and as I have repeatedly said, if AA moves to add service into markets in which other carriers are stronger, it will likely result in those carriers adding service into key AA markets. and the same is equally true. It comes down to who has the best prospects of gaining more long-term. There is no doubt that the MIA-Latin America market that DL could pick up is FAR bigger than what AA could get in Latin America, no matter how many gates they have.
and DL's addition of both LAX-LHR and LAX-PVG, both of which arrive at the TBIT, dismisses the notion that DL is limited in LAX because of gate space.
Given that DL is the largest carrier from LAX to Latin America, if AA decides to start service in a number of markets which DL now serves from LAX, it will likely result in a larger expansion at MIA by DL and its soon to be joint venture partner AM as well as its codeshare partner G3 and other Skyteam carriers.
Blah blah blah AA has competition. Thanks for the newsflash. In the meantime, so does everybody else. Next.
and yet it is clear from 4th quarter results that not all carriers fared as well in the revenue creation department....
AA PRASM down 1%, capacity up 1.7%
AS PRASM down 2.4%, capacity up 10.6%
B6 PRASM up 0.1%, capacity up 7%
DL PRASM up 0.8%, capacity up 3.7%
UA PRASM up 0.4%, capacity up 0.9%
WN PRASM up 2.6%, capacity up 2.4%
Despite having the 2nd lowest rate of capacity growth in an industry that is fairly aggressively growing, AA's PRASM was down the 2nd highest, beat only by AS which is throwing capacity into SEA left and right because of the carrier that managed to add the most capacity of the big 4. Notably, IIRC, DL had the highest domestic RASM increase of the big 4.
so, there is a difference in how carriers handling competition, esp. in the domestic marketplace.
