Interesting move. What puzzles me is how they will park the RJs at the Commuter Terminal. I took the 8:42am flight up to LAX last month (on an RJ) and I was surprised how much of the ramp the plane took up. Those Saabs seem like they can easily fit into the 4 "parking spaces" AA has on their side of the commuter ramp, but when an RJ arrives, it just kinda taxies toward the terminal and stops, hence taking up much more room than a prop.

In other words, to me it seems like the RJs take up far more room than the Saabs at the Commuter Terminal, and therefore I think this may present some problems when you add 9+ RJ flights to San Jose to the mix of 20+ prop/RJ flights to LAX that depart from the Commuter Terminal. Time will tell.

At any rate, while there are indeed some benefits to using the terminal (short lines, decent waiting area, boarding by stairs to please the aviation geeks), I would much prefer to use T2 for departures. The lack of an AC in the Commuter Terminal is a big drawback.

If I had to guess, I would say that American is doing this because 1) they want to consolidate all RJ ops at one location, thereby reducing costs, and 2) they want to free up some room at Terminal 2.

SAN-SJC is in fact AA's highest O&D route out of SAN (though this is not hard to believe if you think about it). I wonder how many of these passengers are staying loyal to AA simply because they enjoy those extra perks AA has to offer, such as elite check-in, security, and the AC? None of these will be available in the Commuter Terminal.

Nevertheless, several good things may result from this move. For one, it may mean we see more RJ flying to LAX, as deploying all Eagle aircraft to one location at SAN could make scheduling easier in this regard. Secondly, it may mean more mainline flights out of T2. I, for one, am hoping we will finally see SAN-MIA by the end of this year.

Aaron G.