Originally Posted by
SOBE ER DOC
This is not a correct statement, PHL and MIA are both fortress hubs for AA. HVCs living in MIA are not big fans of driving the 30 miles to FLL to fly with a LCC. In PHL, the closest LCC hub is 80 miles down the road at BWI. Yes, there are LCC flights out of PHL but AA dominates the market.
Yet, AA somehow is leaking HVC to B6 at FLL due to mint. And it's yield has dropped in recent years due to pressure from FLL.
As for PHL, there are a lot of people between EWR/PHL that can choose between the two airports. On the other side, there is BWI airport who can pick off passengers. Although the leakage is a lot more severe for people between NJ and PA. ATL/CLT/MSP/DTW/SLC don't have anything like that to pick off passengers. So they simply can't dominate their local market as those airports.
Delta's hubs are not uncontested. ATL, MSP and DTW all have far above-average fractions of connecting passengers. While it gives them scale it shows Delta's restricted ability to gain outsize profits from locals. A route xxx-ATL-yyy competes with xxx-yyy non-stops as well as every other one-stop offering xxx-zzz-yyy. BTS data show that two of the top five operating carriers at DTW are Spirit (#3) and Southwest (#5). Delta fights B6 at JFK and with UA for the
#2 position overall in NYC. SLC fights with DEN for inter-Mountain traffic. LAX...
due to their massive scales, they have very low CPE, making the connections very efficient. And while they compete as connecting hubs, they also allow them to dominate O&D markets. Even if only 60% of traffic is O&D, they are going to make a killing off that traffic when they control 99% Point of sale. In NYC where they can't control point of sale, they also don't make money. Those DL hubs are the envies of every carriers in the country.