Originally Posted by
IADCAflyer
If AA wants to consider IAD-LHR (it would be a wild a guess as to the equipment but I would think 763 or 788), AA might want to consider a secure shuttle from DCA to IAD. Passengers who are flying into DCA and connecting to the IAD-LHR flight would be put onto a sterile bus that proceeds directly from DCA to IAD - bus doors locked and sealed. Not sure of TSA has an allowance for this type of procedure (kind of like the ABE-EWR bus that UA (or was it CO)) used to run, but it would help populate the plane with additional passengers.
Obviously from a loyalty standpoint, AA must be concerned that its losing passengers to either BA or to UA owing to non-stop service at IAD.
As others have said, this would be a transfer within the joint venture of some or all (my money would be on some) of the BA flights; AA doesnt compete with BA. And it would be about serving WAS local traffic: I can’t imagine AA would prefer to operate a bus to connect passengers DCA-IAD instead of just routing them via another hub. And I find it hard to believe that the TSA would consider a bus that leaves airport property to be secure for passengers. According to the UA forum, the ABE-EWR bus drops passengers off landside in both directions even though it picks passengers up airside at EWR.
Originally Posted by
ckendall
As much as I'd like to fly AA IAD-LHR, BA had two to three planes a day and connects in T5. I'd be hard pressed to understand exactly how a fourth flight per day would work or whether BA would cut and move service somewhere else (now that they're flying to CHS!).
I would certainly assume this would be replacing a BA flight, not a new flight. Either for matching capacity/product more precisely to the market or for WAS AA loyalists who (for whatever reason: frequent flyer program, product, and misunderstanding of the Fly America Act being three obvious ones on this particular route) prefer an AA plane enough that replacing a BA flight with an AA one would make them less likely to fly UA or another competitor.