Originally Posted by
formeraa
This is inevitably one of the reasons why the route failed.
But, seriously, EUG is a smaller market and AS needed to capture a large percentage of the traffic on the nonstop flight. If enough passengers are connecting through, say, PDX to get extra EQM's, then the route will not be profitable.
My personal feeling is AS tried to position as an alternative to flying UA's CRJ sardines to the greater Bay Area, but that advantage went away as UA upgauged first to E175's and then to mainline to SFO. The nail in the coffin was the route apparently couldn't support a QX E175.
AS had a brief period of dominance at EUG after UA torched their PNW UAX and UA operations, but those number slid even as UA/DL/AA all gained. AS cut one of their daily PDX flights, fares are up (often priced as end on end fares from SEA or PDX), and now SJC is going.
The good news, hopefully, is the stupid "Silicon Shire" branding can get thrown upon the ash heap of history.