Cltfc

I disagree none of what he/she writes makes sense except where he states Charlotte and the Southeast are growing. Many factors play into route launches for example local market dynamics/o&d, connections available, geography, competition, aircraft availability and costs are all very important. But If route planners looked at cost and connections only as MOC991 suggests Charlotte would serve every international market AA serves year round. But as noted it involves a lot more than that.

FlightNurse

I don't think it warranted to have flights to all of Europe from CLT, but I'm sure there is enough traffic to warrant one or two to LHR or LHR and FRA. But I think AA wants to keep certain hubs for international flights.

bridge29

CLT is optimized for domestic connections and PHL is optimized for Transatlantic connections.

PHL may have fewer flights and connections domestically than CLT, but it has flights from the important markets for TA timed to connect with the evening banks to Europe.

For example, CLT not PHL might serve JAN, but how many people are really flying JAN-Europe on a daily basis? (no offense JAN).

wetrat0

Most East Coast markets with service to CLT also have service to PHL. PHL is about 500 miles closer to Europe and connecting through PHL involves much less backtracking than through CLT for most of the population of the Eastern USA. Thus all other things equal, it's more efficient for AA to route TATL traffic through PHL than CLT. So in order for CLT to support a year-round TATL route, there needs to be enough demand for >1x daily from the east coast (>2x if also served from JFK) *and* a large portion of that excess demand must come from the Southeast (not from the Northeast, which would connect more cost-effectively with an additional flight from PHL or JFK).

Are there markets that only have service to CLT? Yes, but they're small, collectively they don't generate much TATL demand, and they face competition from DL via ATL. So AA will push passengers to make the more efficient connection (for the network as a whole) at PHL.

Fanjet

Does anyone know what ever happened to that rumor about a new AA flight (as in added route, not frequency) to LHR?

DA201

Maybe it was BA's BNA-LHR route that was rumored to be AA because of the JV. On a related note, I think RDU-LHR should be taken over by BA because it makes much more sense to operate this route when you have a hub on one end. They have similar sized aircraft, so capacity shouldn't be an issue unlike DL/AF/KLM, where DL has to operate smaller CDG/AMS-USA routes because AF/KLM have too large of aircraft.

CALMSP

I would say there is a hub on the LHR end for origin RDU connecting beyond LHR. RDU operates the same way DL/AF/KL operates IND-CDG. There is no hub on the IND side but there is a hub on the CDG end.

superweak

I am confused by this CLT discussion. Did something happen to year-round CLT-LHR and CLT-FRA when I wasn't looking?

Cltfc

No those flights still operate, its the endless drone from the CLT fan base that thinks CLT should be the main transatlantic gateway that started this tangent.

wetrat0

AA and BA have a TATL joint venture. This means that for all practical purposes, it doesn't matter who operates the flight. The RDU flight existed long before the JV so it makes sense for AA to continue operating it as customers in that market are familiar with AA as an option to get to Europe via LHR. If they were starting the route from scratch it might make sense to use BA but AA have had the route for decades, why switch when it's working?

6P&E

Successful year round TATL hub traffic requires a large base for OD traffic as well as connecting passengers. CLT is not huge a metro area like PHL, ORD, DFW, MIA. With all the other big city choices for AA, CLT just isn't going to be an also ran. Without the AA hub CLT traffic would look a lot like that of BNA, IND, AUS with a one or to TATL to LHR and CDG.

FlightNurse

CLT might not be as big, but the traffic that goes through the airport is larger then PHL.

ajeleonard

I think his point is that operationally it would be easier for BA to operate it, since their hub is at one end

6P&E

My point is you need OD traffic. CLT traffic is overwhelmingly connecting. These fares are often lower than OD, especially premium fares. ORD, PHL NYC etc. have an adequate OD market due to surrounding population that can support and make TATL traffic profitable.

ashill

Is the O&D traffic (what 6P&E was talking about) at PHL really smaller than CLT? I don't think it is.

AA has 91.3% of the traffic at CLT (http://www.cltairport.com/News/Docum...portFY2016.pdf, p. 122), and my memory is that 85% of AA's traffic is connecting. Assuming that all the non-AA traffic is O&D, that means that 23% of the CLT traffic (4.8 million annual enplanements) is O&D. I can't find those numbers readily for PHL, but Delta mainline + Southwest + Frontier is more than 20% of the PHL traffic (https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1), and there's also United, Alaska, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and the regional flights that are operated for Delta to add to the non-AA airlines that will be dominated by O&D traffic. So even if all of the remaining 80% of the traffic is AA (which it isn't), 32% of the PHL traffic is O&D and the same 85% of AA traffic is connecting (may well be lower at PHL), that's 4.8 million O&D enplanements in 2016. Factor in the others, and there would be considerably more O&D traffic at PHL than CLT.