15% decrease in flights for MEM
 

Yesterday a friend of mine who works for Delta sent me a message with the following:

Delta is reducing MEM service by 15%. MEM will be down to 94 departures.

Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL), Jacksonville, FL (JAX), and Birmingham, AL are being eliminated from MEM.

The following cities will see frequency reductions:
Little Rock, AR (LIT)
Saint Louis, MO (STL)
Nashville, TN (BNA)
Raleigh-Durham, NC (RDU)
Knoxville, TN (TYS)
Jackson, MS (JAN)
Kansas City, MO (MCI)
San Antonio, TX (SAT)
Tulsa, OK (TUL)
Los Angeles, CA (LAX)

I'm not sure of the exact dates but was told these cuts would take effect early in 2013.

MEM is now under 100 daily departures. I'm not sure how much longer it will be able to hang on.

The bottom will be one to ATL, DTW, MSP and SLC times say 3x per day which would be a total 12 flights.

<lol>

Bob H

I'm VERY surprised they're not cutting PIT! I can never figure out how it has managed to stick around as long as it has!

I can't believe they have kept MEM-LIT for so long. It should have been cut a long time ago. For years people have driven from Memphis to Little Rock due to cheaper air fares and then connect back through MEM. Delta's reasoning for cutting IND-CVG was that people drove to IND and connected back through CVG. Why don't they follow the same logic for MEM-LIT?

Anyway, it won't be too long before the spoke cities are gone. Southwest will be taking over the Airtran operation in Memphis next year and I'm guessing that will be Delta's cue to abandon the hub. I can only see Delta keeping service to the hubs and maybe LGA.

But, what'll happen to Interstate BBQ?!?!?!? :eek:

Good question. I'm hoping it won't go anywhere. I have family members who live in Memphis so I go there a few times a year to visit. It's always nice to have the convenient BBQ when arriving or departing the airport.

We are the Atlanta Borg
 

MEM is going to be an RJ ghost town just like CVG.

+1 :D

So stealing this... :D^

Where did you come up with this tidbit of information?

So sad as when I was a NWA flyer this was one of my favorite airports - I all but never see it anymore.

Re: Interstate barbecue - just get it delivered: http://www.interstatebarbecue.com/overnightdelivery

Not only do you get barbecue you generate cargo to support the few remaining MEM flights!

So, does this put MEM at a smaller capacity than CVG?

I work for a university that has very close ties with the airlines. I spoke with an employee who works in network planning/development.

Besides that, I thought it was pretty well known that CVG was in reasonably close proximity to IND,SDF,DAY,LEX. It's not surprising that these airports no longer have flights to CVG.

From what I understand CVG and IND are pretty vocal about competing for passengers. I have not personally seen it but I understand there is a billboard located between CVG and IND that says something along the line of "Fly out of Indianapolis and leave CVG behIND".

I believe MEM is already smaller with it's current schedule of 111 daily flights. I think CVG is still around 120+ daily or so.

Yes, it does. CVG has ~120 departures while MEM is being reduced to 94.

Don't forget that CVG also still maintains pilot bases for the MD-88/90 and Boeing 737. MEM no longer has a Delta pilot base. I'm not sure if MEM still has a flight attendant base.

CVG is also a 737 maintenance base.

From what I have been told the BOD at Delta has given the green light to install new LCD panels in the flight deck of the MD-88. The first MD-88's to receive these new flight decks will be based at CVG. As with everything at Delta, this could change of course.

For the time being though it seems CVG's future is brighter than that of MEM.

What was the original attraction of MEM to NWA? Was it simply their Southeast connection hub, or was is based on O&D?

The reason for my question is, would UA benefit from an attempted build-up in MEM creating a (sorta kinda) Southeastern hub?

NWA inherited the MEM hub when they merged with Republic Airlines in 1986. Republic Airlines was formed from the merger of Southern Airways and North Central Airlines. The MEM hub originated with Southern Airways.

Delta had a mini hub at MEM back in the 1970's but was abandoned after deregulation.

I wouldn't look for UA to make a move on MEM. My guess is that IAH has their southeast cities covered.

I assume that Republic thought this would make a nice Southern hub in a city that wasn't already taken (ATL, CLT, DFW, IAH).

Why would UA want MEM when it has a huge operation at IAH which has a much larger O&D market.

I'm surprised how few flights MEM has. It is significantly smaller than RDU, even though RDU isn't a hub for anyone (anymore). I will miss MEM as a hub. It was the destination for my first ever free upgrade due to status (NWA).

My thought was that UA does not have a hub in the greater southeastern US ala DL in ATL and US in CLT. Anyone who lives in the SE and wants to travel within the SE cant fly UA. additionally, MEM could help southeasterners get to the northeast in the winter without a connection in EWR. and could server as a relief airport to both IAH and EWR in severe weather situations. Im sure the city of Memphis would make great concessions to snag a large hub operator again.

Just a thought.

