JonNYC

Dunno if that -used- to be the case (wouldn't surprise me,) but it certainly 'aint now.

DA201

On routes where AA (or a OW partner) are the only carriers, AA tends to do very well because they charge premiums for the nonstop flight and the PHL market does have a pretty good amount of O&D and business travel.

LovePrunes

, yeahm especially to TLV, lol

ashill

How do you mean? The flights that AA has dropped recently from PHL are EDI, BRU, and ZRH, none of which have any competition. FRA has gone seasonal; that has competition from LH. CDG, which has seasonal competition, hasn't gone anywhere, and nor of course had LHR, which has year-round competition from DL. That pattern doesn't fit your hypothesis all that well at all.

And my experience (at least with off-season trips with a Saturday night stay purchased at least a month in advance in coach for business travel) has been that nonstops from PHL to Europe are very, very cheap and flights very lightly loaded even at those bargain-basement fares, regardless of destination or competition.

SHAGADELIC

In the early 2000's the world was a different place for US - they were losing so much money at PIT - where they had to pay exorbitant landing fees - and also for the terminal that the airport built "for them" - and add to that the unions who refused to negotiate - and US had had enough - so they were literally going to leave PA altogether - the PA government didn't want that to happen so they made massive concessions to get US to stay in state - and promised to massively improve PHL facilities - which largely never happened once they welcomed the LCC's in.... There is no denying PHL airpspace and the airport is one of the most challenging globally - and US suffered for years with it - if the PA government hasn't made it so financially attractive to stay US/AA would have left years ago....

airb330

Really? European flights have been pricey lately. I've seen EWR/JFK-CDG for under $500 almost consistently. Yet AA wants $800-$1,200 from PHL. This isn't the summer season, but AA isn't priced competitively. Of course, both our examples are only anecdotal. I will say when I have seen a cheap PHL-Europe flight, it's still cheaper out of NYC.

I'm honestly surprised to hear these flights aren't doing well. I can see losing some of the flights PHL has, but I'd be shocked to see CDG dropped for example.

AA100k

Not my experience as well. I take five or six yearly from PHL to CDG, FCO and VCE and they're always fully loaded. Exception was last December from PHL to FCO which was about half full in economy.

perseus11

So is, 1 individual's observation in the Off Season, using 30 Day Advanced Purchase Fares , "that nonstops from PHL to Europe are very, very cheap and flights very lightly loaded even at those bargain-basement fares, regardless of destination or competition", suppose to represent the performance of All AA PHL-Europe flights? Except for JFK and LAX, PHL Winter performance to Europe is similar to all AA Hubs. So unless this individual flies several times a week in the Off Season to more than half of the PHL-Europe destinations, IMO, this is gross False Generalization.

Fanjet

Why would US have had to leave PA altogether over issues with PIT? On 9/10/2001, US flew TATL from PHL to LGW/CDG/FRA/MAN/AMS/MUC/MAD/FCO. They only flew to LGW/FRA/CDG from PIT and from CLT. In addition, they announced DUB and SNN service (to start in the summer months in 2002) before the end of 2001. It was quite obvious which aiprort they prefered to have as their TATL gateway. Moreover, the A-west expansion had recently opened up by then as well as Terminal F. So obvioulsy US had been working with the PHL airport in the prior decade to expand their presence at the airport. Also keep in mind that just prior to 9/11, Wolfe had been trying to merge US with UA. So I doubt that threats to leave PA were made prior to that. As that would definitely have tanked the deal. In fact, Wolfe had talked about adding PIT-Asia service if the merger were to be approved.

ashill

Fair point. Obviously, the statement about my own experience with prices is anecdotal. But the main point of my comment was about the routes AA has cut, which definitely don't support the argument, which others had made, that AA's nonstops from PHL to Europe with no competition are lucrative.

And my secondary anecdotal comment was based on pricing out trips from PHL to Europe for which I had significant flexibility to AMS, CDG, MUC, or FRA; I find that all of them were very cheap (under $800 round trip, a/i), no matter what dates I chose (with a Saturday night stay) through October and November from pretty close in to multiple months out. And I've had a row of 4 on A330s to myself or one other passenger on most TATLs, as has much of the plane. But again, it is certainly true that the plural of anecdote is not data.

aamilesslave

PHL was already banked. The banks are being changed (# of banks being reduced).

SOBE ER DOC

US's, excuse me, AA's decision to rebank their hubs is just awful and a major deterrent for me wanting to connect in PHL or CLT. These banks create periods of absolute chaos with the ridiculously overcrowded terminals, congestion on the tarmac and gate capacity issues for aircraft. And there's nothing the conga line that is the departure queue in PHL on any given evening.

Given's AA's abysmal on-time performance I'm just not understanding why they would choose a model that just falls apart during IIROPS. Plus, they seem to misunderstand that biz travels prefer frequency over larger aircraft. Losing the final bank of the night in PHL is bad news and will likely push me to more flights on DL. It's just not convenient to have the final flights to the west coast pushing back during the 6pm hour.

Ldnn1

Where did you get 6pm from?

ETA: Ah I see in Q1 you're right the last West Coast flights are between 6 and 7. From April onwards there seems to be a gradual increase in flights between 8 and 9.

millionmiler

...because their CEO absolutely believes that banking leads to greater revenue. There will be no changing his mind on that.

JonNYC

So then you'll be pretty darn surprised if we -do- see some changes in this area?