MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

It certainly makes sense that all SA traffic, particularly deep SA will be based out of MIA instead of CLT. MIA has the huge O&D advantage and makes sense for connections. JFK will be used for some northern traffic to SA (GRU, GIG, EZE).

perseus11

That rationale primarily applies to the O&D traffic. Both CLT and PHL could retain much of their current international traffic (especially PHL), just based on domestic connections, supplemented by O&D. Obviously, traffic which can garner significantly higher O&D/Connecting ratios would be more profitable from the O&D source - and South America (MIA) is certainly in that category. Also, particularly in the case of PHL, there is potential for an increase in international yields (BTW, PHL-LHR is/has never been Low Yield for BA) just based on an increase in destinations, via the BA/IB JV and lessening bleed from PHL - JFK/EWR. All of this of course assumes the plan is to funnel significant OW connecting international traffic through PHL, rather than JFK, which I believe will be the case. The PHL-LHR route should show a significant increase in Yields, as the only alternative will now be AA/BA using a near parity fare structure. That of course assumes no one accepts the available PHL-LHR slot pair. My conspiracy theory however, is that the EU made that edict based on a complaint from an "interested" party.

BoeingBoy

Was just reading that the CLT-GIG will be dropped/moved - I think it's already been discussed - but that CLT-GRU will remain operating at least for a while.

Jim

joejones

One airline history book I read (Hard Landing, I believe) explained that Crandall's people looked at both ATL and MIA as potential hubs in the late 80s/early 90s when Eastern was on the brink of collapse. They decided that there was no way they could compete with Delta at ATL, so they focused efforts on MIA where there were no other major incumbents.

mylifenomadic

Even with the US merger, the combined AA has a pretty big hole in the NW quadrant of the US. As you say, PHX is too far south to be a timely connecting point to pretty much anywhere north of CA. Their partnership with Alaska covers much of that area, but connecting in Seattle is also quite a bit of backtracking for places such a Boise, Spokane, and many of the high-margin seasonal resort areas in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. Maybe they are content with conceding that business to UA and DL. Alaska has added quite a few routes from SLC that AA could connect into, but they're to cities already pretty well served (with the exception of Boise), and I have a feeling those flights won't last too long, but it will be interesting to see how the strategy plays out.

N830MH

Does anybody know about PHX-FLL nonstop? Did they canceled PHX-FLL? Perhaps AA will takeover by replace US.

PBIGuy

I believe the afternoon PHX-FLL and early AM FLL-PHX are coming off the schedule this spring (the morning EB and evneing WB remain). Probably because connecting traffic to the west (California, Washington, etc.) can then be routed through DFW. Cruise traffic drops around then, too, so demand is typically lower in the summer. With that said, this route is surprisingly elite-heavy.

ElmhurstNick

My point is that since there is already MIA-GIG on the combined carrier, the marginal benefit of keeping one more flight >from anywhere< that is going to take up 36+ hours to operate is negative. They could probably make more money just shuttling that pair of 332 back and forth LAX-HNL over and over, much less doing something really useful with them.

It doesn't matter how much originating traffic there is at CLT, short of a sweetheart J contract like AA RDU-LON. It matters that it's a 36 hour turn and AA/US now probably has one too many of them.

formeraa

Remember that TW tried a hub in ATL and failed in the years after EA went out of business.

DL runs international service out of ATL. AA will run SOME international service out of CLT. The question is just how much?

formeraa

Well, fortunately, WN is getting the HIGHER fare bug. They are now making money on higher fares and less discounting. I can't remember the last time that they sent out a decent DING fare (or any DING fare for that matter). So, I believe AA can compete on the fare end.

The primary question is whether AA wants to dominate some of the small to medium sized markets in the West. I believe the demand is there. but are there enough markets that can support at least a 75 seat jet? Can they get the required yields in the smaller markets? Will people pay somewhat more to use that smaller airport near their house rather than drive 90-120 minutes to a big airport to save $75 bucks? Consumers are fickle about air fares.

dtremit

RC also had a hub (or at least pretty strong focus) in ATL after deregulation, but consolidated at MEM pretty quickly.

I wager DL probably wouldn't have nearly as much international service out of ATL if they had MIA (or still had DFW).

dtremit

I'm not sure the merger really changes things much in those markets. AA doesn't really have the capacity to add more small market service to/through LAX, and US is already serving a lot of those markets through PHX. If the case for DFW made sense, they'd probably already have service on AA.

Probably the more interesting question is whether they're willing to be more aggressive with pricing to get volume up in those cities. E.g., BFL hasn't done well with commanding a premium, given WN down at BUR -- but with WN fares up, people might reconsider.

BoeingBoy

It's one of the many tradeoffs this industry has. Service to medium and especially small markets is usually on an RJ since there's not the volume of traffic to support adequate frequency with anything bigger. Having a higher CASM, you don't want to carry those passengers any further than necessary on RJ's to connect since doing so drives up the overall cost of providing them service. Which gives PHX an advantage over DFW for serving those markets out west.

Jim

IADCAflyer

The more I am thinking about it, the more I am thinking that PHX is more or less safe (for the most part). I do expect PHX to lose some of its thinner transcons given the presence of DFW and ORD, but I think that the constraints inherent in LAX means that you simply cannot divide up PHX and expect LAX to take up the slack.

Nor can you expect DFW to take up the slack for all the regional flying that PHX has access to. For example, passengers in TUS or SAN might be willing to fly AA via PHX to COS, BOI, OMA or even SEA. Or from SEA to ABQ or SFO to ELP. I don't see how they'd be willing to do that through DFW (except for us insane FF types who are building segments and miles).

IADCAflyer

Unless the RJ has become so costly that you can't do the RJ. Which is what you see these days at EWR - the return of the turboprop in the form of a Dash-8-300 or Dash-8-400 (not that you'll see a Dash-8 flying from DFW to ABQ or DFW to FLG)... You might see an ATR even though AA's relationship with ATRs was somewhat sullied by the Roselawn crash.