Is United considering more hub closures?
Jul 29, 2016, 11:10 am
#61
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No it is not, at least it is not what it used to be compare to 10-15 years ago. You probably are new to UA and not aware how many TPAC flights UA used to have in LAX, KIX, HKG, AKL to just name a few, and all of them were flown by 744.
And do you aware UA used to have half of T6 as well ? CO use to depart out of T6 with its own Presidents Club there, after the merger, even after adding all the CO flights, how can it be UA even require less gates at LAX and completely abandon T6 ? So how many flights UA has cut in LAX ? (You look at SFO, after the merger, UA had taken over all 10 gates at 60s, then continue to add int'l flights)
And do you aware UA used to have half of T6 as well ? CO use to depart out of T6 with its own Presidents Club there, after the merger, even after adding all the CO flights, how can it be UA even require less gates at LAX and completely abandon T6 ? So how many flights UA has cut in LAX ? (You look at SFO, after the merger, UA had taken over all 10 gates at 60s, then continue to add int'l flights)
United's halcyon days at LAX were propped up by a bubble, and the more recent mid-2000s strategy of building dual West Coast hubs of similar size caused resources to be spread over two airports, allowing a stronger position (by market share, which at one point exceeded 50% including the regional operation) at SFO to slip away to competitors. United is only recently regaining its share at SFO on a major increase in traffic. Meanwhile, United has treaded water in terms of capacity at LAX, but growth by DL/AA primarily has resulted in less market share.
Jul 29, 2016, 11:32 am
#62
Join Date: Jan 2016
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I fly IAD/DCA to SFO 10+ times a year. I never end up on the DCA-SFO flight because it leaves around 8:30 in the morning, which means I lose the entire work day. When I do other travel, though, I almost always fly out of DCA because I can get from downtown where clients are to the airport in less than half an hour, whereas it takes much longer to get out to IAD. There is also no pleasant way to get to IAD if you have a mid-evening flight and are in transit to the airport during rush hour.
That said, having spent considerable time in SFO, IAD and DCA this year, as well as several trips to ORD and EWR, I'd rather fly out of IAD than any of those other hubs--IRROPS seem rarer, the terminals are far less crowded, and, the oddity of the people movers aside, it's easy to get from door to gate.
SFO is a compact terminal, but it's typically crammed full of people, and fog causes all kinds of headaches.
Jul 29, 2016, 11:35 am
#63
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UA-coded actual* TPAC longhauls from LAX, not counting any CO-coded ones during the merger (between merger approval and SOC, not sure if there were any):
Code:
year | flights | destination ------+---------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1998 | 2073 | 362 RJBB, 362 NZAA, 363 VHHH, 620 RJAA, 3 NTAA, 1 RCTP, 362 YSSY 1999 | 1641 | 27 YMML, 2 NFFN, 360 YSSY, 365 RJAA, 2 NTAA, 155 RJBB, 365 NZAA, 365 VHHH 2000 | 1823 | 367 RJAA, 1 NTAA, 1 RCTP, 372 YSSY, 367 VHHH, 364 NZAA, 351 YMML 2001 | 1442 | 88 YMML, 360 YSSY, 1 RCTP, 362 RJAA, 268 VHHH, 1 NFFN, 362 NZAA 2002 | 1098 | 366 NZAA, 364 RJAA, 2 NTAA, 366 YSSY 2003 | 820 | 364 YSSY, 2 NFFN, 365 RJAA, 89 NZAA 2004 | 736 | 1 RKSO, 371 YSSY, 1 NFFN, 363 RJAA 2005 | 863 | 1 ZZZZ, 456 RJAA, 405 YSSY, 1 VHHH 2006 | 804 | 437 YSSY, 366 RJAA, 1 YBBN 2007 | 860 | 427 YSSY, 1 RJBB, 65 VHHH, 367 RJAA 2008 | 1026 | 16 NFFN, 395 YSSY, 235 VHHH, 16 YMML, 364 RJAA 2009 | 792 | 16 NFFN, 11 YMML, 1 RJBB, 399 YSSY, 365 RJAA 2010 | 778 | 5 ZBAA, 365 RJAA, 1 YBBN, 407 YSSY 2011 | 956 | 215 ZSPD, 1 NZCH, 380 YSSY, 359 RJAA, 1 ZBAA 2012 | 1078 | 353 ZSPD, 362 RJAA, 363 YSSY 2013 | 1069 | 361 YSSY, 350 ZSPD, 358 RJAA 2014 | 1101 | 345 ZSPD, 349 RJAA, 56 YMML, 351 YSSY 2015 | 1414 | 1 NWWW, 358 ZSPD, 357 YSSY, 353 RJAA, 345 YMML
Code:
year | flights | aircrafttype ------+---------+-------------------------------------------------- 1998 | 2073 | 1786 B74B, 3 B74A, 1 B74, 283 B744 1999 | 1641 | 1 744, 1639 B744, 1 B741 2000 | 1823 | 1818 B744, 5 B747 2001 | 1442 | 62 B747, 1380 B744 2002 | 1098 | 9 B777, 196 B772, 86 B747, 807 B744 2003 | 820 | 547 B744, 272 B772, 1 B763 2004 | 736 | 736 B744 2005 | 863 | 1 B752, 183 B772, 1 , 678 B744 2006 | 804 | 801 B744, 3 2007 | 860 | 14 , 846 B744 2008 | 1026 | 292 B772, 727 B744, 7 2009 | 792 | 5 , 122 B772, 665 B744 2010 | 778 | 164 B772, 614 B744 2011 | 956 | 1 , 381 B744, 574 B772 2012 | 1078 | 362 B744, 1 , 715 B772 2013 | 1069 | 361 B744, 301 B788, 407 B772 2014 | 1101 | 45 B789, 87 B744, 2 , 702 B788, 1 B787, 264 B772 2015 | 1414 | 358 B772, 2 , 864 B789, 190 B788
By what metric?
