why can't AA compete on DFW - DCA (or RIC or IAD)???
 

AA is making it d*mn near impossible for me to be a loyal customer. They are turning up DOUBLE the price of US & DL for the DFW - RIC route for 7/21 evening - 7/23 evening. Look, I realize that FL will nearly always undercut AA, but this is getting absurd. I switched from flying into RIC to DCA b/c was able to get <$350 fares for the Monday night - Wednesday night turnaround, but now even those lightly-traveled days are only showing absurdly high fares.

Yes, fares must go up, but why can't AA match its legacy competitors???

You're paying a premium for frequent, non-stops flights between these cities.

IF AA could sell 90 seats at $600, why should they try to sell 120 seats at $400 instead?

They can; they chose not to. AA apparently has decided to see if they can operate profitably.

I suspect that they aren't selling anywhere near 90 seats at $600. I would be willing to bet that a large number of these seats are being sold on GSA contracts (eg: fare class of full - "Y", but paying Q price per seat).

I'm RIC "based" right now and feel your pain. AA is expensive to everywhere except CVG (when I connect in ORD versus direct on DL), but so it goes. I see very, very few fare sales; most ORD and DFW flights are quite full, too.

Cheers,

-Andrew

Keep in mind too, that DFW is a hub and the majority of people on the flight are not originating in DFW. There are a limited # of O/D pax on these flights.

I continue to feel the same way about fare price complaints by DFW based flyers now as I did last year. Having an AA hub in your city gets you non-stop service to more cities than you otherwise would with more frequency than you otherwise would. You are connected to more international cities than you otherwise would. You have better airport facilities than you otherwise would.

You pay a premium for this. If you value cost over convenience, fly another carrier out ouf DFW and deal with needing to connect. You cannot reasonably expect AA to offer you all the destinations and frequencies that it does at the same or near the same price as its competitors.

On this route, the GSA contract is great money for AA! ^

DFW-DCA YCA Unrestricted Govt. Fare $458.00 each way

DFW-RIC YCA Unrestricted Govt. Fare $280.00 each way

DFW-IAD YCA Unrestricted Govt. Fare $410.00 each way

In all cases, AA holds the contract.

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In any case, I didn't state AA is selling 90 seats at $600. Notice the IF. I was offering the numbers as an example only.

The point is AA believes they will make more money at current higher fares than if they were to lower them.

Why should AA lower the fares? You tell me....

Since flights are full, AA doesn't have to match its competitors on unprofitable fare levels. Unfortunately, the OP is going to have to fly other airlines to get a reasonable fare.

IMHO, bible verses and curse words don't go together!

Based on the my empirical study, DFW/ORD are all pretty full flights. ORD is a RJ and there are usually 3 or so other EXP/PLTs on board; DFW is an -80 and almost always pretty full. Upgrades go either way, too; there is a fair amount of paid F according to the AAgents at RIC.

C'est la vie, when you've got a stack of F100's and a lot of Federal work around, it's the way it goes.

Cheers,

-Andrew

Indeed, you do pay a premium for living in a hub without much competition. SFO-DCA flights that connect through DFW are often quite competitively priced on AA and generally cheaper than other carriers... sometimes under $200 r/t before tax.

Based on its loads and yields, it appears that AA is competing quite well.

It's probably much cheaper to fly AUS-DCA or vice versa. :)

If only that were true... AUS-DCA is ridiculously high. The Texas Government STMP program was renegotiated this month, and our fares went up considerably.

AUS-DCA was $325 and is now $450 (each way) - that's a 38.5% increase...

I imagine the GSA contract will go up a similar amount as well.

Maybe the cheaper seats on AA are already sold.

If AA doesn't think it is selling enough seats, it will lower the fare or dump the flights.