ermintrude

Agree - I forgot that SJC was home to silicon valley. - it must be annoying for those in silicon valley who want to fly UA. Off the cuff thinking but SJC could perhaps even operate at a loss but overall generate a profit due to increased traffic/customer base... Many cases of this in many industries....

cerealmarketer

Funny enough UA does fly LAX - Fresno.

I think the viability of SJC is increasing, but for a different reason. Traffic in the Bay Area has become much worse than prior cycles, and SFO/SJC are less interchangeable as they once were - so they are becoming more independent markets. Same for OAK - given how hard it is to get to the Peninsula / SF now.

The question then is which destinations out of SJC are most viable. Still at 1x a day to EWR, ORD, IAH. Nothing to Boston, the old 'nerd bird' express to AUS of the late 90s s down to 3 a day.

SJC-LAX though has a long 30+ year history of being fare war territory. The quick turns and frequent business demand make it really easy to dump capacity. Does it mean it's not viable? Don't know without the industry numbers and the opportunity cost of using a frame there.

luv2ctheworld

I think a better question is whether people who live in Socal actually want to have one airline dominate the region. The competition here is no doubt intense, which to me is good for the consumer.

I think hub fortresses are great if you love to fly that airline, but pricing wise, it becomes more challenging having consistent low fares.

I don't work for United nor own shares, so I prefer it benefit me than their bottom line.

DELee

I think what I and the OP really want is UA to be sufficiently committed to the West Coast so that there's flights and is frankly an alternative to WN.

DL is moving into the role that UA once had up and down the West Coast and that fed traffic into its network. Yes, LAX will not be anybody's fortress hub but there's plenty of demand both there as well as across Southern California and the Northwest.

Right now UA's West Coast traffic lives and dies by SFO's operational challenges.

David

boat9781

UA leadership has already stated that they’re not afraid to compete on price where and when needed. On viability, one route in isolation can be unprofitable but engender traffic, loyalty and connecting flow that is, in fact, profitable over the network.

prestonh

I'm going to argue this goes back to the 2009 retirement of the 737-300/500 fleet which decimated mainline domestic capacity in an attempt by management at the time to get massive labor concessions ahead of the pre-merger dance which in hindsight we knew Tilton was dressing up the company for. Obviously that just sowed deep seeds of derision and bitterness and left a company with half its ASM's with RJ's trolling the skies and the western market a shell of its former self for the competition to have at it. What corporate contract is going to sign on to that?
In the mean time you have mr 'you'll like these changes' giving the big middle finger to all the elite members over and over again (seat pitch, EQM, EQD req's, meals, more RJ's etc. etc) and now the latest the fare war with Spirit via basic economy where they impose the elite tax where you have to pay to get elite benefits. The culture is basically, 'if you are an elite member, you fly in spite of the airline'.
So while PRASM for UA struggles to grow, every other LCC and foreign carrier is growing near double digits as competition just soaks up the growth while the incompetency continues to beat their customers that run to their better or higher value carriers in increasing frequency. They won't get it because that's their model, literally beat the customer. But hey everyone else chases the customer at their peril. At some point they have to figure out that growth necessarily dilutes fixed costs and inflation...a basic tenant of financing.

fly18725

I think your perpetrating a FlyerTalk fallacy. While United is smaller in WA/OR/CA than it was pre-2001, it hasn't really shrunk on an ASM basis post-merger. Yes, there are fewer destinations/routes due to Skywest's elimination of E-120 flying, but DL is still smaller than United in WA/OR/CA.

Would it be nice if United could compete with Southwest intra-California? Absolutely. Is it realistic, heck no.

channa

ASMs don't matter if they don't go where you want them to go.

2.5 million people live in the East Bay with OAK likely their preferred airport. Another couple million live in the South Bay with SJC their preferred airport.


UA only serves 1 of the top 10 from SJC. UA is an illogical connection for the remaining 9. And of course at OAK, UA serves 0.

UA can boast about its ASMs all it wants, and I guess it's nice for some people that UA has a nonstop to Indianapolis or Chengdu, but UA is simply not the most convenient carrier for more than half the Bay Area.

cerealmarketer

One of the challenges of Bay Area to LA is the model of 'serve LAX' isn't enough, since LAX has become tougher and tougher to get to in recent years thanks to traffic. And frankly always been tough back to the days of Air Cal and PSA. So if you want to commit to it, you need some BUR/SNA in the mix. Southwest has a monopoly on OAK-SNA/BUR. Alaska is trying to give them a run on SJC with less than half the frequency.

