DWFI

AA has re-gated T4 to add 2 new gates. Plus, AA has exclusive use of 5 gates at TBIT before 11am (shared use afterwards). They have added 20 new daily flights for the summer season.

I agree, expansion will be slow due to gate limitations. But AA is working very hard to add gates - including the T4-TBIT connector and a long term plan to have AA take the entirety of T4 and T5.

ctownflyer

Probably because CLE has an oversized UC that suits it just fine.
UA can fill their LAX gates with flights to other hubs and service to a dozen other cities where they can print money.

In fact that's been their exact strategy in CLE @:-)

Making LAX a focus city and moving most connecting traffic and TATL/TPAC flights through SFO seems inevitable at this point.

EWR764

Do we need to be so pedantic? I understand the fact that Newark is not in New York proper, but if the implication is that passengers going to New York City are not using EWR, full stop, then that is complete, utter nonsense unsupported by fact.

United is at 15x on LAX-EWR (schedule just increased for the fall). How many markets, not just NYC, have that kind of frequency on AA/DL?

United was never all things to all people, and it shouldn't be. I'd rather continue to see mainline replacing regional at core hubs (look at SFO, DEN, ORD, is happening in a big way) than see United fight losing battles for share in non-core markets.

Is anyone here willing to give up mainline service on, say, 3x SEA-SFO, 3x EWR-ATL and maybe DEN-DFW so United can launch 3x LAX-MSY to be competitive with NK, DL, WN, AA on that route?

Further, where is Delta's ORD service from its powerhouse LAX hub? Where is SFO service on AA if it is so strong in the Washington area? I'd argue all of that is evidence of the same principle... airlines have only so many airplanes to allocate.

Of course, that all ignores the fact that it's fun to bash United at every turn, for every decision, especially if it has anything to do with unwinding a vestige of the halcyon days of United, especially its late-90s/early-2000s dominance at LAX...

jasondc

DL or AA are making money on MSY? Nobody has.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Probably Southwest. But you're right - skeeping a money-losing route just to keep up with the Joneses is misguided, especially when LAX-MSY flies right over IAH, where UA has a hefty schedule to/from MSY and LAX. We bemoan the loss of LAX-MSY, but I'm sure the LAX slots will be filled by a better revenue route.

jasondc

to my respected users list

cesco.g

Interesting, that the route seems to be profitable for OALs. Besides, scheduling has been tedious too, with a single night flight leaving around midnight LAX-MSY, probably not very attractive for business travelers.

At least some of the ground experience (UC, check-in area) is about to improve.

exerda

Isn't this a flight which UA has axed before? Last time I flew it was in 2007 or thereabouts, and I seem to recall it going away not long after.

EWR764

This cut comes at the same time as a flurry of IAH-related schedule changes... IAH-ONT/YUL/LOS. SFO-FLL (also overflying IAH) has been seasonally reduced.

I wonder if UA is trying to kill two birds with one stone here... exit a saturated, low-yield market, and strengthen flow over IAH for any MSY-LAX pax who remain with United (as there will be some). IAH becomes the logical transfer point for both LAX-MSY and SFO-FLL.

Edit to add:

Based on the most recent schedule update, even with MSY cut, UA has increased daily departures at LAX for the fall schedule... just about all of the other remaining changes were added flights to spokes like FAT/TUS/LAS/ABQ/PSP/SAN/SMF, plus EWR went up to 15x.

spin88

You have been advocating United shrinking since 2012, its not worked out well.

Of course the big difference is that LAX is the airport for the nation's second largest air market with 18.6 Million people. And not poor people with few high spending businesses (like BNA, LAS, PIT, STL) but a key market for large numbers of industries with premium traffic (finance, insurance, banking, entertainment, some tech).

And the other reason why its important is that the companies that do business in LA, and have large amounts of corporate travel that goes there or is based there, are often tied to other cities. When LA leaves the picture slowly but surely AA and DL have a much better pitch than does United.

This is especially so with the many companies that have opperations in several West Coast Cities (SEA, PDX, SFO, LAX, SAN). Delta, and AA (with AS) are rapidly getting to the point they are a better go-to airline.

This model does not work. Passenger spends $30K/year in travel. UA offers 15 destinations, AA and DL offer 45. Unless United stands out with superior service. United looses this - and most other HVFer traffic. But to keep the designations going, you need connection traffic.

Let me give you an example. United got driven out of the PDX-LAX market. They don't fly it. AS/DL/AA/SW do. So not only is that gone, but there is less feeder traffic for LAX-MSY. As flights get cut, it not only impacts the cut flight, but it also impacts the flights that carried connecting passangers to LAX.

