Originally Posted by
coachrowsey
Who really knows any more where all this is headed.
From your earlier comments, I thought YOU did.
Originally Posted by
USFlyerUS
Here is what US brings to AA...
1. US owns more slots at LGA and DCA than any other carrier. AA would suddenly be able to capture a huge presence in the DCA market. Right now, they are minimal at best.
2. AA would pick-up the Shuttle.
Given fuel prices and changing travel patterns, the Shuttle's value has peaked IMO. I think any intense, high-frequency, expensive-to-run service between city pairs < 500 miles apart is on the bubble, value-wise. Look 10-20 years down the road, with $300 / barrel oil and a hopelessly congested east coast air corridor. High-speed electric trains will be where it's at. I would not want to buy into the Shuttle business at today's ask price.
Originally Posted by USFlyerUS
A combined US-AA with hubs in PHL, ORD, CLT, MIA, DFW and PHX plus major operations in LGA, JFK and DCA would be a nice fit, in my opinion anyway.
AA isn't looking to add more domestic hubs. No profit in it. The legacies pin their hopes for future earnings on international service, where US brings little to nothing. Anyway, no merged mega-legacy is going to maintain nine or ten hubs and focus cities; the point of any combination is to refine and reduce the resulting network, thin out the options, take capacity out of the system and acquire more pricing power. (Anyone who believes the DL/NW line about keeping all seven hubs open -- MSP, DTW, MEM, SLC, CVG, JFK, ATL -- is on crack. You can run that airline with three hubs, easy, and I bet they plan to.)
So if AA were to do US, IMO, it would be to grab LGA slots, do to PHL and CLT what US itself did to PIT a few years ago, and park capacity.
Also, US is not the mess it was a year ago. Operations have drastically improved and stabilized, and the on board service has been improved where cuts had gone too far before.
PHL is still permanently associated with disaster in most customers' minds, and US is on more peoples' "Try Greyhound before..." list than any airline I can think of. The brand is tainted; no value for AA in that either. At least with the TW deal they were seen -- briefly -- as acquiring a proud, romantic heritage brand. US? Not so much.