DWFI

That's a bit of revisionist history on Seattle.

The route started as 4x daily 319, 1x daily E175.
It has since been cut to 2x E175 and 2x mix of 319/738.
Probably the bare minimum schedule to be considered by a business pax.

In general, AA has culled back many of the LAX routes it started in the post-merger west coast blitz - including MSP and MCI.

tphuang

it's much smaller than UA and without the intra-cali schedule of WN. And given how much mint is killing AS/VX on transcon, whether some of those premium transcon routes like JFK/BOS-FLL will last is questionable at this point. If those goes away, you have mostly a leisure airline out of SFO.

exactly. Good within west coast, although nothing compared to WN. And not comparable to UA anywhere else. Although it is good for leisure markets and flights to PNW.

it's interesting that you mentionned Delta of all carriers, since AA is larger than Delta at SFO. It was probably also larger than VX pre-merger. If you mentioned UA, then i would actually agree with you.

depends on where you are really and your flight patterns. Yes, if you fly strictly domestic and are based out of SF, then AA is just not the right carrier for you.

But let's say your fly a lot of transcon and international also, is AA really that bad?

Good schedule to LAX, great to chicago not terrible to JFK, good to PHX, good to dallas and pretty good to Mia.

AA is missing out on SEA, DEN, BOS and LAS. Outside of SEA, Delta is really not strong in any of those routes, but UA is.

Internationally, Oneworld network has the best schedule to London, HK and tokyo out of SFO. Those are the 3 largest international business markets out of SFO. Sure, Taipei, Seoul and PEK/PVG are not strong with OW, but they are more VFR than business destination. So unless you have family in china, korea or taiwan, it shouldn't be a big deal that AA partners don't fly there.

diver858

For those on the West Coast with AS service, it is a no brainer. Throw in a couple of trips to Hawaii or transcon per year, easy to earn MVP and possibly MVPG. Find a "friend" for GGUs, or MVPG75 to gift MVP and you are all set.

eponymous_coward

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fr...p_destinations

AA is 3/10 for top 10 SFO domestic markets. DL is 4/10. WN is 5/10. UA and AS/VX are 10/10.

AA has good market share because they are in huge markets (DFW, ORD, LAX, NYC).

Also...

Three largest markets seem to be LHR, HKG, and TPE if you actually check the stats. TYO clocks in under TPE and ICN.

tphuang

JFK/EWR is the same market.
I see your point with that, but AA is really large in those 3 markets. Compared to DL, the only additional service from DL is BOS and they are the weakest on that route. Outside of that, AA markets like DFW and PHX seem to me at least more important destinations than SLC and ATL.

TPE and ICN are more VFR rather than business markets. If you don't have family in Taiwan or South Korea, how important is service to those cities?

Just based on personally experience, not a lot of American tourists in Taipei, but quite a lot in Tokyo.

Fanjet

But you are conflating two very different matters. I see no indication that AA is actually cutting back on west coast service. That SJC-thing happened over a decade ago and has everything to do with WN and not DL. And AA is a lot bigger now at LAX than it ever has been. The FF earnings thing for AS flights? You can still get AA credit on the flights with an AA codeshare. And even with that situation, it is the DoJ which limited the number of AS flights AA could codeshare on (and vv), not AA.

eponymous_coward

You're probably connecting if you're flying DL to ATL and SLC, just like you'd be doing a lot of connecting in PHX and CLT if you're flying AA.

AA's marketshare is not grotesquely larger than DL's at SFO. ~500k enplanements is pretty easily explained by AA having hubs in the top four in this list, and DL only having two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tistical_Areas

If you go down the list for top 10, AA has 1/2/3/4/6/7/8, UA has 1/2/3/5/6, and DL has 1/2/9/10. DL punches above their weight a bit as an airline for reasons that probably will take this thread more off topic if we go there.

American tourists aren't necessarily businesspeople. Lot of semiconductor firms in South Korea and Taiwan that I would guess Silicon Valley is doing business with. South Korea and Taiwan had about 85% of Japan's trading volume with the US combined, so it's not like there's no business traffic at all (keep in mind that Japan has US traffic to KIX/NGO, neither of those two countries have anything similar going on).

AA/OW is probably workable from SFO, but you're boned if you do a lot of SFO-Pacific Northwest travel once the AS partnership becomes significantly less on 1/1, and you're going to be doing a lot of LAX/ORD/DFW/PHX/CLT connecting nonetheless.

tphuang

there just isn't many non-Korean/Taiwanese multinational corporations that put their main APAC office in Seoul or Taipei. I was in Taipei for a week this summer. There just aren't many expats around, even in nice hotels in their CBD. I'm in the finance sector so I don't have the view, but the APAC offices I encounter are typically in Tokyo, HK and Singapore.

really depends on your travel pattern. I think for people that do a lot of business with PNW like tech sector types, AA's lack of options to SEA/BOS/PDX/AUS makes it not viable solution. But if you are in more of a finance sector type of jobs or arts sectors, AA's options to NYC, LAX, CHI, MIA domestically + OW option to Tokyo and HK make it quite competitive.

