kale73

I dearly love Durango and the area but the terminal at La Plata is tiny. The UA gate is adjacent to the AA gate. There is theoretically a third gate but it would have to share an already cramped departure area with AA. I can't see DL entering DRO without a terminal expansion or one of the existing carriers leaving.

DLmedalliongold

SkyWest used to serve Durango maybe 5-6 years ago? I’m sure they could figure it out again.

DLASflyer

They still do, just not for Delta.

ATOBTTR

Why would UA do this? Hubs rely on O&D traffic in conjunction with connecting traffic to be sustainable, but also, IAD serves a significant amount of O&D traffic while RDU wouldn't, comparatively. This is exactly why several hubs that have relied much more heavily on connecting traffic were downsized during the mergers over the past couple decades - CVG, MEM, CLE, PIT, STL - lack of O&D (comparatively). Despite being inconvenient to DC itself with no Metro currently, that is changing soon, and DCA is limited on flights both by slots and due to the DCA Perimeter rule. There is also a significant population area (including plenty of business traffic) that is as close or closer to IAD than DCA. Keep in mind too that several international flights out of DC are sustained partially on that connecting traffic, just like any hub. Sure, connecting traffic could just as easily be funneled via EWR, ORD, etc. but that would mean less support for flights out of DC and could be the tipping point that shifts many of those flights to unsustainable and being cut. RDU as a UA hub is not going to sustain much beyond maybe FRA and a few other major cities in Europe in a UA network and certainly isn't going to sustain any TPAC ops.

UA would be choosing to enter an entire region, with uncertain future right now, that is already well served by two other major airlines, to go after connecting traffic which is usually far less profitable than O&D traffic. Somehow I don't see UA going for this.

MSPeconomist

DCA and IAD have the advantage of government contract fares, which are shockingly high on some routes. The government and embassy people form a captive group of high frequency HVCs.

jrl767

"embassy people" are State Dept, which last I looked was part of the U.S. government ... now if you're talking about foreign staff, they're subject to their own nation's travel policies which probably dictate flying on the national flag carrier (or perhaps a code-share)

I'm reasonably certain that Air Canada is the only non-U.S. carrier at DCA (see "Perimeter Rule" above)

ATOBTTR

Looking at the Wiki page for DCA, that's accurate (AC being the only non-US carrier at DCA). The other factor is that DCA can only receive service from pre-clearance destinations, so even if the Perimeter rule was done away with, there's a second hurdle to clear with Customs/Immigrations facilities being needed (with the third hurdle possibly being the runways and facilities at DCA providing operational limiting factors).

HDQDD

Having worked at IAD (then WHQ World HQ) for UA in the 2000's, I'm quite familiar with the IAD hub op. Back in the 2000's it used to be significantly larger. At one point they had hourly CRJs from LGA/RDU-IAD and some other cities. Hard to believe that nowadays. At the time, they only had 90 mainline flights a day, and somewhere between 200-300 UAX flights (many of the mainline are Int'ls). I don't think that's changed a whole lot, except for frequency reductions, which were severe after they shuffled regionals, and then the CO acq. IIRC, IAD has 4 main connection banks (and I think that's still the same). The busiest is the 5-6pm bank which has flights to pretty much all of it's European destinations. The late bank had a few more flights to LHR/FRA, and then EZE/GRU/KWI if memory serves. At the time I was there, all the TPAC flights (we only had NRT back then) left around noon. I would actually say IAD performs almost like more of a gateway than a true domestic connecting hub. Like many gateways (and hubs) the best revenue comes from the premium Int'l traffic, and that's why it still exists with EWR so close by. The DC Metro is a huge cachement area for premium traffic.

UA is not moving this hub to RDU, or anywhere else in the South. All airlines don't have to be strong in every market. UA is a bit week Intra-SE, just like DL/AA are intra Mountain West.

wakesetter93

Agree with you here, each of the big 3 have a large portion of the country where they are weak. Our discussion started with what they needed to do to eliminate those weaknesses. UA obtaining a SE US hub, DL obtaining a TX hub and AA obtaining a Mountain west hub/coherent strategy would give all 3 of them strong capacity in each market.

My dad, who's a DL 2MM, has switched a good bit of his flying to AA since he's SHV based. He found it hard to justify flying SHV-ATL-West Coast (Or Midwest) when he can connect over DFW.

eneq

IMO, A lot of UA's strength in the Mountain West region is because of EAS. I'm amazed at how many tiny airports throughout CO, NE, SD, UT, and WY receive daily service to DEN. While I haven't looked THAT hard, I can't think of another region in the US with so many subsidized routes.

MSPeconomist

I am fully aware that USA embassy and consulates are part of the USA State Dept. Moreover, AFAIK there are no USA embassies or consulates located near Washington DC or indeed within the USA.

I was referring to staff at foreign embassies, although I probably should have added staff at international organizations such as the IMF and World Bank (IBRD) that are headquartered in DC.

wakesetter93

The departure board at DEN always has some unique destinations that's for sure.

indufan

Alaska. Of course, that is a different beast. Northern Arizona but some of that probably still dumps into DEN.

ethernal

I agree that DEN is a better geographic location and will continue to grow for United, but calling it a fortress hub is a bit of a stretch. Even pre-COVID I believe they made up a bit under 50% of all traffic at the airport even with regional UA-marketed flights. Southwest is huge there, as is Frontier. To me, a fortress hub requires a truly dominate share of travel that materially exceeds 50%... Delta has many (MSP - 70%+, ATL - 80%+, SLC - 80%+, DTW - 75%+) and is one of the reasons they have driven a revenue premium.

DEN is perhaps a fortress hub to United if only because all of their other more concentrated airports (EWR, IAD, IAH, to a lesser extent SFO) all compete another local airport - but all three of those airports (minus perhaps SFO) have a higher UA concentration of share than DEN.

Quite frankly, no one carrier really owns the Mountain West.. mostly because it's just not dense enough (population-wise) to claim a singular winner.

wakesetter93

Agree with this 100%. DEN is the opposite of a fortress hub for UA with WN having an extremely large presence there as well as being the home base for F9. They're expanding all 3 concourses because it seems that everyone wants to grow at DEN.