Originally Posted by
john.scs
I'd be very excited if AS were to expand its MRY flights; its once-daily MRY-SAN operation doesn't really benefit me much, and useful connections at SAN seem to be limited to Hawai'i and maybe a city or two in Mexico (SAN isn't really much of a hub for AS). What I'd love to see is a northbound AS flight from MRY, maybe even to PDX or SEA (very unlikely, I realize). If you need to travel to the Northwest from MRY these days, you have to drive to SJC (for frequent and pretty inexpensive AS flights to SEA and PDX; I think Southwest also operates on those routes) or SFO. UA seems to have pulled back a great deal from its West Coast operations, maybe as a result of Delta's unbridled expansion.
excellent post.
i think that actually you should be looking to DL to be the redeemer of MRY at this point. i could see DL flying MRY-SEA more likely than AS, or bringing back MRY-SLC if UA drops its SFO operations entirely. the reason i pin DL as more likely than AS is that they have a much larger RJ fleet and i don't think that MRY bound passengers would respond well to a Q400 ride all the way from SEA to MRY. if UA gives up the INTL flow from MRY via SFO, DL will certainly pounce on it via their SEA hub-lette.
however, i could certainly see AS flying MRY-PDX. one problem i have with AS in SMF is connecting onward from PDX and SEA, particularly eastbound, due to the timing of the departures from those hubs...most of which are once a day. i'd imagine that something similar might happen at MRY, it would work great for travel to MRY, but perhaps not as well out of MRY.