Originally Posted by
ashill
Agree with everything you say except a quibble here: AS isn't backfilling the international long haul out of LAX that AA is abandoning. AA is moving some LAX-Asia routes to SEA, others to DFW, and abandoning others. If AA had a geographically sensible hub with local demand and not overwhelming competition of their own, they'd use it, but they don't; SEA using the AS feed is the next best option. I don't think it's so much about AS's lower costs as the fact that AA can use AS to feed a more geographically sensible Asia hub that wasn't a total bloodbath given supply relative to demand from, say, 2016 to 2019 (ie recently but pre-COVID).
AA is leaving LAX as a hub and focusing on O/D because LAX has trash yields for them, save for some select routes (some of it might work for AS though). They’re going to try SEA because they won’t have to invest in a bunch of domestic service that would do to SEA what AA/AS/DL/NK/UA/WN (and soon B6) do to LAX, trash yields via a competitive market.
I’m not convinced AA’s SEA strategy will work (I think DL is capable of outlasting them, has a better operation and product, and this is literally the worst time in history to try this), but if it gets AS into OW, it’ll be “no backsies” unless someone buys them.