Originally Posted by buckeyefanflyer
(Post 31971453)
The point is United promised to keep service to key destinations. So BOS, DCA, and LGA are gone. United flew these routes 50 years ago. Delta still flies to many key airports from CVG. These cutbacks also may mean employee job loss.
I am not a fan of massive hubs to make airplanes and people and long walks to gates. Need more medium size hubs. CVG, STL, CLE, RDU, BNA, PIT, MEM should have been kept. Granted I completely understand the argument for mid-size hubs, there is something to be said for not having to deal with the ORDs or ATLs, but the fact is that mid-size hubs are incredibly cyclical and tied to the economy of the market it is serving. Granted the TWA "shrink til we're profitable" strategy basically has shown that cities like CLE have to rely solely on the local markets once you start killing off larger connectivity opportunities. I'd argue that a city that has 150+ flights has a much higher chance of surviving than any focus/mini-hub city with >100 flights; once you get below >100 you really don't have banks to connect and have to focus on the local traffic. Any drop in that, or entry by LCCs, can really impact P/L and as the markets get pared back or dropped, the entire operation is left to fend of a few key markets that more or less are on death's door and if the local vs flow component is hovering at anything below 50%, then that's even more of a case for shutting it down. In the case of CLE, UA knew what they were doing; start stripping away the connectivity, rely on the local component, raise fares, and the results work in their favor. Even if they had tried to keep CLE at the same levels pre-merger, sure it could have been profitable....but it would have come at the expense of ORD/IAD/EWR. Nothing against CLE, but the reality is those markets are going to sustain and grow an airline far greater than CLE (or any mid-size hub for that matter); in the 90's they worked but with the advent of RJ's (and the high CASM) they effectively killed them off. |
Originally Posted by xliioper
(Post 31972477)
The world has moved on. The medium sized hubs became uneconomical because of their heavy RJ reliance and smaller percentage of O&D flyers. The ULCC's have now come in to many of these former hubs and are filling a void for the O&D's leisure flyers who are just looking for cheaper fares and non-stop flights to the more popular markets and who don't really care about networks. This has already happened in Europe and now it's happening here. There's still a place in the world for the legacy network airlines, but it's going to be a smaller percentage of traffic and most leisure flyers are happy not having to pay the hub hostage rates on those airlines any more. With WN's growth over recent years, you could say they have smallish hubs in STL and BNA even though they are more O&D focused than the legacies. Being DTW based, I frequently see WN selling connecting options through them. DL apparently has enough of a business market in CVG to maintain an O&D focused hub there. However, they did completely make MEM a spoke dropping even the Florida leisure market flights from there. UA seems to have enough of a FF base at CLE to at least keep the Florida routes, but couldn't profitably make a focus city work like DL at CVG.
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Originally Posted by JimInOhio
(Post 31972619)
CVG is a focus city because DL has focus cities. UA doesn't unless you want to call LAX a focus city (#3 carrier at less than 15% market share). CLE has higher passenger totals than CVG.
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Originally Posted by trk1
(Post 31967385)
United Cleveland leases:
14 Gates expires Jan 1 2030 United Club. expires Jan 1 2030 Concourse D will be fully paid by United in 2029 when lease expires |
Originally Posted by xliioper
(Post 31973258)
It's not all about passenger totals and DL's corporate contracts and business traffic at CVG is likely the primary reason for it's focus city there. I don't see UA signing up for 14 gates at CLE back in 2016 and lasting until 2029 unless the long term intent at the time was to keep it as a focus city. It's clearly way more gates than they need for the current operation and it's a longtime to hold and pay for a bunch of gates that you don't need. For comparison, DL only negotiated a 5 year lease for their gates at CVG when they renewed back in 2015 (they are coming up for renegotiation this year). Seems more like UA's initial projections for CLE as a focus city simply didn't pan out rather than being adamantly opposed to focus cities.
