HNL

DL closed their SEA club on the A Concourse well before the merger with NW. Post merger the new DL has a club in the South Satellite.

JDiver

Here's the real deal, folks. This is FlyerTalk:

Further political posturing or exposition and comments about alleged group, political or social characteristics of dwellers of certain states will be edited, deleted or banished to OMNI.

To remind all, this thread is in the American AAdvantage Forum, and is titled SJC / San Jose, California Admirals Club - closing as of Sep 17, 2010. Please keep to the topic at hand.

/Moderator

panjabi

JDiver, Well said! Although my post said the same in many ways. However I took 44 times more text to say it. But now that beautiful prose is deleted forever

I do think it is OK to have some off topic banter in a thread. It is necessary to create a context. Goal is to make sure thread does not run away with it.

There is some (not complete by any means) merit in the argument that was going on that due to CA financial issues, maybe it is not profitable for AA to fly to SJC

Sure one post in particular went too far but I think the other posts in that topic (including mine IMHO) were broadly in line of sight of the original thread

IN any case, I am not the moderator. You are. Just my 2 cents

albutt27

Is this a fore-shadow of what's to come with AA flights out of SJC? Last year, they pulled the SNA - SJC flights. What's next? It's too bad because loyal south bay fliers will eventually switch if it becomes inconvenient.

Xero

Pretty much what's left are 6 daily flights to DFW, 2 daily flights to ORD, and 6 daily AE flights to LAX. I have herd somewhere on FT that AA mainline domestic routes that fall below 3 a day are vulnerable to being pulled. Thus, there is a chance that SJC-ORD might be axed.

Also, Horizon Air is entering the SJC-LAX market on August 23, causing 4 airlines to be involved in the route: American, United, Southwest, and AS/Horizon. Based on how AA has treated other Bay Area routes, it seems that AA will tolerate competition with a maximum of two other airlines. When it's a quad battle, AA seems to pull out (they pulled out of SFO-BOS).

AA has been really been pulling out of SJC, and the trend is continuing. I fear that within a couple years, AA will only fly to DFW from SJC. SoCal airports BUR and ONT only fly to DFW via AA.

brp

Did you renew at the SJC AC, perchance? That's my theory.

Cheers.

sts603

The rent (in the post-9/11 environment) was cited as the issue when it was closed.

UA and AS had/have far larger presences there. DL's club was closed long before the merger. DL's presence obviously warrants it now too with the size of the domestic schedule and international service.

CO's operation is about the size of AAs though perhaps a little larger. It was probably just a different arthimatic equation for them.

KD5MDK

I have to say I doubt AA will reduce flying out of ORD. If they're building their 5 fortress strategy, reducing service from a hub won't help that.

ntamayo

Bingo, I think that's what it was...renewal.

msv777

I haven't renewed at SJC in years. I usually renew on the road... This year I renewed at SFO, and rec'd the snail-mail letter last week as well as an email.

I assume they used several criteria for the snail-mail merge: AC members w/ home airport setting as SJC on aa.com [which is what I believe mine came from], recent swipes, renewals, etc.

Cheers.

CardinalTree

Another data point: I got the snail mail letter a couple days ago. My home airport setting on aa.com is SFO, but I live in Sunnyvale. I'm a first-year AC member (signed up in DFW), and haven't renewed yet. Have had a few recent swipes at SJC (3-4 in last couple months).

Combo of factors probably is it....Given my demo, I might add a filter of AC members with a zip code within X miles of SJC.

Sad to see the club go - had my first proactive SJC AAngel intervention just a few weeks ago when the inbound ORD 737 turn went mechanical.

deeseeel

Although I take quite a few flights out of SJC, most of the time I'm running to the gate like a madman and snagging the last first class seat in the middle of group 6. I'm a member, but spend very little time in the SJC AC. SJC makes it too easy to be the last minute runner.

(I also blame WN for my "if they don't call you name, you are still on time," mentality, but that's a different post.)

Still... I renewed at SJC. That's my home airport (despite all the reductions in service). I arrived relatively early on my renewal day -- meaning I arrived during group 3, got my renewal, and boarded my customary group 6 -- even though it would have made much more sense to renew at DFW where I had a 2 hour connection. It was a symbolic gesture, like, rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.

Sadness. I so miss the days of SJC-NRT. That was my first time in the AC... when some great FTer gifted me a SWU because they were expiring anyway. (They were called VIPOWs back then!)

Mentioning SJC-TPE/CDG would just be rubbing salt into the wound, right?

All understandable; I've talked to the media person at SJC; they've set their sights on LCCs and entrepreneurial carriers. Not AA. And well, we've talked enough about AA's structural cost problems. And yes, SJC has got its own structural cost problems. If only tech actually met people instead of doing crappy conference calls and telepresence!

Sigh. If AA @SFO was undergoing some Renaissance, this would be understandable.... Directs to APAC and Europe... Greatness! (Even if it just meant NRT and LHR.)

Alas, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

I'll take my 3 months... Sadly. But with my company going *A and a status match offer that is decent, I may lose faith and go dark side.

Cue "Rhapsody in Blue" at SFO. Or at least that d*mn ding sound on WN flights and commercials.

tom911

Well, we do have the Air Berlin nonstops SFO-Dusseldorf (they've been flying it a few months already and will be joining One World), plus a new 10,000 square foot lounge scheduled to open in the spring. On the other hand, we just lost the nonstops to BOS.

mvoight

Unfortunately, not only did they pull SJC-SNA, they also pulled SF0-SNA.
A few month later B6 pulled SJC-LGB. Also AS is not doing OAK-SNA and Virgin pulled out of SFO-SNA. In CA, it seems that WN is king.

pjhaas57

It is definitely closing. They gave me three additional months of membership as a consolation.

Flying out of SJC is not always more expensive than SFO and it's a world easier if you live in San Jose or thereabouts. I've racked up 3 million miles mostly out of SJC.