The power of the AA/BA NYLON route is substantial. And it's been said in a number of places that it's the most valuable premium int'l route in the world by a significant margin. Cutting back doesn't necessarily directly impact that golden goose... but if AA shrinks too much out of NY, it will have a secondary effect. Those premium cabin ticket buyers flying on finance company dimes are accumulating a ton of AAdvantage miles -- easily 50k a trip.

If they can't spend them for leisure redemptions, it'll annoy them. I know it has come up at my company quite a bit lately. And if it inspires people who'd been using those miles for their family winter holiday trip every year to, say, try flying another airline, it could really have an impact. British Airlines' fleet of wifi-free 747s with 2006 biz class seats might not look so good after trying a Polaris equipped United flight... or the seriously great Virgin Atlantic lounges....

It's a risk, but I suppose it's one American has decided to take.

About 14%.

AA also carries about 70% of all passenger traffic at PHL, which is pretty crazy.

Carrying 70% of the passenger traffic at a major connecting hub is actually not that crazy or unusual. Remember that only 14%36% of that is O&D. I don't think that's unusual for a connecting hub; what's unusual is JFK, where the O&D fraction is much higher. So of the total PHL traffic:

• 0.7*0.64 = 45% of the traffic is AA connecting
• 0.7*0.36 = 25% is AA O&D
• 30% is other airline (presumably mostly O&D)

So that suggests that AA only has about 45% of the O&D traffic at PHL. That makes them clearly the largest single O&D carrier, but hardly dominant. I'm actually surprised that their O&D is that weak. (Again, assuming your numbers are correct.)

Getting back on topic, it looks to me like AA actually isn't hugely more dominant in the O&D numbers at PHL than they are in NYC, and the PHL traffic is much more optimized for connections. PHL can presumably relatively easily handle a few more connections that currently go over JFK.

ETA: Oops; misread what that 14% means. Looks like, as of 2010, 64% of US's PHL traffic was connecting. Updated numbers to reflect that, for posterity.

I think the 14% number was percentage of total passengers who are traveling internationally, not O&D.

Oops; thanks!

Well your instincts re: being surprised at weak O&D were at least correct! :)

It looks like as of 2016,
~62% of PHL's total traffic is O&D
59% of PHL's international traffic is connecting

Not the raw data, but a city source
http://www.phila.gov/rfp/PDF/PHL_REI...ions_final.pdf

Anyone noticing an increase in upgrade percentages out of NYC?

No, but I notice a decrease in my purchase of AA tickets out of NYC. :eek:

Interview with AA's VP of planning. Definitely a confirmation that only business markets are getting served from NYC and smaller European markets from PHL.

See "American Has Not Given Up in New York":
https://skift.com/2018/02/12/america...-long-flights/

As an NYC AA Plat I feel AA has given up on me. Seriously thinking about going to DL.

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting. So AA is focusing on business markets from NYC, but to AA, this means London and Spain. They are giving up Zurich, and have no interest in FRA (you can take AA to LHR, go through the hell of security there, and then take BA to FRA). I'm just not seeing it.

In any event, at this point, count my husband and me among those who have shifted business over to DL, and will continue to do so. AA out of NYC no longer makes sense.

"Not given up"... sure

I mean, I guess I understand the desire to go after business markets, but I think we're getting to the point where the everyday traveler doesn't think of "American Airlines" when they think of JFK. Delta's had relative success out of JFK, and unfortunately, AA never really capitalized on leisure/"smaller" markets out of JFK.

I wouldn't be surprised if they transfer the remaining JFK-MAD flight to IB -- provided that a 777 isn't viable.

My biggest issue is I've seen a significant scale-down of RDU-JFK flights. There were some E-175s mixed in with E-145s through last year, but now they've moved to E-140s and the occasional E-145. Now, it's fewer seats per day than in the early 2000s IIRC. To me, this means they've "given up" on JFK as a connecting point and are trying to route traffic through PHL.

Slightly off topic, I am surprised they haven't gone into detail about the 757L being deployed on those other mentioned routes, SAN, PHX, etc.

Delta and United management said similar things about MEM and CLE, respectively. And we all saw how it ended up.

They've admitted quite freely that they've given up on NYC as a connection point. That doesn't mean that they have given up on NYC. It means exactly that the scale and operatings costs of the PHL hub mean it is better and more profitable as a connecting hub to secondary European markets.

MEM and CLE are completely different hubs and completely different markets. Without a massive connecting hub, those are not markets that support any kind of robust service. He mentioned that the profit margins from NYC business markets are in line with the margins of other hubs. That tells you a lot.

DL has success in tolerating a lot more loss making routes out of JFK, which AA has cut off over time. With the competitive nature of NYC market, it's just hard for DL and AA to turn good profit. So at the end of the day, it really depends on how much money loosing routes they are willing to sustain to keep the corporate clients. From that perspective, AA falls way below DL.

I think all of these within-perimeter non-hub routes are going to get cut or go to mostly E-145 in the next few years. They are running out of place to add flights out of JFK, so they've added 6 flights to JFK-PHL and more E145 on JFK-BOS. The first doesn't make connection sense, when LGA-PHL exists. The latter is just a horribly high cost plane for that route.

It's funny that he added JFK-PDX as one of the main business markets, since AA doesn't fly that!

