL-FRA. So acording to your logic, if one daily USA-FRA would be cut- I wouldn't be surprised to Philadelphia to be cut, before Charlotte.
Maybe you're right, but it really depends on whether the CLT-FRA traffic consists of German-based executives or North Carolina-based Americans. The latter might be swayed to fly new AA, but the former will probably fly LH if that's a possibility.
Charlotte is a great city, but it's vastly over-served for its size. So are most other big hubs, but CLT stands out with the highest connecting percentage in the country at about 80%. At the very low wages paid prior to 2013, US showed some profits in certain years. With the new much higher wages and higher O&D hubs in the system (MIA, DFW, JFK), CLT's never-ending growth may be slowing down. That's why Charlotte put the new International terminal on hold and is building some new domestic gates instead.