Boraxo

Agree, there is already plenty of competition at SFO despite UA's hub. And it is expensive to maintain stations where you don't have many flights.

We all know VX was barely profitable (and hence vulnerable to buyout) and I'm sure the less profitable routes included SFO-DEN (with WN, UA and Frontier all offering low cost options) and SFO-MEX (where I found surprisingly low fares for business trips). The way you make money on mergers (at least from what we've seen with the big ones the last decade) is to cut the less profitable routes and redeploy equipment elsewhere. Of course those are often the more popular routes with us bargain-hunting leisure travelers who appreciate the better product that VX offered.

eponymous_coward

If you believe fighting for SJC against WN and with only 1/3rd the overall traffic of SFO (and FAR less gate availability- you just can't whistle up 5-7 SJC gates overnight) is a more profitable opportunity for AS than SFO in the big scheme of things, I have a slightly used bridge to sell you.

Hints: AA and DL don't fly JFK-SJC with planes with lie-flat seats. And WN has better market share at SFO than AS or VX does (and that's with a de facto dominant hub at OAK and top dog status at SJC).

Running away from a major CA airport is running away from CA. Period. WN and B6 didn't run in fear from UA/DL/AA as part of their expansions. Why exactly is AS supposed to?

ucdtim17

Less than 1/4 actually. ~22% in 2017.

SFO 55.8 mil
OAK 13.1 mil
SJC 12.5 mil

Boraxo

With all due respect do you really understand the local market here? Millions of people would prefer to fly from OAK/SJC but they aren't going to do so when it involves a connection or a significantly higher fare. From the East Bay - they simply drive 20-30m more (non-rush hour) to SFO and similarly from the South Bay. So WN dominates OAK (where it often charges higher prices than SFO) and to a lesser extent SJC.

Now should AS go head to head with WN? I don't think that is a winning strategy particularly on the short-hauls from SFO where you have multiple airlines slugging it out. However I do know that for a time that model seemed to work for AA (from SJC, post-AirCal acquisition) and B6 (from OAK) though both eventually abandoned that strategy. But the world has changed here in the past 20 years with the explosion of tech jobs into the suburbs and the extension of BART to OAK, etc. So it might be time to reevaluate. And I give props to AS for thinking outside the box - who would have picked Sonoma for additional jet service?

IMO the toughest problem for AS is ramping up frequency. I once flew SFO-ORD on VX but missed my return because the last flight out was 7pm or so. That doesn't work too well for high rev biz travelers. It's also why WN does so well on short-hauls. If AS wants to be more than a fringe player then it needs higher frequency on many routes. And with the ATC/weather delays into SFO, other options should be considered.

eponymous_coward

OAK and SJC have been a thing for decades. The millions of people who would presumably rather fly from there don't. SFO has dominated them (as in a multiple of their pax count combined) for decades. The idea that you can simply ignore where passengers fly from and "build it and they will come" doesn't work in the real world. Even WN, which is famous for using DAL/MDW/HOU instead of DFW/ORD/IAH, realized which way the wind was blowing once they got to a certain size; they didn't try to grow their ISP operation, but they started flying to LGA and EWR when they realized they needed NYC, and they have a substantial operation at SFO despite being top dog at OAK and SJC.

AS has access to gates and plenty of population at SFO, in an airport where UA is top dog but doesn't dominate like WN does at OAK. AS isn't going to be able to find gates at SJC to replace SFO. The traffic is not good enough, either. There's no problem with AS doing what they intended to do (a CA network centered around SFO/LAX with SAN and SJC as secondary cities)- they're just going to have to a) deal with the fact that premium transcon to NYC (and soon a few other cities) is table stakes for everyone other than WN, so if they're not gonna offer it they had better start wow'ing folks instead of destroying the VX value proposition for something that's not as user-friendly as WN, doesn't have the network of the legacies, and doesn't have a halo effect like Mint lie-flats, and b) WN owns frequencies on intra-CA and to places like PHX/DEN/LAS (and can actually connect people there too).

In fact, AA dropped SJC as a focus city/hub twice: AirCal and Reno Air. This doesn't bode well for trying a third time to pretend SFO isn't actually a thing. Even WN doesn't do that.

Consider that VX had complete choice of where to start up from in the Bay Area. They could have picked SJC. They didn't. And it's not like SFO started getting ATC holds due to low visibility just after VX started flying... they knew the deal, and they picked what they picked.

tphuang

I don't think people really appreciate how low yielding SJC in those mid-con and transcon stuff. There is a reason AS overpaid so much for those VX gates. It's very hard to build up against WN in secondary cali airports, because they dominate the intra cali routes and to PHX/DEN/LAS/Texas so much. Yes, AS did expand a lot at SJC/SAN, but outside of flights to PNW and HI, those were all really low yielding stuff. and HI yields are about to crash with increased competition from HA and WN. So AS can't go back to their old strategy. If I were them, I'd plow ahead and pour resource into making SFO work.

Aliquot

exactly, and that's what they did in LAX

fly18725

tusphotog

So, what’s left at SFO that’s outside the Pacific time zone and JFK/EWR?

beckoa

ANC?

tphuang

I said SJC has low yield for midcon and transcon in general. SFO is the high yielding station for any longer distance stuff in bay area. SJCEWR's average fare is in the low $200s right now for AS. If that's not low yielding, I don't know what is.

And looking at SJC, outside of AUS/DAL, what other AS destination can be considered midcon? I don't have the data on those 2 routes yet, since they are so new.

Midcons may very well be highest yielding for AS system wide, but that doesn't apply to every station.

Eastbay1K

pvr, sjd, slc?

tusphotog

They fly SFO-ANC now?

Perhaps I should have reworded my question: what PMVX cities are left that aren't SFO-JFK/EWR or in the Pacific time zone? I can only think of ORD and the DC area and SJD/PVR.

formeraa

There are two PDX-PHX flights on the current schedule.

pushmyredbutton

BOS?