Originally Posted by
JSprague24
With the Midwestern TATL feeding frenzy in recent months (CLE, CVG, IND, STL, BNA), the last major city which could conceivably draw TATL service to not land a dance partner to this point is CMH.
I don't recall exactly which cities got what airline service, but from the STL perspective it is TATL in name only. A connection at KEF to UK/mainland (even if efficient at the airport itself) to me is not a selling point (the opposite actually). Pricing out some flights, if you want a service level even close to on-par with legacy carriers (you know, taking a bag), the cost difference is minimal.
The challenge for non-hub Midwest metros >1M is that in most cases, there is no single aisle plane that has range to Europe (excl. Iceland, obviously) and they do not have the O&D to support widebody service. Along the same lines, you probably need *some* point-to-point flying to these cities (for feed) to fill TATL.
I haven't been to CMH recently, but it seems DL has a reasonable presence there, so who knows - even with incentives considered, I was shocked when they announced IND.
I wish DL would pay some more active attention to STL (you know, maybe fly to SEA, LAX, and JFK, to start...). We're starting to look like MDW-south with WN passenger share quickly approaching 60% and showing no signs of stopping (heck they are even reopening parts of the old D concourse to make sure there's enough gates for WN). If there's one airline you can bet on that will not fly TATL, probably ever, it is WN.