Originally Posted by
ashill
Indeed. But these before-8:00 flights from SEA to the east coast make connections for the NW (YLW being the important one for me personally) difficult or impossible too, and that seems like a set of connecting markets that AS should care about. A 7:45 flight probably only blows up YLW and YYJ (because of the need to clear Customs and thus a long minimum connect time), but still annoying and puzzling that they don't make connections possible. And the earlier flights (eg the 6:59 AM to BOS) make connections from the crack of dawn flights out of EAT, GEG etc impossible, which seems silly.
Originally Posted by
PDXpress
MFR, RDM, EUG... Earliest you can get to SEA is around 7:00am.
AS has a 7:00am departure to ATL that allows for almost no connections. I don't get it either.
There are only so many gates and planes for AS to work with at SEA, as well as at their East Coast destinations. It's pretty clear that the AS network is optimized for connecting for West Coast operations, not for using SEA as a connecting hub to the East Coast. (Witness the fact that
exactly zero of SEA's top ten destinations are transcons, and even places like ATL don't make the list- but
midcon hubs like ORD/DEN/DFW do).
Given how SEA is bursting at the seams, I'm not really sure SEA is going to work as (in effect) an AS banked hub that has a bunch of eastbound departures all heading off at about the same time to catch inbound traffic from Southern Oregon and Western Canada (which seems to be what's being asked for here). It's a strategy that works better for DL, to be honest, because they have a LOT more connectivity options if people are willing to double connect through a DL hub (SLC/MSP/DTW/ATL), whereas it's "whatever we can offer through SEA" in AS's case.
Here's the other thing... I'd think RDM-DEN-XXX (UA) or YYJ-YVR-XXX (AC) is waaaaaay more popular than connecting going east through SEA...