FlightNurse

I don't think AA flew LAX-SFo-LAX until they bought Air Cal... I thought AA bought Air Cal to get into the Calif market.. Since PSA and Air Cal had the Calif market to themselves.

FlightNurse

Yes, the downfall of that merger was the fact that East Coast mentality didn't know how to run an airlines on the west coast...

BoeingBoy

Not so much that Colodny didn't know but that he only cared about doing everything the US way - the "not invented here" syndrome. Or, as he put it talking to PI employees, "cool northern efficiency will replace southern charm" while US wasn't a model of any kind of efficiency. In fact, US of 1990 was an expensive airline looking to do nothing different than what it had been doing since deregulation - very slow expansion outside it's traditional NE markets while relying on the industries first fortress hub to provide revenue.

Jim

Indelaware

While US certainly did fail to integrate PS, it is certainly not alone among airlines that failed to integrate nearly acquired western operations:

I don't think a single route from RW remained with RC (or into NW or DL)
How long did OC or QQ last after AA purchased them?

While Delta was able to hang on to SLC, WA hub at LAX and routes up and down the coast didn't remain.

Even though it was HP that purchased US, once merged the new airline focused on the east coast, closing the LAS hub and significantly downgrading PHX; it even walked away from the mid-west.

Despite attempts, TI/CO couldn't maintain the strong presences at DEN/SLC/MCI it gained when it acquired PE/FL, focusing instead on growing EWR, IAH, and CLE.

Although LAX-SFO wasn't part of AA's historic system, other routes were. LAX-SAN goes back to at least 1952:
http://airchive.com/html/timetable-a...-history/23047

However, to say that PS & OC had the CA market to themselves misses several other important competitors -- viz. RW, WA, UA and more recently AS.

IceTrojan

Random musing: If the new AA was smart, LAX-SGN with a 788 should be in their first tier of new additions, directly connecting the largest Vietnamese population center with their native land, and making a one-stop for the other significant population centers near SJC, YYZ, IAH, PHL, NYC, SEA, and others.

Quite frankly, based on my experience and observations, most Vietnamese (especially the older generation) would pay an absolute premium to fly non-stop and avoid connections due to language barrier, long waits, or both.

I would guess VN would play ball and act as a great connecting network within Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia. Even though they're SkyTeam, they have good relationships across alliances, including with CX, JL, and QF.

VN wants to fly this route themselves but can't get US FAA approval. They applied a few years ago with their 772s, but they now have 789s in the pipeline.

I'm also positive that if this actually came to fruition, the Vietnamese government would make a big push to make the flight LAX-HAN for political reasons.

Thanks for indulging me.

FWAAA

No, AA flew LAX-SFO immediately after deregulation and maintained service throughout the 1980s with perhaps some occasional gaps in service. Nearly every airline was flying LAX-SFO around the time of the Air Cal purchase, including AA, Air Cal, Delta, Western, United, PSA, TWA and Continental.

Agreed. Upon deregulation, nearly every airline initiated service between LAX and SFO, including AA.

dtremit

This isn't quite fair; HP closed the CMH hub in 2003, well before the merger. And LAS was a very unique sort of hub operation that was entirely dependent on low fuel costs.

Ambraciot

The LAS hub relied on low fuel, labor and airport costs to make flying planes in off peak hours practical, despite lower yields. Compared to the established AA hubs PHL, PHX and CLT have lower yields only offset by lower operating costs, and that cost advantage is now much smaller than it used to be. It's a fair comparison, though it doesn't guarantee the former US hubs will meet the same fate. I think many of us AA flyers would be happy to trade PHX for LAS.

Indelaware

I was referring to PIT. Although PIT is in an east-coast state, there is a great difference between PIT and PHL, more than geography. PIT is the eastern most airport which can be said to be a mid-western hub.

To be fare, between AA/US (and their various predecessors) a great many hubs have been closed. Among them:

East Coast:
ATL: originally a TWA focus city
BNA: AA hub
BWI: Piedmont hub
MDT: Henson Airlines
RDU: AA hub
SBY: Henson Airlines
SJU: San Juan AA hub; TW focus city
SYR: Empire hub
UCA: Empire hub

Midwest:
CLE: US Air focus city
CMH: America West hub; TWA focus city
DAY: Piedmont hub
IND: US Air hub
PIT: US Air hub
MCI: TWA focus city; Ozark focus city; US Air hub
STL: TWA hub; Ozark hub

West:
ABQ: TWA focus city
LAS: America West hub
LAX: PSA; TWA focus city
PHX: US Air (short-lived, pre-HP merger hub)
RNO: Reno Air hub
SAN: PSA hub
SJC: Air Cal focus city; AA hub
SFO: PSA hub
SNA: Air Cal hub

Plus perhaps some others I have forgotten. And yes, the line between focus city and hub is not strict.

Firewind

Excellent rendition, Indelaware. Between your and Ambraciot's contributions, this discussion is attaining greater heights. (But I disagree with the use of "fail" where the airlines bought others to conquer and destroy their networks, either justified or not.) Anyway, just want to add ...

MIA: A number of airlines. Or better said, airlines' successors.

PDX: as DL's Asia hub, focus or at least jumping-off point.

ETA: ...whoops. This is all about AA and US and predecessors. My lapse.

dtremit

Ah, see...as a Midwesterner (grew up in MI and IL) I would never have thought to consider PIT.

The work that's been done on "megaregions" in the US is really interesting to me, and explains a lot about why certain hubs work and others don't. A good hub has to support connections among cities in the megaregion to be effective, since so many business and social connections are intra-regional. And to do that it has to be near the center. PIT (and to a certain extent, CLE) both fail that test; PIT's almost as close to Boston as Chicago, so they're inconvenient for someone going from Milwaukee to St Louis, or Boston to Washington.



There are only a handful of hubs today that aren't near the population centers of one of those regions, and they all have something other than geography going for them.

Firewind

Analeese for "redundant" w/r/t former and future former hubs? (OT, to a UA FF, DEN jumps to mind amid rumors of it being de-hubbed.)

dtremit

...Huh?

buckeyefanflyer

TWA had at times had a nice CMH operation back in the 1970's. I can't remember the complete schedule but had alot of flights.

joejones

No way. Too long and thin. I can't imagine that the target market would pay a high enough premium to justify it. Also poor feed on either end. If VN started service AA wouldn't be able to compete.

(If VN were to fly to LAX, my guess is that they'd go through some intermediate point. KIX and NGO would both be interesting, as they could funnel pax through either to both SGN and HAN, and they would have no nonstop competition on the Japan-US segment.)