Jul 29, 2016, 11:54 am
#64
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That would require having decent rail options available. Amtrak simply doesn't offer enough service in a reliable or efficient manner to make it work. If you could get train time NYP-BOS/WAS down below 1.5-2 hours you MIGHT be able to make something work. But that's very, very unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Jul 29, 2016, 1:30 pm
#65
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 674
15 years ago United at LAX was at its high-water mark, concurrent with the dotcom boom and the Shuttle operation, which was launched to salvage the market share it was giving up in California to Southwest. Obviously, that battle was lost, and with the dotcom bubble burst, then 9/11, then bankruptcy, United's position at LAX (in which I don't believe it ever had more than about a 25% share) began to erode.
United's halcyon days at LAX were propped up by a bubble, and the more recent mid-2000s strategy of building dual West Coast hubs of similar size caused resources to be spread over two airports, allowing a stronger position (by market share, which at one point exceeded 50% including the regional operation) at SFO to slip away to competitors. United is only recently regaining its share at SFO on a major increase in traffic. Meanwhile, United has treaded water in terms of capacity at LAX, but growth by DL/AA primarily has resulted in less market share.
United's halcyon days at LAX were propped up by a bubble, and the more recent mid-2000s strategy of building dual West Coast hubs of similar size caused resources to be spread over two airports, allowing a stronger position (by market share, which at one point exceeded 50% including the regional operation) at SFO to slip away to competitors. United is only recently regaining its share at SFO on a major increase in traffic. Meanwhile, United has treaded water in terms of capacity at LAX, but growth by DL/AA primarily has resulted in less market share.
United has been cutting Fresno and Bakersfield service this year. Maybe now theyre losing to Alaska on California flights.
Jul 29, 2016, 1:35 pm
#66
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I beg to differ. While if you live in PG county, Chevy Chase or southern Bethesda and drive to DCA through DC or over Chain Bridge, getting to DCA might be significantly faster. But if you enter Virginia via I-495 over the Cabin John bridge as nearly all Montgomery county residents do, the difference is miniscule. IAD is no more than about 5 minutes more distant from the bridge than is DCA. Not enough to compensate for any significant fare or schedule difference.
Jul 29, 2016, 1:51 pm
#67
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I'm only speaking generally, not referring only to the year 2001... I should be more specific but my point is that the late 90s through the early 2000s, per your numbers as well as others, were clearly the high point of UA operations at LAX in terms of departures, destinations and pax served.
Some of that (BFL eastbound service in particular) is attributable to the oil collapse.
Some of that (BFL eastbound service in particular) is attributable to the oil collapse.
Jul 29, 2016, 2:12 pm
#68
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I beg to differ. While if you live in PG county, Chevy Chase or southern Bethesda and drive to DCA through DC or over Chain Bridge, getting to DCA might be significantly faster. But if you enter Virginia via I-495 over the Cabin John bridge as nearly all Montgomery county residents do, the difference is miniscule. IAD is no more than about 5 minutes more distant from the bridge than is DCA. Not enough to compensate for any significant fare or schedule difference.
In launching Polaris I noted that they said they would build a lounge at IAD. Of course they could change this - but one would think they wouldn't have said that if they were going to dehub IAD in the next year or two.
