Havanna Overnights?

[FWAAA]

What i dont understand is China is communist and the US and US Air Carriers fly there yet Cuba is different...

Couple of reasons that might explain the differing attitudes toward China and Cuba: When China essentially adopted "free market capitalism" as its economic model, the USA warmed up to China. Cuba (and its BFF, Venezuela), on the other hand, retain all facets of communism, including state control of most all economic activity. The people of China don't have political freedom, but they have economic freedom.

The other big reason might be the proximity, what with Cuba being a mere 100 miles away.

China is many thousands of miles away, not in our backyard.

 

[Mach85ER]

or maybe a high speed ferry will make more economic sense than flights from MIA.

 
Going to sit back with a nice drink and a cigar while waiting for the trigonometry and algebra analysis of leaving the port of Miami and busting southwest through a 7kt current and 10' steep faced swells on the way to HAV.
 
Guess number 1, it's more than 90 miles.

 

[ChockJockey]

Couple of reasons that might explain the differing attitudes toward China and Cuba: When China essentially adopted "free market capitalism" as its economic model, the USA warmed up to China. Cuba (and its BFF, Venezuela), on the other hand, retain all facets of communism, including state control of most all economic activity. The people of China don't have political freedom, but they have economic freedom.

 
The initial impetus for the repair of U.S.-China relations was largely geopolitical in that both countries were looking to irk the USSR and achieve more leverage against it on the world stage.  The economic reforms in China that paved the way for their 'Socialist market economy' were introduced around the same time the U.S. recognized the communist party in Beijing as the legitimate government of the Chinese people and normalized relations with the People's Republic, this in around 1979 (seven years after Nixon's historic visit).  According to Wikipedia, the agreement concerning air travel links among other issues was signed in September 1980.
 
Cuba remained massively dependent on Soviet economic and military aid and maintained a mutually antagonistic relationship with the U.S. even after the collapse of the USSR.  Whereas in the U.S. warming up to China was done with incurring little political damage this was never the case in regards to Cuba, largely due to a vocal and influential exile community in Florida and also I think memories of the missile crisis.
 

The other big reason might be the proximity, what with Cuba being a mere 100 miles away.

China is many thousands of miles away, not in our backyard.

 
Indeed, and the deeper history and relationship between Cuba and the U.S. made the separations of the revolution all the more painful.

 

[MetalMover]

Even King Obama says the embargo can not end unless by an act of congress. The embargo is still having a great impact on Cuba. Sure easing travel restrictions helps the airlines, but come January, the GOP control the congress, So i am not to sure the embargo will be lifted. 

 

[MetalMover]

One thing is for sure - one way or another, demand to Cuba is clearly going to rise in the coming months and years.  And AA is, for obvious reasons, in the best position to take advantage of this growth.
 
This should be quite helpful to AA's bottom line, and make of for all of the allegedly disastrous currency challenges in Venezuela, and equally disastrous "investments" in Asia, and AA's utter failure in NYC, and the catastrophe that has been AA's successful petition to the DOT to reopen SEA-HND, etc.

Rise HOW? being able to get parts for their 55 Chevys?
But seriously, AA is in the best position being number 1 in Miami........Unless of course Delta files lawsuit with Cuba to be the official airline there.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Going to sit back with a nice drink and a cigar while waiting for the trigonometry and algebra analysis of leaving the port of Miami and busting southwest through a 7kt current and 10' steep faced swells on the way to HAV.
 
Guess number 1, it's more than 90 miles.

first, as noted, there is significant concern in Congress over the program and that has to be resolved first.

Second, boats regularly travel routes that short around the world that face much higher seas.

third, you clearly have no idea of the costs involved in operating routes that short. The NE Shuttle is one of the shortest routes that work for US carriers and it is still a very premium business heavy route. MIA to Cuba is even shorter and will have lower yields unless AA manages to convince the DOT to keep capacity very, very limited.

Cuba could be a great opportunity for US carriers - but MIA's proximity to Cuba and the heavily leisure nature of the routes alongside high costs does not bode well for a lot of successful service.

 

[jcw]

Translation

AA could not run a profitable flight if it tried - see all passengers trying to get to Cuba would always want to fly up to ATL from Florida and back down to Cuba

See DL is going to make a killing on the MIA-aTL-HAV passengers - who in their right mind would pick a 15 minute flight on AA when they could spend 5 hours on DL in the new ULCC product - see DL has already petitioned the DOT to have separate stats reported on HAV flights so when they become available it can show how it dominates the south Florida HAV market

I amaze myself everyday on how I come up with ways to promotes my DL

 

[WorldTraveler]

I didn't say that at all.


Very short flights are as expensive to operate as longer flights. Even WN, the king of short haul flights has realized it is much more difficult to make money on a short-haul network.

Fares will have to be very high in order for AA to succeed with multiple flights/day from MIA plus what other carriers offer from other airports.

and all of this may or may not matter if Congress blocks it all.

 

[jcw]

Translation:
 
Right - there is no one who would travel from any other part of the country to get to visit HAV so they should probably just fly to MIA and then ferry it over to HAV
 
Why can't anyone see there is no way for AA to make money from this but if DL announces service to HAV once and if the embargo is lifted they will be the only airline that can do it

 

[commavia]

Wow - the devolution into Delta fantasyland was faster than usual today.
 
AA would struggle profitably filling airplanes between MIA and HAV, but yet Delta would presumably do better out of ATL.  Right.  And I thought the comedy couldn't get any better than when "someone" suggested that Delta might "win in N. Texas" and viably operate DFW-LHR.
 
But seriously, though ... AA is doomed.

 

[eolesen]

Second, boats regularly travel routes that short around the world that face much higher seas.

Sure they do. The ferry business across the North Sea and English Channel are a great example of higher seas operating.

Cuba could be a great opportunity for US carriers - but MIA's proximity to Cuba and the heavily leisure nature of the routes alongside high costs does not bode well for a lot of successful service.

Until the embargo is lifted, it's a moot point, but if you're going to point to ferry services in Europe as an example, then you also have to look at the Ryanair/EasyJet effect on the ferries. Over the past 10 years, the ferry services have barely survived, and the bulk of the revenue they get is from carrying trucks, not passengers. P&O posted operating losses for their ferry ops in 2012 and 2013.

Closer to home, the Milwaukee-Muskegon high-speed car ferry has been running for ten years, but being privately held, doesn't post its financials. Likewise with the low-speed ferry from Ludington to Manitowoc, but they're definitely hurting. The Hawaii super-ferry didn't even last two years, and Hawaiian has shown that they can do just fine on even shorter flights than what MIA-HAV would be.

So, I don't know why you'd assume that it wouldn't be successful to fly MIA-HAV or MIA-HOG, though. Since Cuba is the size of Florida in terms of land mass, and they really don't have the greatest transportation infrastructure, it would be foolish to assume all the demand will be for HAV.

 

[MetalMover]

Couple of reasons that might explain the differing attitudes toward China and Cuba: When China essentially adopted "free market capitalism" as its economic model, the USA warmed up to China. Cuba (and its BFF, Venezuela), on the other hand, retain all facets of communism, including state control of most all economic activity. The people of China don't have political freedom, but they have economic freedom.

The other big reason might be the proximity, what with Cuba being a mere 100 miles away.

China is many thousands of miles away, not in our backyard.

You left out the fact that the US warmed up to China because of cheap labor as well.

 

[eolesen]

You left out the fact that the US warmed up to China because of cheap labor as well.

Yeah, not so sure if that was really a motivating factor as much as it was an unintended consequence.

Transportation costs from China at the time were still pretty high in the early 1970's when relations were normalized with Beijing. The real push for offshoring didn't kick into gear until the early 1980's, when containerized shipping started taking off. That slashed transportation costs enough to make a difference to move US manufacturing overseas.