Also Braniff.

"Midwestern" is an imperfect term, its meaning depends in part on where one stands.

Someone growing up in Kansas or Nebraska may well think of her/himself as being from the Midwest and Ohio as being in the east, while from Ohio may likely think of Kansas and Nebraska as being in the west -- west of St. Louis, the gateway to the west; Grand Island, NE is further from Cleveland than is Tulsa, OK. And then there is the person from Denver, clearly a town of the west, for whom Chicago is closer than San Francisco.

Growing up in Cleveland, my neighbors and I certainly viewed ourselves in the midwest; we saw Pittsburgh as just a hop-skip-jump down the road -- PIT was less than 120miles from my childhood home, closer than TOL or CMH - and certainly closer than DTW. Toronto was a spur of the moment weekend, but New York or Chicago were something that one planned in advance; we thought of Ontario as in the Midwest - but we thought of Ontario as the Sault, Windsor, London, Niagara, and Toronto, not Ottawa and Kingston.

Thus we Clevelanders (like those from Akron and Columbus) would not think of connecting through PIT as leaving the region. As a kid, I often flew CLE-PIT-PHX, but I'd never think of connecting through PHL. That would be going to the east-coast.

With the consolidation of the airlines and the elimination of scores of hubs, one no longer hesitates about long routings or even overflying destinations to get there.

Of the major hubs which remain in the US -- AA/US (JFK, PHL, CLT, MIA, ORD, DFW, PHX, LAX), DL (JFK, DTW, ATL, MSP, SLC, LAX), UA (EWR, IAD, ORD, IAH, DEN, SFO, SEA), AS (SEA, SFO), WN (BWI, BNA, ATL, MDW, STL, HOU, PHX) -- none are at risk, IMO, of closing due to consolidation because of lack of space (terminal, ramp, runway, & airspace) at the hubs which would remain -- e.g. AA needs PHL because there is no space at JFK and PHX because LAX can't take it all. As the merger proceeds, one may well see subtle attempts to drive TATL traffic from connecting at JFK to connecting at PHL and CLT in the hopes of maximizing AA's share of NYC O&D traffic.

The only chances I see of hub changes happening involve competitive pressures between airport authorities. If the rent goes up at BNA, might WN find it cheaper to move into DL's former hub at MEM? If PIT offers good financial incentives, could AA be lured there? We already have evidence that airlines retain major portions of O&D traffic at former hubs (e.g. US at PIT, AA at STL).

That's very true. Personally I identify much more with the "Great Lakes" than the "Midwest," though I'd say I'm from both. These days, Kansas City and Tulsa feel much more in the orbit of Dallas than Chicago, to me.

It's funny -- as a Detroiter, I have exactly the same perception of Ontario (I could find London or Hamilton on an unlabeled map, but would have trouble with Ottawa), but we thought of CLE the way you thought of PIT, and PIT the way you thought of PHL :D

I can't think of a single airport that has ever been actively dehubbed and then become a hub again -- though I may be missing one. The closest I can think of is BNA, though it's not a fully traditional hub.

I think the reality is that fewer airlines mean far fewer hubs are necessary today, and all the economic pressures that have closed hubs in the past are amplified in a world where fuel and labor are more than half of an airline's costs. I really don't see anything that PIT could do to make themselves more profitable than any existing hub in the US system -- and frankly, there's not much they didn't try before being dehubbed.

That said, everything's cyclical -- and eventually you're going to see the new "big three" get fat and lazy. When the next WN springs up in five or ten years, who knows -- maybe they'll have the cost structure to make one of those facilities work.

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

Add AA hubs at RDU and BNA, although to a large extent BNA was as much of a midwest hub as an east coast hub.

PI kept the SYR hub going for quite a while after acquiring Empire.

Best I can come up with is AA's pulldown of RDU and Midway's buildup of RDU thereafter.

CLE was a UA hub then was pulled down, then became a CO hub.

Flight numbers for US are starting to change at PWM. I had an August flight to DCA that got renumbered and rescheduled by a few minutes. I'm also seeing mainline (E90) service to PHL, but that could be to add summer capacity.

I wonder if we'll get Eagle back up here.

I sure hope so. Would be nice to get some competition on ORD-PWM- UA prices are often ridiculous.

Why would AA bring in Eagle flights to compete with US flights?

US doesn't fly to ORD or any other pmAA hub from PWM. UA does, but the frequency and aircraft suck because they're prioritizing EWR/IAD as connecting hubs from here. ORD makes way more sense for heading west, as well as for connecting OW traffic.

US has great frequency to PHL and DCA, but that doesn't do a whole lot for me heading to the west coast or taking a oneworld carrier TATL. I usually end up driving to BOS, but I'm certainly willing to pay a little more and fly out from PWM, which is across the street from my office.

UA prices are ridiculous and you get to fly on an E45 most of the time, right? My airline loyalty has dropped to about zero over the past year, so I'd even settle for WN doing PWM-MDW service. They fly it 3x from MHT.

You are aware seasonal WN PWM-MDW service starts this week? Admittedly it is Saturday only, but it is a step.

And .... sadly, pulled down by UA again. :(

Safe Travels

I wasn't, but I'm fine with that. Hopefully that brings down Chicago fares, but we'll see - WN service PWM-BWI has been anything but cheap. Then again, coterminal competition has done very little for PWM because the capacity is mostly coming from US - fares to all 3 WAS airports are still high.

As a smaller market, we're either just surprising airlines with our ability to fill planes, or the airlines are happy to maximize profit instead of bringing on capacity. I think we're just starting to cross that size threshold where it's going to make sense for someone to come in and start competing on routes, rather than the one-stop oligopoly. The problem there is that the only large, common hubs east of the Mississippi are ORD and JFK, where AA is showing no interest in competing with UA/DL ex-PWM, and nobody wants to fly point to point anymore.

Why does't PHL make sense heading to the west coast? It's only 122 miles longer flying distance than through ORD.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=pwm-phl-lax,+pwm-ord-lax