Not to mention that the above stupidity just further reinforces the inability of some to view anything outside of the lens of Delta.
When you aren't the market leader, you have to use your resources more smartly, and so thus for AA, the strategy isn't about maximizing "domestic feed," and nor should it be. In fact, JFK and LGA are suboptimal for "domestic feed" in the context of "feeding" anything due to lacking facilities, airfield and airspace congestion, and/or competition. AA now has a massive portfolio of hundreds of slots at JFK and LGA to optimize not for domestic feed, per se, but rather for both domestic and international O&D, and complimenting that a far superior hub to either JFK or LGA down at PHL that can be used to handle both domestic and international connections.
Between JFK and LGA, AA now offers an extremely comprehensive nonstop offering to most of NYC's largest and most important business O&D markets, and I personally expect that to only further strengthen as AA reorients its slot portfolio even more towards O&D and shifts suboptimal connections away from JFK and down to PHL.
except that this isn't about DL alone.
your attempts to reframe the conversation into just about DL show that you don't understand or don't want to admit that DL developed and is succeeding at a strategy that AA either couldn't do or was too late to the party to try.
anyone who understands the NYC market knows full well that LGA and JFK were divided between umpteen carriers for years with no clear leader.
OTOH, CO managed to build a hub at EWR that gave it the dominant position in the NYC area and average fare advantages in most markets in which it competed from EWR compared to other carriers at LGA and JFK.
DL came out of BK, 1t years after buying the Pan Am assets, with the belief that DL could build a dual hub strategy at LGA and JFK that would challenge CO's dominance of the NYC market and also allow DL to leapfrog AA, US, and B6 at LGA and JFK.
AA was showing weakness and pulling down routes at JFK because of B6's cost advantage long before DL started growing JFK post-BK.
DL pulled off the slot deal at LGA, added enough flights at JFK in order to become the largest carrier there, and has continued to go after one market after another that other carriers, largely those that AA and US have abandoned.
The difference between DL and UA's operations is that DL relies on far less domestic feed than UA requires at EWR because LGA and JFK are the preferred airports for NYC local travelers.
Size matters in hubs.. and the fact that NYC is NYC doesn't change that the largest carriers in a market get a fare and share advantage. that has been proven over and over in the airline industry and no one has yet to provide any proof that NYC is any different.
just hoping that NYC won't end up being like other cities isn't enough for AA to hold onto its presence in NYC.
When AA has fallen as far as it has in key markets such as a number of transcon, Caribbean, Asian, and European cities, the evidence is simply overwhelming that the same rules that apply to the rest of the airline industry still apply in NYC.
AA's size in NYC has been buoyed solely by US which managed to dominate the market to its own hubs - not terribly unexpected for any airline.
quit childishly calling someone else names because they tell you something you don't want to hear despite the fact that it is the truth.
NYC is the world's premier air travel market, after London. Why some people keep insisting there is only room for one or two large players there, I have no clue. Keep deluding yourself, WT.
I didn't say there is room for just two airlines.
The evidence overwhelming says that the #3 and below player in a market cannot compete with larger rivals.
AA is the #3 or smaller carrier in a number of markets and they simply do not get fares on par with what larger carriers get.
how can you possibly refuse to believe these realities when you look at market like JFK-SFO where AA is now 5 out of 5 in size and has an average fare disadvantage to both DL and UA despite AA's supposedly higher quality product?