NYC ≠ MEM
NYC ≠ CLE
Sorry, not even CLOSE

In all honesty, my upgrade percentages out of JFK/LGA are pretty good as a high EQD Platinum. I imagine I would be further down the list as a DL or UA flier for the routes I fly. Plus, the transcons with Flagship Lounges are great. AA works for me for now.

I'm quite curious about that too! ;)

I was in T8 last week around 7pm-the terminal was essentially a ghost town with a large number of gates vacant-sad to see such a beautiful terminal (arguably the nicest in the NYC area) go to waste.

The terminal was just taking a deep breath. Many of the Euro bound flights departed, and just ginning up for the final transcons, South/Central America and remaining run(s) to LHR.

Is RDU really a leisure market?

I see EWR/LGA-RDU as business market, but JFK-RDU as more of a leisure market. I could be entirely wrong here.

Wouldn't seem to be much business reason for JFK-RDU other than to connect internationally and RDU already has a London flight.

AA runs LGA-RDU 7x daily, which is the relevant business market. They can run TA connections through LHR or PHL. JFK-RDU seems superfluous at this point.

In my experience, I'd tend to agree. Many people in RDU use NYC as a connecting point to international flights. I know people who fly RDU-JFK because their ultimate destination is on Long Island, so I can see how RDU is more of a leisure market to AA. LGA is much closer to Manhattan, which makes it more opportune for business. And many Europe-bound business travellers would rather go RDU-LHR-CCC.

For the most part I'd agree with you and them. That said, I did notice that BOS-JFK is going back to 5x daily starting sometime in April, up from the current pitiful 2x daily. The new AM flights out of JFK (current schedule is 5pm Eagle and 9pm mainline) will allow for easy connections from inbound South American flights--GRU, GIG, EZE, LIM (LA), SCL (LA)--and are most welcome! The schedule ex-BOS also has a new mid-afternoon flight around 2-3pm, allowing for much better connections to the 5-7pm European flights--the current schedule is noon mainline, which leaves one with 3-5 hours in JFK, and 7pm Eagle, which is too late for all but the last LHR flight.

Such a shame after pouring in billions to build T8, which is probably the nicest terminal at JFK (never been in T5), and now AA is badly underutilizing the terminal. I do expect some regional flying to be dropped (i.e. PIT) in the near future since big chunk of the O/D traffic goes to LGA or connects via UA @ EWR or DL @ JFK.

I won't be surprised at some point PANYNJ will force AA to make room to let more airlines operate out of T8. Particularly when the time comes for renovations or total rebuild of terminal 1 down the road.

Regardless, AA is setting itself up for operational difficulties with PHL by making PHL their primary TATL hub. Some of the pains are already starting to be felt with some flights being forced to move up earlier or later in the evening given the limited number of wide body gates available at PHL and taxiway congestion problems with larger banks.

[QUOTE=.........
Regardless, AA is setting itself up for operational difficulties with PHL by making PHL their primary TATL hub. Some of the pains are already starting to be felt with some flights being forced to move up earlier or later in the evening given the limited number of wide body gates available at PHL and taxiway congestion problems with larger banks.[/QUOTE]
What you're describing is just not accurate. :rolleyes:

Yes, the preliminary S18 schedule moves 2 TA departures much earlier than the normal bank. But can you provide evidence of increased congestion/delays between noon-9pm when the TA banks arrive/depart? Movements at PHL are down something like 25+ % from the peak. Of course there are delays around some banks, but PHL is not what it was.

I use JFK for two reasons - proximity to my home, and the parking/drop off issues at LGA from reconstruction. Part of the parking garage recently opened for Terminal B, but it's a long way. T8 parking is great, and AA pretty much goes everywhere I need it to go from JFK.

Or T-7. Would be good to have the OW airlines together under one roof.

What is the current peak TATL schedule for AA at PHL this summer, 20 flights? And with them spread over 3 departure banks. And the 75Ls can use the B/C gates if needed. In fact, US used to park 762s for domestic flights out of one of those terminals; so perhaps a 763 can fit at those gates as well. I don't see PHL being gate-contrained in terms of adding more TATL service. I think the greater issue would be the utilization of a larger amount of ground staff needed for a TATL flight.

They make it work, for sure, but it is definitely tight. By my count there are 24 TATL flights arriving to/departing from A-East and A-West in the afternoon hours during S18. Not all of the gates at those two can take wide-bodies, although all except one in A-West can. And not all A-East gates are FIS-compliant. There are also a good number of other international arrivals (Caribbean, etc.) from AA and other airlines that need to use the FIS facilities throughout the day, so that takes up gate space, even in the afternoons. It's definitely a little bit of Tetris for route and facility planning on the part of AA and PHL.

I agree that the real issue is the arrival of intl flights (and their timings) rather than their departure. They used to have those people-mover vehicles so that a widebody arrival could park at a remote stand, and then passengers shuttled over to the FIS facility.

The issue now is that the grounds of terminal A-west is where many of the remote stands for the planes were located (if I remember correctly). There is literally nowhere to easily park additional planes and shuttle pax back and forth without some hefty modifications or land purchases. The city just bought land West of Cargo City for airport use, so I could see the current location of Southwest and BA cargo being converted into 4-5 hard stands at some point and eventually a possible A-FarWest

Worst case, with any warm weather international flights (greater frequencies on weekends) excluding pre-clearance arrivals:
~31 afternoon international flights
+ 332 to LAX
+ 763 from SJU and presumably at least one from MIA

It will be interesting if they try to use B/C gates for the few 75L flights or even some 763 flights.