E.g. I had to go to TUS. At least 4 people on my SFO-LAX DL shuttle were also on LAX-TUS. Cut LAX-TUS, those people are gone from the core SFO-LAX route as well.

+1

Actually UA was the incombent airline on the LAX-MSY route. Neither AA nor DL flew it. That they are being chased out of it says a lot. LAX-MSY is NOT primarily a leisure market. There are major (and high value) links in the music, entertainment, and media industries between the two cities. It is also a route that in the past was always on UA expensive in F, and is now expensive on DL in F.

+1. The cumulative cuts to LAX have taken UA from no 1 to no 3 since 2012. Last three months, AA had a 20.13% market share, Delta had a 17.16% market share, UA was back at 14.69% market share. http://www.lawa.org/uploadedfiles/LA...rrier-2016.pdf

I assume they are already past the tipping point of HVFers moving to DL or AA, hence another round of cuts to routes ex-LAX.

ZZYZXROAD

With limited gate space, LAX is better served for Asia,Australia,hub to hub and transcons.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Red-eyes accomplish two things - 1) there are some people who actually take 'em (whether they like it or not) and 2) maximizes a/c utilization. Public-defined preferred flying times results in excess a/c in the west U.S. at the end of the day (think California and Hawaii). Red-eyes re-position some of those a/c eastward. Maybe the red-eye to MSY was replaced by a better-yielding red-eye ex-LAX?

char777

Shhh! That doesn't fit the narrative!

EWR764

MSY as a high-yield market is overstated, and DL has always been a very strong brand at the MSY end. With WN and NK in the market, and AA coming, there's no question it's going to be a bloodbath. The strategic need for United to be in the market is not there, and by directly overflying a struggling hub, the value proposition is diminished even further.

Again, is it ordained that United needs to be in every market, all the time, at LAX, with a stronger hub a few hundred miles up the road? Delta certainly isn't in every major LAX market; neither is AA. Perhaps their growth at LAX is motivated to approximate some of the advantages the UA SFO operation confers... and at the same time, is it inconceivable that some of the LAX assets have been redeployed to strengthen SFO, which is at an all-time high for United?

spin88

ex-LAX I can't think of a major market in the western part of the US that UA serves and DL and AA don't. And other than LAX-MSP (on a RJ on UA, AA flies it mainline) I can't think of a single flight that UA has ex-LA into a competitors hubs in the Eastern UA, and I can for DL and AA. (e.g. AA flies LAX-IAH, LAX-IAD, LAX-ATL, Dl flies LAX-MIA). Of course you see this in the market share numbers.

My point is that as UA pulls down, and AA/DL add ex-LAX, the lack of connecting traffic will eventually kill LAX other than as a spoke city. United is well on the way to this.

And don't tell me this was a planned decision, everyone knew how important LAX was, and it was a city that United was No 1 in when Jeff took over. A quote from a 2013 article sort of brings it back:

'"LAX is the pot of gold at the end of a very rare rainbow," one airline executive told me recently. "Billions are at stake and no airline sees a profitable path forward without having a meaningful presence at the airport that defines the Los Angeles market."

With about 19 percent of the market in the 12 months ending in January, United Airlines (NYSE: UAL) has traditionally been the LAX leader. But American Airlines (OTC: AAMRQ), with more than 18 percent, has always been a close second. After a 20-year drive to dominate the so-called California Corridor of intrastate flights, Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) is a solid number-three with an estimated 15.7 percent market share. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) has recently been an LAX also-ran'

What happened was the former management team treated LAX like it treated IAH and EWR, and cut service quality and service and expected people to suck it up "they will fly United for price and schedule" I believe was the mantra. HVFers fled, and United just bled corporate accounts. I've talked to people in LA, it was and is brutal. And when the HVFers left, the entire thing became unprofitable, so they cut, which caused more traffic to go. Fundamentally former management did not understand the market, and shot itself in the foot, an injury that continues to fester.

This is just a symptom of a much larger issue United created for itself ex-LAX. Moving traffic to SFO is not by choice (SFO is a horrible hub to connect in with the weather) its by necessity because United no longer has the high value traffic ex-LAX to maintain it as a hub.

p.s. and this played a big part in PS going away. United lost so much full fare traffic ex-LAX that it made those flights unprofitable, even with a reduced schedule, which in turn cost United more business. But without the LAX routes, there was no way to keep PS only to SFO, so UA moved it to EWR. It is a perfect example of the nock on effect of allowing competition to eat away at your traffic base. As we say here rinse, repeat, rinse again....