SOBE ER DOC

It's interesting that the OP feels that DL is strong up and down the west coast. I'm not sure I share that opinion. DL operates full (well, their version of full) hubs at LAX and SEA and they're fine but I would not call them competitive with WN which has much better point-to-point options. There's really no one who is dominant on the west coast any more. LAX is a free-for-all. DL and AS are beating each other over the heads in SEA and the bay area has become UA, AS and WN territory, but in none of this markets is there a carrier with a fortress hub the likes of ATL, MIA, CLT and DFW.

I personally can't imagine living on the west coast and being loyal to a single carrier.

worldwidedreamer

Living in San Francisco there is a reason I hold AS, VX WN and UA credit cards and have elite status with UA and WN.

eponymous_coward

Loyal, no. I only care about AS status, though (occasionally fly WN, AA, DL in that order, WN reasonably frequently because their FFP is easy to get free flights on via rental cars). If AS goes the way of AA/DL in terms of "pay this amount for elite status" I'll probably end up on some combination of WN primarily, and AS/AA/DL in "whatever's cheapest and gets the job done" mode secondarily. If WN blows up THEIR model I'll probably just start flying whoever's cheapest and never concern myself with loyalty to an airline again.

But out of SEA I don't HAVE to stray far from AS (AS has very few routes where they "own" the route and can charge highly profitable fares, and those aren't the routes I fly). If I do it's mostly because the economics indicate that's the smart move.

lds89

This. Add in CLT and PHL to that list too. I'm someone who travels frequently internationally (mostly to Asia), and sometimes domestically and I'm a near-total loyalist to AA out of SFO and have been since moving here. I'm never flying up to the west coast and on the occasion I fly to Vegas I just take Jet Blue (1x-2x a year). The AA team at SFO is superb, the AC is one of the best in the system, and the connectivity is pretty much as good as it gets for a non-hub. OW is far superior to ST in Asia and I don't mind hopping down to LA to catch the HKG flight if I'm burning an SWU (and stop by the wonderful Qantas F lounge).

I don't mind a 1-stop through Dallas on the occasion I have to fly somewhere not listed above, and I like being a very frequent flyer out of a non-hub. Trust me, it sucks to be a 1K out of SFO - most of my friends are and are in the back 80%+ of the time. I've enjoyed 85-90% upgrade rates on AA including on transcons to MIA, CLT, PHL, and JFK - good luck finding that on UA or DL. SFO to ATL or MSP on DL is a really, really tough upgrade.

Degradation to OWE benefits and really aggressive FCM is what it'd take me to look elsewehere.

diver858

AA all but gave up on West Coast O&D service when it implemented its cornerstone strategy in ~2011. Prior to that point, AA would quickly drop non-hub, O&D service that did not meet revenue requirements - SAN-BOS quickly comes to mind - but maintained a substantial presence in SJC, offered AE O&D options out of the likes of SAN.
From this perspective, it is difficult to explain why much of the LUS O&D service out of BOS remains, as it is still quite competitive, congestion and weather complicate operations, one would expect easier going in the West. Also makes it difficult to understand why AA parted ways with AS, has yet to offer an alternative - particularly for elites.

mvoight

I miss QQ (Reno Air).

formeraa

While this is historically correct, we have to understand that BOTH of these carriers (AirCal and RenoAir) were unprofitable at the time they were purchased. So, it was incumbent upon AA to make them profitable. In the early 90's when AA was trying to make SJC a viable hub, the FAA did one thing that derailed it. They allowed airlines at ORD to use some of their commuter slots for mainline jets under 110 seats. Wanting to build a bigger hub at ORD, AA decided to move the F100s from the SJC hub to the ORD hub. Why use the F100s at a hub that was breaking even at best when they could expand at the profitable ORD hub and were in a competitive race there with UA?

The Reno Air acquisition was another story. There was a lot of maneuvering behind the scenes. Several AA execs had joined Reno Air (QQ) and there was codesharing. Not sure if there was an outright investiment in QQ by AA. But it was well-known at AA that the acquisition would likely happen sooner or later. But Reno Air never made any money in its history.

At the end of the day, AA is likely to remain a minor player on the West Coast with xxx-LAX flights (and of course its PHX hub which is technically not on the West Coast). I'm sure AA would have been happy to continue its partnership with AS, but it appears that govt required AS to nix it with its purchase of VX.