Will UA defend its SFO-LAX route?
 

Noticed this morning that Virgin has come out with pricing SFO-LAX, and will charge $44 one way in coach for their cheapest tickets, and offer first class with massage seats for $149 one way. They will offer 5 flights a day, about the same that AA offers in this market.

Clearly UA owns this market, and carries more passengers between SFO-LAX than any other carrier. Can we expect UA to drop fares this low to hold onto market share, or will sheer volume of flights leave them in a position that they don't need to respond or would only need to respond for flights at similar times of day?

Your thoughts?

Anyone have an estimate of how much of United's SFO-LAX traffic is O&D on both ends? Probably not too much, and it's that traffic that Virgin is targeting. I would still imagine that SFO-LAX will remain a huge route for the int'l (and domestic, I guess) connections at SFO for people based in LAX.

Also, the price-conscious SFO-LAX travelers already have Southwest. The only difference here, then, is an additional 5 flights, and first class. Still, I don't see it as being too big of a problem for United's SFO-LAX profitability.

I don't know about that. When Frontier jumped into the market, UA's prices went down to match them; when Frontier left; they jumped right back up. (I pay attention to these things, since I am O&D traffic on this route!)

SW was pricing out around $125 RT for BUR/OAK; vs UA $300 plus LAX/SFO. I have to buy 2 tickets (in addition to the tix I need for the Raiders game in December. ;)

Maybe I'll wait a while and see if UA matches.

I would disagree with that. Yes, a good portion is for int'l connections out of SFO, but LAX and SFO are two very big cities with a lot of biz travelers needing to go between them.

Absolutely. I would say that the O&D traffic on both ends is quite high. My guess would be that relatively speaking, it is one of the lower "connection" routes in the whole UA domestic network.

Totally agree ... something like New York and London. :p

That'll be UA pulling out of SFO-LAX completely then :p

The largest domestic airline travel market in the United States is Northern California/Southern California shuttle traffic. It's O&D city.

If history is any marker, UA has always protected this market vigorously. Years ago, it was UA & PSA on the intra-state market between these two cities, and they have upped the ante every time some carrier makes a move. DL, AA, US, etc., have all tried to get more market share and lost each & every time, driving them all either out of the market, or cutting back to minimal daily service.

And it is a HUGE O&D city pairing. There are loads of connections on either end, granted, but the O&D traffic is VERY high.

UA if you are smart, you need to match.

I'm NOT going to pay $300 to fly LAX-SFO when I can fly the same route on AS, AA, B6, WN (LAX/SNA/BUR-SFO/OAK) for $125 all in.

500 EQMs + 1000 RDMs <<< $175 savings

I was hoping you'd get my hint when I faxed in my AS and B6 statement with loads of SNA/LGB-OAK flights ;)

Isn't it also one of the busiest flight corridors in the country, if not world?

Notice how WN conviniently left SFO-LAX off of its initial SFO reintroduction? Probably didn't want to get killed on the route.

Not sure why WN would get "killed" on the route. WN already carries more pax between the Bay Area and Southern California than any other carrier. I suspect that WN's choice to serve other markets has to do with the higher profit potential on those routes.

This is such a hard thing to judge. I've seen data where NYC-FLL route has the most traffic of any domestic market (closely followed by NYC-LAX). Then there are the gillion flights that both UA and AA have ORD-LGA/EWR. And HNL-OGG has a ton of flights as well!

I just tried doing some research on this and stats are hard to come by that answer my questions; however, when looking at congestion maps...the East Coast is much more saturated than the West Coast.

That being said, I do know that the specific LA-SF "market" has a ton of O&D traffic.

Are you talking about ARTCC? If so, then yes...Oakland Center controls the largest geographic space, but the busiest centers are Chicago and Cleveland, I believe.