Part of these pullbacks feels like one industry cartel kingpin being nice to another industry cartel kingpin so as to more nicely divide the country into clearer sectors amongst themselves, all while trying to minimize stepping on each other's toes hard enough to spark a consumer-benefiting competitive engagement in the commercial equivalent of total war of all against all.

As much as it may be cheaper for AA to pullback from NYC -- and from ORD for that matter -- and to instead try to route international traffic via PHL and CLT, for long-haul, international flyers such diversion to PHL and CLT can be costly in regards to what happens to service recovery levels especially during misconnects/IRROPs. Misconnect/IRROPs recovery out of PHL or CLT can be more of a costly flop for passengers than misconnect/IRROPs recovery out of the NYC area. There have been more than a few instances where I would rather fly or even drive to JFK or EWR and get on my flying way than to risk a failed connection at PHL/CLT/ORD and end up losing way more of my time at the very least than using the JFK/EWR options -- all while keeping in mind the possibilities for a JFK/EWR connection flop too.

If AA's slashing of the ability of customers to get value out of the AA loyalty program weren't bad enough to get me to cut back on using AA, AA's JFK route cutbacks and AA's hyper-reliance on BA and LHR became enough to push my business away from AA and more back toward DL. If I'm going to get "stranded" overnight on an international connection and not be flown out on a long-haul flight for at least 12+ hours, then I would rather it be time in NYC than in PHL or CLT. But that's just me. I'm sure AA thinks that this stuff doesn't really matter to most customers -- probably because it doesn't due to the nature of the market.

If you are NYC-based, or close enough, then sure, "oops, you're spending the night in NYC" is OK.

If you are not NYC-based, then there really is not an advantage to "stranded overnight in NYC" versus "stranded overnight in PHL".

If you are NYC-based, JFK offers some TATL flights. Like I've said about a million times, it's an O&D focused hub, not a connection-focused hub, and for a variety of sensible reasons.

Also: "You can fly anywhere you want in Europe as long as you want to do it on BA metal" was pmAA's policy. Post-merge, I'm pretty sure you can reach more cities on AA metal than you could pre-merge, because pmUS couldn't just shrug and say "eh, we got you to LHR, that's good enough", so they had the routes. And many of them have been kept.

Even when not NYC-based, it's an advantage to me to be stranded overnight in NYC vs PHL. The next day's same-day arrival in Europe possibilities are but one advantage, and it's not the only advantage.

JFK and EWR together tend to provide more TATL options than PHL when things go wrong on TATL trips.


I was very familliar with pmAA's TATL route network and also with pmUS's TATL route network, and yet I don't know what point is trying to me made from the following jumble:

The Raja interview actually made me more encouraged about AA's presence in New York longer term. As discussed, it doesn't make sense for AA to maintain a large connecting hub at JFK. That ship has already sailed, and I don't really care about that as an NYC based passenger. What I was more worried about was more drastic cutbacks, both domestic and international, at both JFK and LGA as part of a general pullback from New York. Raja is talking about having a premium terminal at LGA once that is done, they seem to be fortifying Terminal 8 with BA moving in, etc. Given my domestic flight patterns, it makes sense for me to fly a lot of Delta, but AA continues to offer good pricing, good upgrade opportunities and a decent experience for a number of routes. It seems like they will continue to just tinker with routes and such instead of a sale of LGA/JFK slots to Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, whoever.

For NYC O&D, United seems to offer the most comprehensive option for passengers if you can stomach Newark. Delta is close, but notably behind.

One's preference for UA of of NYC depends on routes flown. DL actually has more flights, and far more flights with premium cabins (fewer CR2s/E145s) than UA does out of the NYC airports. DL isn't far behind in NYC passenger count, either, for the 12 months ending 2/19:

UA, 32.6 million
DL, 31.1 million
B6, 17.9 million
AA, 16.9 million
WN, 4.3 million
AS, 2.7 million

http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-t...G_FEB_2019.pdf

Schedules 7/15/19 across JFK/LGA/EWR:

DL, 555 flights of which 37 are CR2s
UA, 473 flights of which 128 are E145s or CR2s.

Count compiled by FSDan on a.net.

Largely agree, but his reference to BNA, TYS and CHO as huge markets for AA that are poorly served "outside of American Airlines" displayed an ignorance (perhaps willful) of what the competition has been up to.

I don't trust him or any of the management. Of course he's going to make light of any negatives/reduction in service.

Raja's comments about NYC sound similar to what Delta and United said about MEM and CLE respectively. We all know how it worked out for MEM and CLE.

I don't find that actually and certainly no worse than LGA.

MEM and CLE are about 1/10 and 1/8 the size of NYC, resprectively, with even smaller fractions of "premium" demand, so I don't think those are that comparable. Also, MEM was primarily a connecting hub acquired from Northwest that had no purpose with ATL nearby, from what I can remember.

But AA can't bail out of JFK like DL and UA did out of MEM and CLE. AA seems in some ways to have become even more reliant upon JFK-LHR and the JFK transcontinental traffic than it used to be, so I don't see AA being able to pull a UA@JFK without marginalizing itself nationally and internationally unless and until some major financial disaster hits it in particular.

This is more akin to a situation of DL at MSP than of DL at MEM and UA at CLE, even as DL@MSP is largely about connecting traffic.

I couldn't see AA pulling out of LHR and SFO/LAX. Supposedly Parker originally questioned the worthiness of a 3 class plane on a domestic route but the numbers on those 2 routes changed his mind. At least that was reported years ago and it does make sense. I couldn't see AA staying with a 3 class narrow body if the routes aren't profitable. AA has decided to limit NYC mostly to O&D. Even just about all of LGA other than to other hubs are RJs (except I think BOS, MCO, PBI).

Time will tell if the strategy to move loads of JFK flying to PHL makes financial sense. Given how AA is in a distant 3rd to UA and DL it does question their strategy, and not just with NYC.

PBI is on an E175...

Regional jets can be a significant positive when the RJs are E175s with very easy upgrade chances or inexpensive first class. Sitting in empty first class cabins on these flights can be pretty pleasant. It's a big negative when they are E145 or similar planes.

At the end of the day it's still an RJ albeit for elites the upgrade potential is much greater and if it's under 500 miles it's all complimentary.

I didn't listen to the podcast, but I read the transcript on TPG's website.

Raja needs a communications coach. I wanted to put my head through my screen every time he repeatedly used "right". :rolleyes: