CLT-GRU gone?

[robbedagain]

while he was played like a fool  it seems he was able to come out on top with the merger   and a bigger JFK presence   now the question becomes  will he add more domestic to JFK??   as for the DTW transfer  and DL owing US come March 1  Id imagine that yes DL would have to put the slots back into the pool in similar fashion how US is when CLT S.A. routes end 

 

[WorldTraveler]

The US lease of the UA frequencies terminates on October 1, 2014.   Won't those frequencies revert to UA?    Or has UA indicated that it does not want them back?   
 
Delta stressed in its filings in last year's route case that it owes US the slot swap GRU frequencies by March 1, 2015.   Doesn't DL still owe US those frequencies?

I agree that the CLT-GRU frequencies awarded by DoT last year effective October 1, 2014,  will revert to the pool, along with the CLT-GIG frequencies.   
 
The other 2014 award from last year went to DL to continue DTW-GRU, and the existing frequencies are to be transferred to US no later than March 1, 2015.   
 
If DL doesn't intend to transfer the DTW frequencies to US, then DL's new DTW-GRU frequencies won't be needed.    So will those frequencies revert to the pool as well?

DL cannot back out of transferring the frequencies for CLT-GRU to US - but AA/US decided to terminate the route so the route award is meaningless.

AA cannot move the frequencies to another route any more than UA or DL can start MIA-GRU.

All of the GRU awards have been for specific cities.

Given that AA made the decision to cut CLT-GRU and hasn't asked for anything else, UA hasn't asked for anything, and DL hasn't asked for anything it seems pretty clear that everyone is contente with what they have for right now.

DL got the slots for DTW-GRU one way or the other; either they don't transfer the frequencies for CLT to US and then don't get the replacement frequencies or they transfer the frequencies to AA/US who then abandons the route but either way there are 2 sets of frequencies for GRU routes available - the set returned by US to UA and the new set which was to make CLT a permanent route.  
 

The slot swap made sense at the time before a merger with AA was in the cards.  Hindsight is always 20/20.  Parker played with the cards he was dealt at the time.

 
Surely Parker could have seen the value of holding 25% of the slots at LGA.

 

while he was played like a fool  it seems he was able to come out on top with the merger   and a bigger JFK presence   now the question becomes  will he add more domestic to JFK??   as for the DTW transfer  and DL owing US come March 1  Id imagine that yes DL would have to put the slots back into the pool in similar fashion how US is when CLT S.A. routes end

AA is the 3rd largest carrier at JFK and the merger did not change the ranking among players at JFK although US has a decente presence from JFK to a couple of cities stronger than what AA had.

 

[nycbusdriver]

 I do have to wonder if PHL to S. A would of been better than CLT     I would think the traffic would be much better from phl to brazil compared to clt.

 
You are probably correct, but please don't put THAT idea in their heads.  It's a nightmare trip, and I'm not yet senior enough to avoid it.
 
Maybe in another year...

 

[FWAAA]

DL cannot back out of transferring the frequencies for CLT-GRU to US - but AA/US decided to terminate the route so the route award is meaningless.

AA cannot move the frequencies to another route any more than UA or DL can start MIA-GRU.

All of the GRU awards have been for specific cities.

I disagree that the existing unrestricted frequencies cannot be moved, and I'll quote Delta Air Lines' own words from its answer in the 2013 route case to support my view:
 

Under well settled DOT precedent, all allocated U.S.-Brazil frequencies can be used in any eligible U.S.-Brazil city-pair.2 Given the large number of frequencies outstanding – and the flexibility the Department has granted carriers to freely move them among gateways, Delta believes that market structure considerations should be given greater decisional significance than individual gateway attributes in this case. For example, with four daily flights concentrated on the Miami-Sao Paulo route, the new American could shift a set of frequencies to begin service at Los Angeles or Philadelphia - or to continue service at Charlotte.

 
While you may be right about the intentions of the various airlines, I choose to discuss the more objective portions, like where AA/US could begin service as of October 1, 2014, and it looks to me like AA could begin service from ORD or PHL with the newly awarded CLT frequencies.   And AA could begin service from the other city in March, 2015 with the frequencies owed by DL to US.   
 
I don't pretend to know if AA/US will begin any new service in October or next March, but it looks to me like it could if Parker wanted to.   So far, Parker has tipped his hand only on the MIA-GRU frequencies and JFK-GRU frequencies which it has applied to move to VCP.   For all we know, Parker has yet to announce what AA will do with its October 1, 2014 CLT-GRU frequencies and what AA might do in March with the DTW-GRU frequencies owed by DL.   

 

[nycbusdriver]

The slot swap was nothing but a huge gift to Delta.   it was dreamed up when US was running low on cash in 2009 and the promise of $65 million must have swayed Parker.   
 
Although I don't frequently agree with WT, he and I are in full agreement that Richard Anderson played Parker for the fool.   To get the merger done,  Parker had to give away all of AA's DCA slots and even a few AA LGA slots.   As a result, the government got two bites at the US-AA slots at DCA and LGA.     And Delta was able to replace the DTW-GRU frequencies for free last year in the Brazil route case.   
 
Bottom line:   New AA (combined AA-US) is no bigger at DCA than it would have been without the slot swap and new AA is smaller at LGA than it would have been without the slot swap.   The only thing US got was $65 million.   Delta got a huge presence at LGA, which is worth a lot more than the $65 million.   

 
For some reason, US has always been terrified of building anything of value (other than the nicest terminal...which was started by CO) in LGA.  They avoid point-to-point service like the plague.  I understand that usually point-to-point would be a loser for a hub airline, but NYC has HUGE O&D and US had enough slots to build a reasonable hub operation (like DL).

 

[WorldTraveler]

I disagree that the existing unrestricted frequencies cannot be moved, and I'll quote Delta Air Lines' own words from its answer in the 2013 route case to support my view:
 
 
 
While you may be right about the intentions of the various airlines, I choose to discuss the more objective portions, like where AA/US could begin service as of October 1, 2014, and it looks to me like AA could begin service from ORD or PHL with the newly awarded CLT frequencies.   And AA could begin service from the other city in March, 2015 with the frequencies owed by DL to US.   
 
I don't pretend to know if AA/US will begin any new service in October or next March, but it looks to me like it could if Parker wanted to.   So far, Parker has tipped his hand only on the MIA-GRU frequencies and JFK-GRU frequencies which it has applied to move to VCP.   For all we know, Parker has yet to announce what AA will do with its October 1, 2014 CLT-GRU frequencies and what AA might do in March with the DTW-GRU frequencies owed by DL.

DL's reference was used to petition for a change of gateway. All GRU frequencies that have been awarded as part of a route case are gateway specific, just as HND was.

There is backup authority in the event that a route is abandoned and I'm not sure who held it although I believe AA held backup authority for US' CLT route but I'm not sure it really matters because AA so far has made no intention to start another gateway.

The only gateway that AA has expressed interest in is ORD which would pit them against UA's nonstop which very well could make sense if AA wasn't also developing LAX-GRU which has considerable valleys in demand outside of the couple months per year when Brazil originating demand is strong.

While AA has the best chance of winning against UA to Latin América, UA has done a very good job of holding onto its markets from ORD esp. internationally. Given that UA is regaining some of its mojo, Parker may well decide it isn't worth trying to go after a route that couldn't support 2 carriers even on friendly terms.

US-Brazil becomes Open Skies in a little over a year anyway. If AA wants to start ORD-GRU, they will be able to and what happened to CLT-GRU won't matter.

Given that the peak Brazil travel season starts in 4 months, it is highly unlikely AA will do anything this year.