Originally Posted by
A318neo
I'm sure airlines have thought about LGA-LAX on Saturdays but decided against it.
There's LGA-IAH, which is one of the farthest. DEN is an exception to the regulations and is permitted because of grandfathering.
I have been on a Delta Lockheed L1011 and an American Airlines DC-10 at LGA. They stopped using those big planes years ago.
Various airlines have dabbled in longer Saturday routes, I think maybe when WN entered they were doing LGA-LAX? Someone was. But I guess the yields just aren't there on Saturdays.
AA used to do seasonal LGA-EGE (Vail, CO) on Saturdays to supplement their daily EWR-EGE, which was subsequently moved to JFK. Obviously EGE is not a business-dependent route (and probably yields high anyway), and back in the day most lodging was Saturday-to-Saturday so it worked well.
But anyway, here's the acceptable radius. I think IAH is actually the farthest (marginally farther than DFW), other than DEN of course; there aren't really even any cities in eastern Kansas, Nebraska, or N/S Dakota which are closer to the perimeter. Looks like parts of the Dom. Repub. are close to the perimeter, but (1) I'm not sure if any key cities are within it, and (2) they'd need a US CBP preclearance facility anyway.