As UA and AA each learned the hard way, against Southwest's model it's hard to do right unless like at SFO you have connections subsidizing it.

If you're UA/DL/AA you'd rather have someone 'cheat' with Southwest, where the biz traveler loyalty doesn't extend to international long haul, and rarely domestic long haul.

I wouldn't be surprised to see UA return to OAK within the next decade, but not sure SoCal would be the first place that sees service.

Kacee

DL has three daily nonstops OAK-LAX and OAK-SLC. So I'm flying OAK-LAX-HNL-SLC-OAK this week.

Personally, I'd like to see OAK serve the UA hubs (DEN, ORD, IAH) for connections, as opposed to LAX for O/D.

minnyfly

UA flies SFO-TUS 2x daily and LAX-TUS 1x daily.

DL flies LAX-TUS 2x daily.

How then does UA offer you "no really good options"?

spin88

Every time I have looked (last time was 6 months ago) there are only am flights back, that is what I see now, a 7:20a and 12:40p flight back. Last time I looked DL had 4x day, including an end of day flight back. United runs a lot of 1x and 2x/day flights from SFO, if the flight times work great, but there is just not the overall network conductivity in the West that Delta now has (as does WN, and soon AS/VX will have).

DA201

After shrinking for years, I think they are growing at the moment. I'm flying EWR-SJC in about two weeks and EWR-SMF... couldn't have done that last year (or two years ago). I think it took Alaska/Virgin starting EWR-SJC/PDX for them to realize being weak on the west coast could lead to them losing customers at EWR/ORD/IAD/DEN (I discovered a loyal Alaska flyer based out of EWR a couple months ago on an EWR-SEA flight). LAX-SEA/PDX need to be addressed and OAK needs something, but the situation seems to be getting better... and I really do credit Alaska/Virgin.

On a personal note, I would love to see them add EWR-RNO (at least seasonally, although B6 flies JFK-RNO all year round) and would like to thank them for adding EWR-SLC (not exactly West Coast but...). Flew it this past year, have it booked this upcoming year... they stopped me from flying DL on a least a couple of my trips.

fly18725

I'm not aware that Delta has ever operated more than 2 daily LAX-TUS flights. There are additional connections via SLC, just like United offers multiple connections via SFO, LAX, and DEN.

I think some hold a perception that Delta is better in overall network connectivity that is difficult to overcome with facts. I'm real not sure what makes Delta's network more conductive...

channa

Delta has more options in many cases.

You can't get to UA's LAX-TUS flight out of SJC or OAK unless you interline, and that gets messy and sometimes more expensive. Delta can connect you from all three (3) Bay Area airports to their LAX flights to TUS.

For the sake of argument, let's say that in this market (Bay Area - TUS), DEN is inefficient, and so is SLC. Though it's worth noting that UA does not allow DEN connections out of SFO, only SJC. From SFO, UA requires nonstops or LAX conneciotns. DL appears to allow LAX, SLC or SEA connections to TUS (not that SEA or SLC is terribly efficient).

Looking at some random date coming up, 1/17/18, and UA has:

- 2 x SFO-TUS
- 1 x LAX-TUS

So net, 3 possible arrivals into TUS that day, you must originate in SFO. This dismisses the DEN-TUS flights which are available, but not sold ex-SFO and are inefficient out of SJC.

On DL, there are:
- 3 x LAX-TUS

So also, a total of 3 possible arrivals into TUS that day. You can originate in any Bay Area airports (SFO/SJC/OAK). This dismisses DL's SLC-TUS (and SEA-TUS if they have them) because those are inefficient from the Bay Area.

So if the nonstop flight timing works well, UA may be the winner.
If the nonstop flight timing does not work well, DL has more Bay Area options by far, since you can leave from any airport.

I think the point is that about half the Bay Area (maybe even a bit less) finds any Bay Area airport to be the most convenient. If it isn't, they may considering using an less favored airport for the right flight, but if that flight doesn't exist, then it's a connecting item.

With UA having several SFO markets at 1x or 2x a day, it's not guaranteed that they will have a well-timed flight for the schedule. You probably need 3x or 4x minimum spread through the day to get to that level. So if UA's flights don't work, now it goes back to a connection, in which case not only can other carriers win the business, other airports can as well. An East Bay customer may be willing to drive to SFO to catch SFO-TUS, but if the time of day is not good with traffic or the time doesn't otherwise work, OAK-TUS it is, and UA is out. Similar for a South Bay customer and SJC.