American Airlines plans to ‘rebank’ its Dallas/Fort Worth Airport hub this spring

[WorldTraveler]

yes, AA at times has been directional at ORD. SLC is largely a directional hub and so is DTW and MSP although every hub has some flights which are exceptions - typically to other hubs.

ATL can be omnidirectional solely based on the number of flights that DL has to cities served from ATL. there are dozens of cities that have 10 or more flights/day from ATL which makes it possible for the hub to really be omnidirectional.

And to be honest, DFW is about the only other hub in the US that has as much high frequency service to as many cities as ATL does that it can really be omnidirectional.

and I agree with the notion of banking MIA as long as international arrivals facilities can handle it. but when you land dozens of int'l flights within 20 minutes of each other and then have periods of an hour or more with no arrivals, CBP is not going to staff to reduce wait times for a peaked operation and then have huge valleys of no activity.

 

[FWAAA]

Anybody who has paid attention around here knows what I think of Parker and Kirby, so I don't think I need to repeat it.

That said, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the decision to re-bank the hubs. Maybe their decision-making went like this: "It made sense for higher-cost, higher-wage AA to keep the rolling hubs, but now that legacy AA has lowered its costs somewhat and forced more efficient contracts on the workers (from where most of the lower labor costs come), it makes sense to re-bank the hubs since we'll be using cheaper/more efficient labor during those peaks."

DL has far more flights at ATL than AA at DFW, but I figured the same considerations would apply at DFW. DFW has lots of hourly or every other hour flights to places like LAX, ORD, LGA, BOS, DCA, MIA, etc. For a while, there were 18 daily departures to both ORD and LAX. As long as the new rebanked hub maintains the frequencies demanded by business travelers on these key business routes, then perhaps it isn't a terrible idea.

To be a really good idea (a successful idea), Parker needs to buy the necessary equipment and hire enough workers so that workers and customers can agree that the rebanked hub is good for all.

 

[WorldTraveler]

except new AA is not any lower wage cost than old AA was. Parker has undone most of the labor cost savings as part of getting labor behind the merger.

and the real issue of a banked hub is not that AA can't get the right people but that in order to really bank an operation as large as AA at DFW is, it requires significant amounts of dead time while thousands of passengers and bags are connected. there is a point at which the size of the operation and the number of connecting opportunities outweigh the extra costs and increased ground time necessary to effectively connect the vast majority of flights on a bank.

it will take a long time to land scores of flights at the same time... and the same will be true for departures and I would bet the runway configuration at DFW allows more possible simultaneous departures than arrivals.

Either Kirby will have to create hub amounts of dead time in the schedule while scores of planes are at the gate or they will be forcing a lot of people to be running to make flights.

again, I am not against the idea for ORD or the NYC airports as long as FIS can keep up with the peaks which I don't think can happen at MIA either. given that AA's NYC int'l operation is a lot smaller than in MIA, I don't doubt that AA can make both NYC airports work as banked operations - and LGA doesn't have many northbound flights anyway

 

[FWAAA]

Exactly. Theoretically, you could build a 150 gate connecting hub and organize it in several banks throughout the day. Problem is that you'd need a dozen runways capable of simultaneous operation to make it work smoothly. And that's a lot more infrastructure than any airport currently in existence (and more than will ever exist). You don't build churches based on Easter Sunday attendance for the same reason.

If it take 60-90 minutes to land each bank and another 60-90 minutes to put it back in the air, I'd question whether the result is truly a "banked hub." Because then it resembles a rolling hub.

 

[jcw]

So let's see we keep hearing that AA has a revenue disadvantage against some other airline - so AA implements an approach to increase revenue and someone trashes AA approach over and over again
 
Maybe we should let it play out and see what happens - just like the decade it took one airline to become profitable in a northeast city

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

Maybe we should let it play out and see what happens - just like the decade it took one airline to become profitable in a northeast city

 
I believe it was much longer than a decade ... ... ...

 

[N288AA]

Okay everyone seems to forget that DFW was once a banked hub......and guess what if you worked there you would know that it was a much better operation when it was banked! Come on March 29th!

 

[WorldTraveler]

no one is doubting the revenue increase part of rebanking DFW.

what has been repeatedly said by several people is that there is a limit at which rebanking the hub offsets the increased costs.

No one is asking what AA saw years ago that made them decide to debank (unbank) DFW and if there weren't other reasons for AA's decreased operational performance, including not properly scheduling an unbanked hub - or trying to force connections that wouldn't and couldn't work including rotations for crews and aircraft.

 

[WorldTraveler]

AA execs just talked about the rebanking at DFW and said they expect the rebanking to improve CONNECTING RASM at DFW in the face of reduced and pressured RASMs at DFW due to increased competition, including at DAL.


Parker also just pulled his foot out of his mouth for saying that "two Dallas based airlines.." (referring to AA and WN) by noting that AA is actually Ft. Worth based.

welcome to Texas, Doug.

 

[FWAAA]

Parker also just pulled his foot out of his mouth for saying that "two Dallas based airlines.." (referring to AA and WN) by noting that AA is actually Ft. Worth based.

welcome to Texas, Doug.

Apparently, during the heavy drinking/partying phase of his youth, he never bothered to learn the AA culture during those six years he spent at AA before he was cut loose to go to NW in 1991. AA ain't no Dallas-based airline. What an idiot.

 

[LDVAviation]

Apparently, during the heavy drinking/partying phase of his youth, he never bothered to learn the AA culture during those six years he spent at AA before he was cut loose to go to NW in 1991. AA ain't no Dallas-based airline. What an idiot.

 
Honestly, did the guy run over your dog or something?  
 
Is was an innocent mistake.

 

[WorldTraveler]

FWAAA's dog has nothing to do with it.


did you listen to the earnings call?

he actually made a comment later in the call about flights to Dallas, only to correct himself later to say "Dallas/Ft. Worth"

 

[dfw gen]

 
Honestly, did the guy run over your dog or something?  
 
Is was an innocent mistake.

Ah well actually 3 innocent mistakes. But hey who's counting want a beer?

 

[FWAAA]

He misses those two DAL gates.

 

[FWAAA]

Parker was on a roll yesterday:
 

Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines, had a similar slip-up during Tuesday morning's earnings call. While talking about Dallas-based Southwest Airlines' recent stock success, he said it's a great time to invest in Dallas airlines.

About 10 minutes later, Parker corrected himself, saying American (Nasdaq: AAL) is based in Fort Worth, of course, not Dallas. He especially apologized to Mayor Betsy Price and said they are proud to be based in that city.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/2015/01/wheres-american-airlines-based-ceo-corrects.html?ana=yahoo

And this one:
 

Was it a Freudian slip, an unintentionally revelatory statement, or just a mistake when American Airlines Group CEO Doug Parker told financial analysts and the press today: “We are not asking our customers to be happy with anything.”

http://skift.com/2015/01/27/american-airlines-ceo-awkwardly-explains-why-fares-arent-going-down/