MEM wouldn't help these problems. MEM isn't really in the southeast, it's in the northern fringe of what is traditionally thought of as the south. Someone wanting to fly intra-southeast would still be inconvenienced to fly NW to MEM and back SE again. Furthermore, MEM is much too far west to serve flows between the southeast and northeast, which are better served by either of IAD or EWR.

Reliever hubs really aren't sustainable in the current marketplace. That's why STL/PIT died, it's why MEM is dying, and it's why CLE/CVG are reduced in significance. The best hope is to garner additional service supporting local traffic, of which STL has certainly had the most success.

Memphians, and all others served by Memphis , will be served by ATL or CLT, like everyone else in the Southeast.

Kill the feed, kill the hub.

I would have thought the rumor mongers, I mean insiders, from the "Skymile Rumor" thread would have been all over this given the depth of their sources.

Even More Reductions in MEM
 

From yesterday's Memphis paper, Delta announces further cuts in service. MEM is down to just 95 daily flights (17 on Saturday). Service to Jacksonville and Birmingham is cut completely, and service to BNA, TYS, RDU, STL, Tulsa, Little Rock, Kansas City, and Jackson, MS is reduced.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...-service-memp/

Does this officially put MEM behind CVG now?

One way you can tell MEM has been reduced to a shell ... this article was posted over a day ago, yet (unless I missed it) no has noted the change on this board.

I don't think MEM has long left at all, which really is quite sad. It's a great place to connect, friendly staff, good food, easy for clearing customs for international flights ...

figured it was only a matter of time for TYS. CHA got the axe on the initial reduction.

I just noticed that MEM-BOS direct flights is reduced to once (from twice) a day starting mid-December. Not sure if this is is a seasonal schedule or permanent.

I agree with most posters that MEM is easy on connections and has a great Sky Club.

Back to connecting at ATL for me :(

So MEM is dying quicker than CVG???? WOW!

The SC is nice and relatively undeltafied, but it is a bit out of the way for shorter connections.

I'm surprised it's taken this long to draw MEM down. It's completely redundant with ATL and does not have enough O&D to support a hub. If larger cities like PIT, IND, STL and MCI cannot support a full hub I'm not sure why anyone thinks MEM can.

My guess has always been that DL got some significant savings by piggybacking on the infrastructure that FedEx built and maintained.

The poster who mentioned that UA is not an option for those of us in the SE is spot on, IMO. Being based in HSV now, I never even give UA a second thought for any of my travel except when I go west (which, for me, is rare). At about ~60m, a flight to MEM was short enough to be barely tolerable as a connection, even when going east.

What infrastructure is that? MEM is no better equipped than other airports of comparable size.

Emphasis on the word "guess". I don't know what specifically makes MEM attractive. The fact that it has been a hub for this long post-merger makes me think there must be something attractive about it.

After the merger, DL was using MEM as leverage in its negotiations with ATL. Now that DL's position is firmly entrenched at ATL, savings outweighs leverage.

I seem to remember hearing about his. Someone at ATL should have called Delta's bluff. No way they would have left ATL. Memphis vs. Atlanta...the whole scenario is laughable.

The international terminal cost issues were resolved 3 years ago and DL mentioned both DTW and CVG along with MEM as alternate airports they might shift some ATL traffic through. What little value MEM may have had as bargaining chip has long ceased to exist.


There has been some speculation that MEM has survived as long as it has is due to it's ultra-low operating costs (and certainly FDX and their landing fees is a big part of that). Whether that speculation has any validity, I have no idea. However, STL and PIT were known for their high costs and we see what happened to them, so maybe there is some truth to the speculation.

No one said they were going to leave ATL. They could have just shifted feed to MEM - In the same manner that they have shifted feed away from CVG and MEM.

Although the MEM passenger terminal is not great, the airport itself has remarkable infrastructure. I believe MEM has 4 runways, maybe more. Few airports have as much capacity. This is because of Fedex, but the airport's ability to handle traffic without delays is exceptional.

One of the reasons Fedex is located in Memphis (a) the very helpful central location for package distribution throughout the lower 48 and (b) the lack of weather events that typically cause delays. MEM almost never gets snow; it's far enough inland to avoid hurricanes and tropical storms; it almost never gets fog. Essentially, all the things that usually lead to airport delays almost never delay Memphis (t-storms being the one major exception).

I also understand that MEM has some of the lowest landing fees in the country (because of Fedex, in part). Labor is very cheap in Memphis (TN has no state income tax). Simply put, the MEM airport has a lot going for it that makes it a perfect connecting-hub airport. Indeed, for non O &D traffic I challenge posters to think of a better airport that has more going for it in terms of location, no weather delays, runway capacity, etc.

But in the end, no matter how good these things are for MEM, O&D is what drives Delta's decisions. Perhaps that really is the only thing that can make a hub profitable. If so, then the future of MEM seems certain. (Though I still don't understand why O&D is the major thing, as many people must connect. And ATL just doesn't seem like an ideal connecting airport anymore, too crowded, congested, and delayed. But then what do I know?)