Originally Posted by
Howard
If AS wants to attract more SAN business flyers, they need to offer a BR to be competitive. I really don't understand why they don't convert the old UC into a BR. Offering the AC in another terminal is not much of an offer.
They're not really offering business destinations.
Boston, Honolulu, Kahului-Maui, Kailua-Kona, Lihue, Orlando-International, Portland (OR) Seattle/Tacoma, Puerto Vallarta, Salt Lake City, San José del Cabo, Monterey, Santa Rosa, Mammoth Lakes, Boise, Fresno, Salt Lake City
Let's see, 4 Hawaii destinations, two Mexican resort destinations (not MEX or GDL), a seasonal ski resort, and Mickey's Corporate Office, AS hubs, and some random CA/Mountain West destinations that either WN can't serve because realistically this calls for an RJ (FAT/MRY/STS/BOI), or ones that tweak DL's nose (SLC).
Out of SAN's top domestic 10 destinations by pax volume, AS is serving ONE of them (SEA), plus SAN's top international destination (SJD). WN, by contrast, serves EIGHT of them (and they serve DAL and MDW, not DFW and ORD, so really, they serve all ten metro areas).
(Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Di...tional_Airport)
If AS were to get serious about making SAN a full on hub instead of a focus city, they'd need to start serving places like PHX and the Bay Area... but if it's all vacation spots + opportunistic adds in the network that avoid head-on collisions with WN, hard to justify an investment for a Board Room.
I don't think AS's strategy is a bad strategy at all, given that they need to hold off DL in SEA. You probably don't want to start a war on two fronts with WN out of SAN. But what AS is doing out of SAN (and SJC too) isn't a full-scale assault for business passengers yet.