Originally Posted by
EBiafore99
I find this post somewhat interesting. The talk is all about Europe and Asia. It seems that people forget about the Caribbean, Central America and South America, which I believe AA is has a huge advantage over DL and UA. I've seen AA add many routes / frequencies in these regions, most likely to maintain their advantage. The last I checked, these are international destinations.
To me, I see the strategy pretty clearly...AA is playing to its strengths (Americas) and using partners in other regions (and adding selective routes where deemed appropriate). DL does the same thing. Look at Asia...DL is finally adding TPE, but for the most part, they are relying on flying people through ICN. The also use AMS and CDG to funnel customers as well.
Now, you look at UA, and they are trying to be the "Pan Am" of yesterday with a worldwide network. That has its dangers. International travel can diminish quickly, especially if there is a terrorist event, war, etc. Then UA has a bunch of widebodies on their hands with no place to go.
While Houston is not Miami in terms of South American and Central American demand or geography, it is a strong second (strong than ATL and DFW by the numbers), and does well for UA to LatinAm and the Carib. In fact UA is adding IAH-GEO and IAH-MDE soon along with Tulum and upgauges and more freqs on several routes. So it is not like UA is lost going south. Plus UA gets some high dollar petro travellers out of IAH to places like GIG that make a fortune for them.
Also, if a world event hits, those widebodies can redeploy domestically to MCO, LAS, HNL and what not. Plus CUN is not going anywhere LOL and there are widebodies there.
I fly both AA and UA a lot and have no stock or stake in either, but as I noted in an above post, they have different strategies. Neither are wrong or bad, they are just different, and that is OK. Not every airline can be everything, plus we don't need an aeroflot type situation either ;-)
AA will be fine, and UA will be fine.