Originally Posted by JS
True. And I do understand the point made a few posts up about real estate at the airport being at a premium. DFW seems to have lots of space, but if the TUL facility is already there, then I can see keeping it.
I was about to write that Southwest, king of cutting costs, probably doesn't do this and build large maintenance bases in GGG or BIL, but then I remembered that Southwest outsources heavy maintenance, which is exactly what NW is trying to do! Hmmm...
FWIW, when I was at ACA, we had an mx base in CAE (Columbia, South Carolina). It was a fairly strategic location -- we had CRJ to and from IAD and ORD, our major hubs, and I think FRJ service to BOS, CVG, or LGA or something like that. We didn't have a ton of flights in and out of there, but it was fairly strategic from an aircraft positioning point of view.