flyerCO

For legal and logistical reasons i doubt it will be dehubbed anytime soon. Heck the HND flight can't be moved elsewhere. Lots of regional that would be to far for DTW/ATL.

indufan

While hubs do need a significant O/D, they still all rely on connecting traffic. Even the largest hubs wouldn't have as many flights without the connections. Therefore, MSP is "competing" against other hubs. DTW, ATL, and JFK offer many more and better options to Europe. SEA offers better options to Asia.

ORD isn't much of a factor into this at all, it's about the hubs for each airline. No one knows what the future will hold but I would be skeptical that MSP will be significantly more than it is now.

The market is what the market is. If the airlines felt there should be more O/D to a market, there would be.

CarmenOM

To add to the list:

PUJ - seasonal to Punta Cana, DR

There also seem to be some seasonal NS flights to LIR (Liberia, Costa Rica)

ecaarch

I also used to perceive that DTW and MSP were close but the distance between DTW and MSP is roughly the same as CLT and ORD, and less than IAD and EWR. Nobody is suggesting that AA or UA drop one hub from those pairs.

The reason two hubs exist is because each serves a purpose, and the purpose of each does not need to be identical. There are few things that you can bank on, but one is that DL will close one of these hubs when it is in their best interest to do so. And in the meantime, utilize the one that works best for you.

Jeff767

Delta ended the service after poor yields.

GUWonder

DL’s issue with MSP as a long-haul international hub was that unless you were originating at MSP and/or terminating at a DL/Skyteam airline hub abroad, you had to double connect; and that’s just not very competitive, especially given the plethora of one-stop options if routing via other airports/airlines.

mizzou miles

Not so at all. NW had a large operation in DTW and certainly RC considered MSP a hub, it was larger than DTW.

and MSP was, in fact, HQ for BOTH airlines.

Given the large F500 corporates in MSP, there is little chance they would de-hub it as you suggest.

exwannabe

I suspect the more important reason why DL would not de-hub MSP is that it is a baby fortress.

pvn

I don't know why you think that would stop them after what happened at CVG and MEM.

indufan

In fact, it is roughly the same between DTW-ATL as it is DTW-MSP and actually shorter DTW-JFK.

minnyfly

You're missing the biggest reason why: MSP is a fortress hub. The lack of competition means DL has no incentive to fight for traffic and diversify its international offerings. It can control the local traffic and flow them over joint venture hubs instead. That leaves MSP with a fair amount of volume to Europe, but little variety. It's a big cash cow for DL, but the local customer loses out on destinations and alternative airlines (and pays more to boot).

motytrah

MSP maintains international loads in the low 80% range. It has pretty respectable PDEW (Which is a measure or Originating and Destination traffic).

MSP-PVG - 36, MSP-TYO - 30, MSP-LHR - 118, MSP-AMS - 57, MSP-CDG - 57, MSP-FRA - 48.

By those measures DL could go after MSP-FRA and it would likely do fairly well. But I doubt it will happen because DTW has to compete with LH on DTW-FRA.

The MSP airport has been courting Mexican carriers for almost a decade. I think they made some progress on it in 2016, but I think the Trump administration is creating headwinds for business oriented service.

HAHAHAHAHA. MSP typically runs some of the highest profit margins in the network. The Loads and the PDEW support that traffic if not slightly more. The only way MSP gets dehubbed is if they build a new airport across town with more space.

Max M

Corporate contracts-- for Travel and/or Cargo, [with supporting supplemental O/D data to justify the route] play a pretty large chunk of the role in determining intercontinental flights.

Such as the case for CDG-IND on DL, and LHR-RDU on AA. Neither of these cities are currently hubs for either airline [although at one point AA had Focus City/Small Hub at RDU] but despite this, there are contracts in place by some large corporations to justify such intercontinental flights.

If you think that there are few International flights out of MSP compared to the "glory days" to when it was a fortress hub for NW, look no further than to STL, and what happened there when AA gutted STL after the merger with TWA was complete. Not a single International flight is currently flown from STL, with the exception of service to CUN, PUJ, and YYZ--- none of which are flown by AA. With that said, European discounter WowAir is slated to begin service out of STL in 2018.

And yes, probably the only thing keeping MSP's Intercontinental flights are to prevent litigation. [unlike AA quickly cutting the cord on all international flights out of the former TWA hub at STL]

HDQDD

I think tourism is the difference between SEA, DEN, and to a lesser extent DTW. Sure MSP has a great business environment and a fairly wealthy/mobile population, but comparatively, it just isn't a huge draw for foreign tourists.

Almost every foreign tourist I meet either goes to NYC or LA first. Even Chicago is usually further down their list compared to DC, MIA, SFO.

You really can't compare those two. AA's been flying RDU-LHR (formerly LGW) for over two decades. It hasn't had any rev guarantees for well over a decade and hasn't had any feed since before the recession. Would be more comparable to look at RDU-CDG on DL (CDG has only a few RDU connections/day). In that case, the RDUAA did come through with a decent incentives package just like any other airport does when they want new service (even ATL has been in the news for this recently).

FYI - Every single flight has contracts for pax and cargo, even domestic ones. Source: My own work in RM.

Corporate Contracts != Incentives/Subsidies

kop84

MSP is home to many large companies: Target, Best Buy, Cargil, 3M, United Health, General Mills, and more
Minnesota is 12th in Per Capita income
MSP has the largest shopping mall in the US with 40 million annual visitors
A highly educated population with only 3.8? unemployment
And the weather isn't so bad if you're not a wimp

So those things and a lawsuit are the only things keeping MSP a hub

Added:
Not saying it's a huge international destination, I can see ICN and MEX as the only other major international destinations that would make much sense, but it's not going anywhere as a hub