Originally Posted by YtravelF

They definitely jumped the gun.
Banking hubs is a sound strategy. But only if the underlying operation is sound. Banking hubs while running two un-integrated airlines is not the smartest idea and the chickens are coming home to roost.

The reason to bank is because of the way tickets are sold now is by price and trip time (for most people; FTers are a different breed ). By rebanking, AA tried to set itself up to be at the top of most search engines by having the lowest trip time combined with a reasonable fare, as well as to increase utilization of its planes. But if no one believes the trip time/departure time is realistic because AA's ops suck, then what's the point?