I would think the more likely gotcha is that the USAA management decides to severely restrict low-level award availability, which is what BA pulls from.

I cant see shuttle to PHL at this time. Maybe JFK, but not LGA. I think Amtrak service makes this difficult.

you're giving up the entire southeastern US to DL if you do this.

What will happen to TLV?
 

With the merger now happening, and with AA not being able to fly to TLV by court order, what do you think will happen with AA/US service to TLV?

According to this article: http://www.mako.co.il/news-money/eco...bacbc31004.htm AA owes $20-30 million to former TW employees. However it also says that TLV is one of US's most profitable markets.

I think that until AA and US will receive a single operating certificates they will continue flying to Israel, under US certificate. However, when the first AA certificated plane lands in TLV, the authorities will be able to confiscate it until the debt will be payed.

So, what do you think will happen? Will AA abandon the Israeli market once again, firing all employees in the US office, any maybe while firing them not compiling with the Israeli laws, which will require them to pay compensations to the current US employees, only increasing their debts in Israel?

Or will AA pay the debt, allowing PHL-TLV to continue, and probably starting JFK/ORD/MIA-TLV service?

I hope that they will pay the debt, and initiate the new routes, however I'm not optimistic. I do believe that if AA will cancel TLV service, LY will probably add another AA hub as a destination, expanding the AA/LY codeshare, or, if they won't be able to do it fast enough, I believe we will see UA flying from IAD/ORD or DL adding extra JFK flights. What do you think?

I see CLT eventually filling the role of a large domestic hub with a limited international presence. I picture it akin to the role MSP serves for Delta in the post NW/DL merger world.

Maybe they can figure out how to fly some MD-80s over there and leave em.

That's already what US was doing... thus our love of redeeming miles on the Star Alliance. With all the fuel surcharges this game might not be so much fun anymore...

JFK/MIA-CPT/JNB would be fantastic. *A and SkyTeam both have direct US to Africa services, surely the world's largest airline can get at least one route linking the two continents!

Getting to use SWUs to AMS from PHL will be cool!

Silly ducks, CLT is not going anywhere but UP! It's profitable, the lowest operating cost of any major airport and that old saying LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. US has a much better operating margin on TATL than AA, serves more cities than AA, etc. CLT has FANTASTIC feeder traffic. The new AA can't feed that many people into JFK or MIA.

Those who connect SE to SE aren't going to the edges for flights. They would move to DL at Atlanta or perhaps UA at IAD.

Parker knows that a successful airline is about making profit and CLT is a goldmine. NC, VA, and other states in that region are growing financially. This is old Piedmont country and it took a while for them to get used to the old US after that merger.

CLT has a great airport with a great infra-structure. It can be expanded. With DL pulling out of MEM, this should help CLT to a degree. Much more manageable than ATL. The commuter terminal has a great setup if you are flying Express to Express.

UA is making both EWR and IAD work. AA will make JFK, CLT and MIA work, different markets, different audiences. Doug knew the merger would happen and yet added 4 seasonal European flights from CLT for this summer. There may be some tweaking. US serves more cities in Europe from CLT than AA does at JFK or ORD or MIA. There is a reason.

While I agree that CLT is not in trouble in the near or medium term, I find that there are some factual inaccuracies in santarosaflyer's statement above. AA have no problem getting passengers into MIA (last year MIA saw 50% more traffic than CLT, and it is not slot controlled); JFK is somewhat more limited due to peak hour slot restrictions, I'll grant that. I also beg to see any source that shows AA's operating margins across the Atlantic are worse than US's (talking about post-restructuring, not comparing oranges and hammers by looking at pre-bankruptcy costs and yields which are no longer relevant).

With all of that said, and getting back to my original point, I personally believe CLT to be the best positioned of the US hubs going forward, so would also be bullish about its prospects.

We will see about PHL; it'll take awhile to unravel. Lets revisit the thread in 2016 when the new American will have more flexibility to discontinue routes.

Yeah, AA walks away from the 4 or 5th largest metro area in the USA. Sure... :rolleyes:

Microwave, there is a quarterly chart posted on airliners.net that list operating margins by regions. My understanding that it does not include joint ventures. US has had the best margins on transatlantic for the last several quarters that I have seen of the four major US carriers. I don't have easy recall of the exact name of the link or I would share

I am not saying MIA has trouble getting passengers. I saying I suspect trying to move all of CLT passengers' there just ain't going to happen.