goalie

As is the Navy Department. goalie-sis was bummed that UA lost the contract to DL but I told her that she should consider herself blessed

Duke787

True though the blame for that lies with management and not the hub itself. I would imagine if AA could get in there (in lieu of CLT and possibly PHL) they'd happily take those government contracts. That being said I don't know enough about the GSA / government contract stuff (I'm not nor have ever been a government work or had a government client as a consultant)

Let's not forget this is also a big prestige route for the internationals so there is some opportunity for feeder traffic coming from OALs. It's not huge since most business traffic on those OALs is likely going directly to the city where their business occurs but it's still some portion of travelers.

Don't forget that UA shares revenue via the JV with LH (and I assume perhaps incorrectly OS under the LH umbrella) which accounts for an additional batch of flights which can fill feeders on both sides.

If you had to rank SE / Southern hubs I would think it's:

1) ATL
2) IAD

3) MIA / CLT
4) CLT

Big gap between the first 2 and the second 2.

ATL beats IAD because it has greater O&D traffic and is also well positioned for connecting traffic to both the middle of the country and the rest of the SE.

MIA and CLT is debatable - MIA has a lot more O&D traffic and is a better feeder to South America. CLT is better positioned for connecting traffic and is also a bit closer to Europe.

In any case IAD is a clear #2 for a SE hub. Even if you argue that EWR makes IAD unnecessary for TATL and TPACs what about the entire SE (or what there is now that US is gone)? If you take out IAD everything has to connect via IAH, ORD, or EWR (which is a non-starter due to capacity issues).

Cuchulainn

I'm sorry - in what alternate universe is that the best setup? And in what way is the horribly overcrowded, delayed every time a gnat sneezes, incredibly rude and obnoxious EWR a better hub than IAD?

Pi7473000

I would not be surprised to see this happen! United is unable to compete anymore due to its service since it merged with CO. I much easier connecting through IAD on PMUA as I always had three class service on widbodies to Europe. It was much better than the 757 or two class 777 I had to fly out of EWR! I wouldn't be surprised though to see that list drop ORD as well! American can easily come out as number one there to. It will almost be like CO never merged with anyone,and they fall back to there fortress hubs in IAH and EWR where they do not have to compete with their poor sCO style service!

why fly

EWR is a disaster? It cant take the traffic it has it will never be able to add IAD.

dcdavido

Please don't hold back, REPUBLIC757. How do you really feel about EWR?

haddon90

i know it is a matter of opinion, but IAD is not a SE/Southern Hub.

GBman

I'm trying to popularize 'planewreck' in place of 'trainwreck', for the peculiar-yet-compelling, slow-motion spectacle that is Smi/J's UA management.

WAS

This is not the worst idea ever. If one accepts the premise that one hub needs to go, then wouldn't the logical move be to keep as a hub the airport that has less congested airspace, runway space and more freely available slots? (Also, as DTW and MSP show, a hub doesn't have to be in a city with a ton of O/D traffic. But O/D certainly helps, and Washington has a good amount.

Replace redundant connecting and regional flights with larger equipment and send connecting passengers via IAD. Retain presence in EWR with P.S. flights and use the scarce space in New York to focus on the highest yielding nonstops.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I believe it lies within the former Confederate States of America, so I think it can be referred to as the South. Can you provide a link to an official definition, or are you just saying this based on what you think it is? And since you say it is a matter of opinion - why the definitive statement, "IAD is not..."?

cyborg

deleted

fpc552

Sure, but the situation is different. JFK was never the big regional hub for AA the way PHL was for US. What you'll see is JFK as an international/transcon hub, while PHL will continue to be a regional hub. I think you would see AA dehub PHL, but they are constrained at JFK.

For UA, EWR and IAD are both trying to be everything for the east coast. The big hole in UA's domestic network is in the south. AA has CLT, DL has ATL, but UA doesn't have anything between IAH and IAD. Neither pmUA or pmCO were very strong in that market and IAD doesn't make sense if you're trying to get from New Orleans to Orlando.

channa

MIA/CLT is no contest. CLT is nearly all generated traffic; MIA has significant O/D. I believe AA even said it was their most profitable hub.

AA owns the Latin and Caribbean traffic out of there, and it's a logical connecting point for the pretty much the entire country.

Darlox

This all makes me wonder whether UA or analysts actually have any real metrics by which to evaluate hubs. We know there's a lot of complexity, and raw traffic numbers don't tell the whole story. De-hub a city, and you stand to lose more than the raw passenger numbers, because everyone at a schedule-shifted spoke starts re-evaluating loyalties. Decrease network capacity, and you lose future opportunity as well.

Anyhow, my point is not to point out the complexities of de-hubbing, but rather to question whether the airline even has reliable metrics to determine whether a hub is actually contributing value in excess of its costs, or whether they're gazing into crystal balls based on their understanding (or misunderstanding) of how the airline business is supposed to work...

To wit:

If one or more UA execs actually said the words "they believe" that it's profitable, that's a HUGE red flag right there. And it also would seem to be in-line with the inconsistencies of pmCO saying CLE was one of its most profitable hubs, then a handful of years later, merged UA saying it was losing money hand-over-fist for a decade. (And then, coincidentally, losing almost exactly enough money on paper to satisfy the merger condition with the state of Ohio to close the hub.)

Reading this stuff every 6 months or so, it increasingly sounds like UA and its analysts completely and totally lack the objective metrics to correctly evaluate the bottom-line contribution of a hub. They're quite possibly just looking at relative costs and saying "well, this is disproportionately expensive, cut it" and then bravely hoping that revenue doesn't decrease more than savings. By allocating various direct and feed costs to the hub and all revenue other than O/D to the spoke destinations, I'm pretty sure you could (legally) make a hub's on-paper profitability appear whatever you want it to be.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Yup. If one looks at a map of South America relative to Miami, it's a no brainer why Pan Am set up their South American hub there.