edit: They routinely use 12 of the gates, one of which they staff for AC. |
Originally Posted by xliioper
(Post 31973258)
It's not all about passenger totals and DL's corporate contracts and business traffic at CVG is likely the primary reason for it's focus city there. I don't see UA signing up for 14 gates at CLE back in 2016 and lasting until 2029 unless the long term intent at the time was to keep it as a focus city. It's clearly way more gates than they need for the current operation and it's a longtime to hold and pay for a bunch of gates that you don't need. For comparison, DL only negotiated a 5 year lease for their gates at CVG when they renewed back in 2015 (they are coming up for renegotiation this year). Seems more like UA's initial projections for CLE as a focus city simply didn't pan out rather than being adamantly opposed to focus cities.
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Originally Posted by ctownflyer
(Post 31973360)
UA signed up for those gates to block competition. They had no intention of adding CLE flights.
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Remember that United at present has a major domestic aircraft shortage.They have been trying to play catch up for the since Scott came on board. At the end of 2019 they are down 34 planned 737 aircraft. On Wednesday current 2020 fleet plan will be announced but with no more new 737's could be down over 100 aircraft from the plan 9 months ago by the end of this year. 25 used 319 and 25 used 737's are arriving but at a slow pace as they were to supplement the new 737's. This has a direct effect on the build up of the Den/Ord/IAD hubs and Cle is affected by the aircraft shortage. The comments about gate squatting are made with no basis of fact. Cle to LGA and DCA have some of the lowest load factors in the system. The loads are very poor on AA and Delta as well. When you are short of aircraft and are moving express carriers across the system to help fill the gap you are going to make some decisions that make sense. AA has also made some system wide changes. DL does not have domestic equipment shortage. SW is also making major changes as this aircraft problem multiplies.
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Originally Posted by ctownflyer
(Post 31973360)
UA signed up for those gates to block competition. They had no intention of adding CLE flights.
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CVG and CLE are apples and oranges.
It's just about an hour flying time to two major *A hubs: ORD for UA and YYZ for AC. A hard sell to keep up nonstop when one can fly that hour and connect to pretty much all of the known world. At the same time, both LGA and DCA are slot-controlled. The lower the PRASM for a flight, the less sense it makes to eat a slot for that rotation. Good example is UA's new semi-shuttle between DCA and EWR. Those six additional rotations had to come from somewhere and my guess is that when UA looked at the numbers, it became easy. |
Originally Posted by Often1
(Post 31974095)
CVG and CLE are apples and oranges.
It's just about an hour flying time to two major *A hubs: ORD for UA and YYZ for AC. A hard sell to keep up nonstop when one can fly that hour and connect to pretty much all of the known world. At the same time, both LGA and DCA are slot-controlled. The lower the PRASM for a flight, the less sense it makes to eat a slot for that rotation. Good example is UA's new semi-shuttle between DCA and EWR. Those six additional rotations had to come from somewhere and my guess is that when UA looked at the numbers, it became easy. |
Originally Posted by xliioper
(Post 31974046)
There's no gate shortage at CLE, so that would be completely counterproductive and pointless. There's no one itching to start up new connecting hubs out there which require significant gate availability.
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Originally Posted by nomad420
(Post 31974728)
Believe what you want but for several years now the many Clevelanders have told me the same thing. UA got a sweet heart deal on the gates and won't give them up effectively blocking competition. FWIW I was told some of budget airlines are interested in CLE as a hub but I cannot point to any specific data or statements so I will state that it is hear-say.
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Originally Posted by nomad420
(Post 31974728)
Believe what you want but for several years now the many Clevelanders have told me the same thing. UA got a sweet heart deal on the gates and won't give them up effectively blocking competition. FWIW I was told some of budget airlines are interested in CLE as a hub but I cannot point to any specific data or statements so I will state that it is hear-say.
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Originally Posted by mrmoo
(Post 31978615)
Do ULLCs even have hubs? F9 did/does with DEN, but that was mostly because of legacy F9. Maybe some ULLCs would add more routes, but unlikely since the A concourse, where they operate, is very empty most of the time.
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