Jul 29, 2016, 4:18 pm
#69
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: SF Bay Area, CA
Posts: 337
If IAD was mainly domestic I could see them scaling it back to a focus city only. But with all the international traffic I just don't see UA de-hubbing it.
Lots of people say DCA is more convenient. Well, for a lot of domestic flights perhaps. But how about when it involves international travel or flights to the west coast? Do people really think it's more convenient to connect in EWR or ORD over a possible non-stop from IAD? Would people rather add a connection at these airports and add a couple of hours to their travel time instead of spending an extra 30 minutes in a car?
Lots of people say DCA is more convenient. Well, for a lot of domestic flights perhaps. But how about when it involves international travel or flights to the west coast? Do people really think it's more convenient to connect in EWR or ORD over a possible non-stop from IAD? Would people rather add a connection at these airports and add a couple of hours to their travel time instead of spending an extra 30 minutes in a car?
Jul 29, 2016, 4:37 pm
#70
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There may be a case for the non-stop intl flights that UA has via IAD. However, UA has more intl non-stops at ORD/SFO/EWR, so for many flyers it makes sense to take a 1-stop connection in ORD/SFO/EWR vs connecting in Europe/PEK/NRT/etc out of IAD. I'm curious how many passengers on the ex-IAD intl are O/D vs connections. I suspect at least half are connections that can be blissfully re-routed via another hub.
If the remaining O/D traffic isn't a high enough profit(see dropping of IAD-DXB after being undercut by B6 codeshare), and the airport has an expensive future (see condition of C/D concourse, the current landing/use fees, and how much those fees will go up when the C/D concourse finally falls over and dies), then cutting it makes sense.
Jul 29, 2016, 5:48 pm
#72
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Jul 29, 2016, 6:54 pm
#73
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I beg to differ. While if you live in PG county, Chevy Chase or southern Bethesda and drive to DCA through DC or over Chain Bridge, getting to DCA might be significantly faster. But if you enter Virginia via I-495 over the Cabin John bridge as nearly all Montgomery county residents do, the difference is miniscule. IAD is no more than about 5 minutes more distant from the bridge than is DCA. Not enough to compensate for any significant fare or schedule difference.
I guess if one does not live in the area, one may not quite understand dynamics of local traffics. There is no highways into DCA (not saying it is easier to get in and out of Dulles Toll Road from/to I-66 and I-495 is piece of cake during certain times of the day).
There is not a lot of choices on other airlines out of DCA in terms of scheduling and destinations. I see DCA has advantage of East Coast traffic, but a lot of politicians, lobbyists, government, lawyers and business travels have to be out of IAD.
Perhaps just my own bias being a resident in the area, I do see upside out of IAD.
Jul 29, 2016, 9:13 pm
#74
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No it is not, at least it is not what it used to be compare to 10-15 years ago. You probably are new to UA and not aware how many TPAC flights UA used to have in LAX, KIX, HKG, AKL to just name a few, and all of them were flown by 744.
And do you aware UA used to have half of T6 as well ? CO use to depart out of T6 with its own Presidents Club there, after the merger, even after adding all the CO flights, how can it be UA even require less gates at LAX and completely abandon T6 ? So how many flights UA has cut in LAX ? (You look at SFO, after the merger, UA had taken over all 10 gates at 60s, then continue to add int'l flights)
And do you aware UA used to have half of T6 as well ? CO use to depart out of T6 with its own Presidents Club there, after the merger, even after adding all the CO flights, how can it be UA even require less gates at LAX and completely abandon T6 ? So how many flights UA has cut in LAX ? (You look at SFO, after the merger, UA had taken over all 10 gates at 60s, then continue to add int'l flights)
Jul 29, 2016, 9:57 pm
#75
Join Date: Dec 2014
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Posts: 686
If IAD was mainly domestic I could see them scaling it back to a focus city only. But with all the international traffic I just don't see UA de-hubbing it.
Lots of people say DCA is more convenient. Well, for a lot of domestic flights perhaps. But how about when it involves international travel or flights to the west coast? Do people really think it's more convenient to connect in EWR or ORD over a possible non-stop from IAD? Would people rather add a connection at these airports and add a couple of hours to their travel time instead of spending an extra 30 minutes in a car?
Lots of people say DCA is more convenient. Well, for a lot of domestic flights perhaps. But how about when it involves international travel or flights to the west coast? Do people really think it's more convenient to connect in EWR or ORD over a possible non-stop from IAD? Would people rather add a connection at these airports and add a couple of hours to their travel time instead of spending an extra 30 minutes in a car?
When I go to hell it will look like EWR, the thought of having to use it more while I have breath in my body would further reduce my already diminished UA relationship