ethernal

The numbers provided are also just wrong. The 2019 ACS census data shows $80K median household income for Raleigh and $72K in Atlanta - not quite the difference advertised. It looks like OP got the $55K figure from Google's "quick answer" which is citing data from 2013 whereas the Raleigh data was from 2019. Raleigh was $62K in 2013. Because of Raleigh's small population, there are as many households in Atlanta earning >$180K a year (88th percentile) as there are households in Raleigh earning >$80K a year (50th percentile).

Charlotte is completely different for AA than RDU is for Delta. Charlotte is truly a connecting hub - I believe it may have the highest percent of connecting traffic of any large airport in the US. But that's because AA needs a Southeast hub. Miami obviously can't do it, and PHL is too far northeast and too expensive. Delta already has a Southeast connecting hub in Atlanta, so duplicating it makes no sense.

wakesetter93

At one point, pre Covid, AA's CLT hub was the largest Express operation in the world. They run so many RJ's through that place connecting all over the Southeast and to mainline flights elsewhere.

DL's focus cities of BNA and RDU are head scratchers to me with ATL so close, but if they can make it work with O/D traffic it's probably worth it. I can see UA not wanting to compete with AA/DL in the Southeast but I believe it is a huge hole in their route network, having to serve the Southeast and the Caribbean out of IAH/IAD.

emma dog

Here is a list of all airports that require "Special Pilot in Command Qualification" https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/...N_8900_422.pdf

wakesetter93

So, one airport?

emma dog

Sorry... that's weird. There's a bunch. Try this: https://fsims.faa.gov/wdocs/OPSS%20G...rtsmay2017.htm

wakesetter93

That link had it, thanks!

readywhenyouare

So then why wouldn't the same concept work for UA if it works for AA?

indufan

I was probably the one that initiated the AUS discussion but I said something about UA staying out an entire region and I am not sure I read someone who did.

True of every hub, every place.

Thank you. I have been to 15 of them on the lower 48 list.

ethernal

There's a huge difference in acquiring a hub versus building a hub. The Charlotte hub existed (from under Piedmont Airlines) since the late 1970s. Building a new hub is incredibly expensive (see Delta's likely losses in SEA and BOS funded from their spoils at low-competition airports like MSP, ATL, DTW, and SLC - which United has virtually none of).

That said, I do not doubt that Delta's focus city efforts in RDU (and to a lesser extent BNA) is partially defense against entrance from a competitor (including United, although also airlines like WN). I have no doubt that United has looked at Southeast hub entrance - with RDU, BNA, and to a much lesser extent MEM all making a shortlist and deciding not to - although given their post-merger timeline, it wouldn't surprise me if they started to get an itch. That said, COVID has shelved any possibility of that in the near term.

wakesetter93

I'm not as familiar with UA's books compared to Dl, AA, and WN, but you could make the argument that Covid opens up more opportunities to build out a small hub. Airlines as a whole are shrinking and with enough cash could be worth it in the long run to spend now and build when travel is slow (DL's expansion at LAX, WN moving into new markets). Not saying it's a great plan but something to consider, especially at the rate BNA/RDU are growing.

UA/AA have the issue of many hubs being either co-located or directly adjacent to another major airline hub. UA doesn't have a single hub I can think of that has them in a strong "fortress" hub scenario.

readywhenyouare

Agreed. There is a lot overlap between IAD and EWR. With EWR no longer being slot controlled UA now has more flexibility there. Getting a foothold in a city like RDU with the Research Triangle isn't the worst idea to give consideration to.

ijgordon

Simplistically it seems to me that perhaps a UA "hub" in RDU might make sense if AA wasn't already in CLT. But they are and it would probably be value-destroying for UA to try to gain enough of a foothold to make it viable some day.

emma dog

I completely agree. And there’s A LOT of brand loyalty to AA, DL, and WN that UA would have to overcome to break in to intra-southeast routes (similar to the SEA markets loyalty to AS).

Because route demand statistics are publicly available from the BTS, it is “easy” for any airline to decide to start a new flight between xxx and yyy. While new flights can promote new demand, this is also a known variable since the airlines add and remove flights all the time.

The airlines are constantly evaluating the benefits of adding flights with the opportunity costs of serving other destinations against the cost of airframe and labor., Additionally, since the airline industry is an oligopoly with high equipment capital costs, there’s also a lot of telegraphing strategic decisions to stabilize the marketplace.

ethernal

It could theoretically still make sense. I don't want to discount it (well, pre-COVID at least). The South is still growing, RDU and BNA especially so. It is not so much the issue that CLT is 2.5 hours away (2.5 hours is far enough away to eliminate overspill competition for most domestic flights) - especially with the relative placement of the airports relative to population centers (small exception to Durham aside). The bigger issue is that there is only so much Southeast-to-Southeast connecting traffic in the Southeast, and CLT and ATL already dominate that space. Against those two hubs (especially Atlanta), it's a completely zero sum game that would require competition for the same flyers (as RDU and BNA are both too small of markets to really drive heavy O&D).

