Cltfc

I don't think its all about Maximizing Parker/Kirby compensation packages, its about creating shareholder value. US flew CLT to GIG for 5 years at a loss because they wanted to get into the Brazil Market. Parker recently said a lot of the Asia flying is not profitable but he views the losses as an investment in the future. You are correct abut aircraft utilization, I think we all made the assumption that the aircraft would possibly be repositioned after the work groups are integrated

MAH4546

VCP is in the Sao Paulo metro area; distance-wise, it is comparable to the distance between SJC and SFO; LAX and ONT; NRT and HND among others.

The market is there - the question is whether AA will be able to convince enough people to use a secondary airport.

TAP already flies to VCP from Lisbon, and Copa starts from Panama in December.

ffI

There was once a time not too long ago, when AA had more flights out of Chicago than UA, despite it being UA HQ.

3Cforme

When was that, and do you have more details?

I don't recall comparisons of revenue passenger miles or available seat miles, but this shows seats for the summer '13 schedule on a typical weekday. (Pre-merger; no US)

Hub..........Seats......Flts.......Avg...Mainline. ..Express

ATL/DL....132300....1026.....129.0.....705.....321
DFW/AA....90500.....807.....112.1.....504.....303
CLT/US......68100.....655.....103.9.....286.....369
IAH/UA......58800......618.....95.1.....253.....365
ORD/UA.....56700.....659.....86.0 .....199.....460
MSP/DL.....49700.....479.....103.7.....195.....284
DTW/DL.....49300.....542.....91.0.....174.....368
MIA/AA......46000.....319.....144.0.....251.....68
EWR/UA....45800.....429....106.7.....203.....226
ORD/AA.....42700.....505.....84.5 .....169.....336
PHL/US......41000.....467.....87.7.....164.....303
MDW/WN...38800.....265....146.3

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/5914878/

pbarnette

The probability of AA getting kicked out of Oneworld, even if they flew standing room only CRJs into LHR, is between zero and zero.

smilinganddialing

But why call it "UA territory"? Why would AA give up that much traffic? When you add up ORD/UA, ORD/AA, and MDW/WN, you see that Chicago has a massive amount of traffic. WN really has no room to grow at MDW and is likely losing business travelers with their awful Evolve seating, painfully slow WiFi, and poor on-time schedule. UA has its own challenges.

While DFW and MIA are too far south to be good TATL gateways and JFK is going to be O&D focused, ORD stage lengths to European OW hubs are marginally longer than those from PHL: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ORD+-+L...MAD,+PHL+-+MAD

Chicago has 2.5x the O&D traffic of Philly with a downtown that's booming - highest job creation and population growth of any city core in the US: http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-...kets-us.html#b

eponymous_coward

The problem is that for the Atlantic seaboard, you need to add in another ~600 miles of connection backtrack to ORD instead of PHL. Whoops, you just added 3 hours to the TATL trip.

ORD is better positioned for midcon connections TATL, or East Coast-Asia connections TPAC. I'd expect AA to keep flying TATL out of PHL as the East Coast connecting hub. The airline that's probably going to lose the most international flying is CLT.

3Cforme

I don't call it UA territory but I accept that some data show UA is rather larger than AA at ORD. (Destination set, frequencies, and ASMs would be needed for robust analysis.)

I don't question the potential of the city of Chicago but I observe air demand there is spread over two airports and three carrier hub operations rather than one as at PHL (and ATL and CLT).

Matching UA flight-for- flight and destination for destination out of ORD may not be how AA chooses to compete.

Fanjet

Have you bothered to loook at all of the TATL flights that are already flown out of ORD? The number of non-US Airways TATL flights out of PHL is equal to the number of LH flights out of ORD. (And that's including the two BA flights out of PHL!!) So now that US will be included in the ATI/JV with AA/BA/IB/AY, they will basically monopolize the TATL traffic at PHL, as they will compete against one daily LH flight and one seasonaly on DL. Whereas at ORD AA/BA/IB will have to take on UA, LH, SR, OS, TK, AF, EI, LO, AL, SK, KL, AB, VS. Which indicates that the TATL service out of ORD pretty much reflects the fact it has 2.5X the amount of O&D than PHL.

MAH4546

One statistic where AA is larger than UA in Chicago: O&D traffic. AA flies more people that begin or end their trip in Chicago than any other airline.

sdsearch

Distance and placement are different. SJC and SFO are both south of San Francisco. LAX and ONT, on the other hand, or on opposite sides of (the center of) Los Angeles. HND is actually closer to Tokyo than NRT, but is domestic focused and so has completely different connections. (And connections, for AA, is a huge difference between LAX and ONT as well.)

Is VCP useful for LANTAM connections, or is it an alternate airport for O/D traffic only?

WAS

Distance on a map is one thing, but the time it actually takes to get there is another. Traffic and the road infrastructure in Sao Paolo are a nightmare. There is no complete beltway/ringroad around Sao Paolo. I've heard from colleagues from there that it can easily take 2-3 hours to get to GRU from parts of the city. So VCP actually might be more convenient for many passengers. It's an interesting move by AA.

morrisunc

Is this really true? Hard for me to believe given how much bigger UAL is in ORD.

Parker always said that PHL wasn't JFK when arguing to keep labor costs down. I heard that their performance has improved in NYC since the merger/addition of shuttle, etc.....if Parker can figure out a way to increase NYC even at the expense PHL flying I think he will do it.

MAH4546

Yes, it is true, although the difference is entirely due to US; AA carriers approximately .7M more annual O&D passengers to/from Chicago than UA.

perseus11

If Parker can figure out a way to increase JFK (profitability) by INCREASING the number of international flights through PHL, he'll do it. IMO, that is going to be the case. JFK is a significantly more expensive airport (for airlines) than PHL. So unless that difference + other considerations, can be offset by NYC O&D, it may be more profitable to route the lower yielding connecting international traffic through PHL.