aCavalierInCoach

Have been flying more for work purposes lately and have been more cognizant of UAs domestic weakness at SFO, particularly vis-a-vis AA. How is it that UA is able to let so much share of wallet go to another major at a significant international gateway/hub that it doesn't share with another carrier (like ORD or LAX).

Of course most of AAs destinations seem to have an "explanation" (DFW, ORD, LAX, STL and MIA are hubs, while JFK is an AA focus city with some route-legacy on SFO-JFK) but you can throw SNA, BOS and HNL into the mix and AA has a reasonably strong foothold in the city, mostly operated by mainline. I'm learning this the hard way struggling for upgrades on the dAArk side against a seemingly endless cadre of EXPs based in SFO.

Any particular reason this is true at SFO versus other hubs? Historically it's not just AA either - UA completely abdicated MSP for a while to many x daily NW flights.

Anyway, just a curiosity as I find my miles and dollars going to a carrier that I don't prefer but that, in the end, still seems to have a strong mainline network in the area.

PanHam

UA (more UX now, sadly), has a huge presence on the west coast, and uses San Francisco as their hub through which to connect passengers on the West Coast. If there existed no SF hub, how would you get to Medord Oregon from Santa Barbara? SBA-LAX-DEN-MFD?

Or, how would you connect to international flights? DEN has a few to Europe, but not such a strong schedule, or any schedule, for that matter to the Pacific.

aCavalierInCoach

I'm not saying SFO isn't a hub - clearly it is, and the variety of destinations served (especially on the West coast) is substantial, with AS being the only alternative in the northwest for bay area-based flyers (UA could conceivably route anyone else through DEN or LAX). But that still leaves the question of how AA has been able to maintain such as strong presence there, and why UA seems so weak into competitors' markets from the area.

wiredboy10003

Isn't that what's called a fortress hub? Like AA in Dallas? If so, as a consumer I'd prefer to have some choice of airline at a given airport.

channa

Many of UA's schedules at SFO are designed around the int'l hub. Many of their flights are once daily in the morning to feed to/from their Asia network. Even new services (or restored services) fit this model. The new MSP-SFO is an early flight, with the SFO-MSP return timed to meet the inbound Asia bank.

Part of it is also a funciton of the location on the West Coast. SFO really only makes sense for connections to/from the West Coast, Hawaii, and Asia. So connection options are limited at SFO.

AA's SFO-DFW service is pulling connections on the DFW end (basically the whole East Coast, South, Texas, Caribbean and LatAm). AA's SFO-DFW takes people from one large market (SFO) to most anywhere AA flies.

Conversely, UA's SFO-DFW flight pulls connections on the SFO side, which are much fewer (CA/OR/WA/HI, Asia). So that flight takes people from DFW (not a strong UA town to begin with) to Asia and connections on the West Coast (should you elect not to fly nonstop on AA to places like SEA, PDX, SMF, LAX, SAN).

haddon90

this is nonsense...with your logic, do you consider ORD a weak hub because AA has such a strong presence? there are only so many "fortress" hubs (ATL, MSP, DFW).

SFO is a pretty decent stronghold for UA, much more then LAX. and where are AA's international departures from SFO?

i think UA has a stronger presence at SFO then AA.

mahasamatman

So how do you figure AA has such a strong foothold here? Other than hubs, on the routes you quoted,

AA has one SFO-HNL per day compared to UA's three.
AA has two SFO-BOS per day compared to UA's five.

jef7

It's hard to deduce how you came up with your suggestion without presenting any data aCavalierInCoach.

leech27

For a non-hub, AA has a pretty good presence at SFO. But that doesn't mean that UA's presence is "weak" for a hub - there's no direct link between the two.

If anything, I'd say that the SF/Bay Area market has a higher demand for air capacity than other regions of similar size (the metro region is only 6-7 million people, far smaller than LA, Chicago, NY, etc). So it'd make sense for AA to have a larger presence here - the demand is there. That's borne out by your observations of large numbers of EXPs on the AA flights - the people flying AA to/from SFO fly quite often. Likewise, UA flights out of SFO have an astoundingly high number of 1Ks (not to mentions 1Ps and 2Ps), so it would seem that the average person from the Bay Area flies a lot more than the norm.

nnn

If I'm not mistaken, I think the OP's issue was with UA's frequencies out of SFO to certain hubs of other airlines, relative to the frequencies of those other airlines on the same routes. For example, between SFO and DFW, AA flies much more frequently than UA. And UA doesn't even fly SFO-MIA.

I think channa gave a good answer.

Javan69

Seems kind of strange to have a "hub" at one end of the country. A wheel hub is not on the edge, it's in the center. Hence, SFO is a hub for flights to Asia and Europe. The Bay Area is quite wealthy and generates substantial traffic to Asia and Europe, which UA helps to meet. I fly to Germany a lot and occasionally to Japan. I wouldn't join AA's program given those routings. Sure seems like UA dominates the I-terminal.

Thunderroad

^I realize I'm biased given that I use both airlines, but isn't competition a good thing? I think we're lucky in SFO to have this AA-UA competition here to the extent that it exists.

azepine00

Isn't is quite the opposite: upgrades on AA from SFO are much easier than on UA? A few folks who switched to the dAArk side reported very good percentages...

Also LAX is a rather minor hub for AA, just a base for transcon service, OW connections and a few RJ destinations.

Overall UA has a much stronger presence in both SFO and LAX

kdeg

I would think SFO is less of a "national" hub and picture it as the center of a wheel that encompasses Asia, Europe (a bit) and the US. The spokes don't have to stop radiating just because they point out over water.

haddon90

how are AA's frequencies to DEN, IAD, ATL, SLC compared to other airlines? just because UA doesn't have as high a frequency to DFW, doesn't make SFO a "weak" hub.