I obviously haven't done a detailed analysis, but United has clearly decided it's not worth it (again, not saying it hasn't been considered, or that it still isn't on their shortlist of "big bet" ideas.. although those are collecting dust right now in the COVID-era). The value of Southeast-Southeast connecting traffic just isn't there. They already have good hubs for Southeast-Midwest flows (ORD), Southeast-Northeast flows (IAD), and Southeast-South/West flows with a mix of IAH and DEN. 10+ years of heavy losses to build up the brand and capabilities doesn't make sense to them for a "relatively" small market.

ATOBTTR

Not only is there only so much intra-Southeast traffic, RDU, being located in the upper northeast of the Southeast region, is one of the worst positioned major cities geographically to capture it. OP gives the example of wanting to be able to fly MCO-RDU-MEM via this OP-proposed UA hub at RDU. This is over 400 miles further in flying than MEM-ATL-MCO and is still nearly 200 additional miles in flying over MCO-CLT-MEM. MSY-ATL-SRQ versus MSY-RDU-SRQ is about 550 extra miles of flying if going via RDU over ATL. This in itself may mean somewhat less to many among average passenger set, and the hub-and-spoke model certainly drives plenty of examples like this all over the country (and admittedly, the numbers for CLT vs. RDU are less dramatic) and sometimes it's because there are no other options, but multiplied across dozens or hundreds of flights while also doing so with trash yields, this additional operating cost all would add up for UA and hamper the operating economics compared to their peers. This combined with the simple laws of supply and demand that note if UA enters the market and adds capacity for intra-Southeast traffic, fares will drop, even if UA is able to stimulate some additional traffic. Of course, this would be GREAT for passengers, but if fares drop against a relatively fixed operating cost for operating a given flight, yields drop. UA knows it would not only be hurting DL and AA - it would be hurting itself too as it competes for traffic.

Another huge factor is that it relies on the argument that ATL and CLT sustain themselves off serving intra-SE traffic. They don't, which is what is going to be required to sustain this OP-proposed UA hub at RDU. Sure ATL and CLT facilitate significant amounts of intra-region traffic (when I went to college in Florida I flew FL-NC quite a bit) and it is part of what makes both hubs work. But ATL and CLT work because of also funneling traffic between the Southeast and the Northeast, Midwest, West Coast, DL's international destinations, etc. and do so without over-canibalizing other hubs in the network. Because of the amount of routes they serve, they can offer routes several times daily because of all the destinations around the country and globe they serve out of these hubs. RDU provides little to nothing new for UA in terms of facilitating traffic flow between the Northeast and the Southeast that IAD and EWR can't cover while pulling off traffic that helps fill flights out of IAD and EWR and what allows UA to offer the destinations and frequencies that it does out of IAD and EWR.

An additional point on RDU - JetBlue is the process of building a focus city at RDU and expanding from their current offerings of BOS, CUN, FLL, JFK, and LAX (and seasonal to RSW). Starting this month and next month, B6 is adding service out of RDU to AUS, JAX, LAS, EWR, MCO, SFO, and TPA. Including the LCCs/ULCCs, markets like Raleigh to Orlando and Raleigh to FLL/MIA and Tampa will already have 4-5-6 carriers serving the route. UA would *have* to serve these routes in such a hub but would be the as high as the seventh entrant in the market.

And that's just the argument for RDU. Let's move over to BNA. Southwest claims it doesn't have "hubs" but for all practical purposes, BNA is a WN hub. BNA is somewhat better positioned for funneling intra-SE traffic than RDU is, but could the 36th largest metro area in the US support two-large scale hub-style operations when plenty of larger metro areas can't even sustain one?

It's not like UA is absent in the Southeast. True that they are a distant three or four or more in many markets behind DL, AA, and even WN and other LCCs in many markets and many markets aren't even served easily via some/all of those hubs (for example, BHM does not currently have UA service to IAD or EWR while CAE doesn't have service to IAH or EWR). But the only major "benefit" a UA hub in RDU gains is intra-Southeast traffic, which it would be splitting with AA, DL, and other LCC ops. IAH, IAD, ORD, and EWR can already get UA traffic from the West Coast, Southwest, Midwest, and Northeast to UA's destinations in the Southeast and those hubs all sit in the top 6 largest metro areas in the US (and top 10 largest CSAs) while RDU (or even BNA) wouldn't even sit in the top 30. Somehow I don't see UA opening a whole new hub so it can have better access to Birmingham, AL and Columbia, SC.

Could UA look at a focus city at BNA or RDU in which UA looks to go after O&D traffic on routes with significant O&D numbers? Sure, I could see that as a possibility especially with markets like BNA and RDU seeing continued growth in the Sunbelt, even if that would have UA going head-to-head against DL's focus city at RDU (and AA's still larger presence and B6's new focus city) or WN's operation and DL's semi-focus city at BNA. And of course any focus city sometimes opens up odd connecting possibilities that by-pass primary hubs (I've seen AUS-RDU-XXX itineraries pop-up on DL.com, for example). But a full-scale hub at RDU or BNA to compete against DL in ATL and AA at CLT? In current economic conditions and realities, with uncertain futures on what business travel will look like, a full-scale UA hub at RDU or BNA is an Airliners.net fantasy for the foreseeable future.