International traffic drops at CLT as American Airlines shuffles routes

[AirwAr]

Just an FYI to those that have argued CLT would grow because of the merger...I guess time will tell.
 
http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/morning-edition/2015/06/international-traffic-drops-at-clt-as-american.html?ana=yahoo
 
 

 

[700UW]

You do realize the drop is because US cut some International flights from CLT and then there are only some that are seasonal?
 
Spikes in the spring/summer, cuts in the fall/winter.

 

[WorldTraveler]

all predicted before the merger ever took

AA's int'l network on the east coast is fragmented between two many cities. CLT just is not big enough to support much int'l service unless AA wants to pull down its hubs at JFK, PHL, and MIA.

 

[1AA]

Not surprised. All AA hubs have seasonal traffic. You have JFK a major city for all airlines serving European destinations and beyond. You have Miami serving South America and beyond. RDU was dehubed when Miami became a hub and BNA as another close hub made no sense. Then you have DFW and ORD serving destinations in both directions. Where does CLT fit in if the current AA hubs are not going anywhere? We will see in time. I see CLT feeding the hubs with domestic traffic. RDU was a new hub for AA in the 80's. New terminal, runway and other facilities. Look at it today. CLT might end up the same way in the near future. PHL does not help CLT either. Why fly from LAX to CLT if I want to go to JFK? Why fly from LHR to CLT when I want to go to JFK or MIA or DFW or ORD? Why fly through CLT to get to JFK? AA can easily take international flights out of CLT and fly them out of hubs or cities like JFK and MIA or ORD. Not sure how PHL fits in the future plans for AA.

 

[nycbusdriver]

Not surprised. All AA hubs have seasonal traffic. You have JFK a major city for all airlines serving European destinations and beyond. You have Miami serving South America and beyond. RDU was dehubed when Miami became a hub and BNA as another close hub made no sense. Then you have DFW and ORD serving destinations in both directions. Where does CLT fit in if the current AA hubs are not going anywhere? We will see in time. I see CLT feeding the hubs with domestic traffic. RDU was a new hub for AA in the 80's. New terminal, runway and other facilities. Look at it today. CLT might end up the same way in the near future. PHL does not help CLT either. Why fly from LAX to CLT if I want to go to JFK? Why fly from LHR to CLT when I want to go to JFK or MIA or DFW or ORD? Why fly through CLT to get to JFK? AA can easily take international flights out of CLT and fly them out of hubs or cities like JFK and MIA or ORD. Not sure how PHL fits in the future plans for AA.

 
The very reason AA's RDU hub failed so miserably is the existence of a well-established, well-liked, and heavily-traveled CLT hub "right down the road."  AA finally has the hub they wanted in RDU, and it's called CLT.  It's not going anywhere, because the catchment area for the feed is different than that of PHL, MIA and ORD.  It may see changes and tweaks, but it still makes sense for AA to have a mid-Atlantic hub to keep DL from monopolizing that catchment area in ATL.  Although it will never be another ATL, it sure takes a bite out of DL's traffic and is still the most profitable of the AA hubs.
 
Parker and Kirby have said time and again that PHL and JFK do not compete with each other.  PHL handles the huge amount of feed that could never happen in JFK due to slot constraints.  JFK doesn't need the feed due to the enormous size of the NYC area.  Neither is going anywhere for the same reason CLT isn't.  It's called "profitability" of the operations in those cities.

 

[eolesen]

And all of you laughed at me when I said Doug's big announcement of the week was CLT's dehubbing....

My guess is CLT will continue to lose a handful of flights for the next couple seasons.

 

[WorldTraveler]

CLT was a far smaller hub at the time that AA operated RDU and BNA and AA was a far larger airline than PI.

AA's RDU and BNA strategies both failed because they tried to fragment their hub presence in the SE and in the process did not gain the mass necessary to compete with, wait, wait, ATL which is still the 800 ton gorilla in the airline industry. As much as some might not want to hear that, AA’s failure was due to its inability to compete with ATL was a hub for DL and EA which for most of the existence of the BNA and RDU hubs.
Further, low cost carriers were expanding in the SE including with CO’s low cost carrier efforts in GSO which pulled a lot of traffic away from RDU.
CLT continues to exist as a hub as large as it is because of the huge amount of connecting traffic including one of the highest percentage on small RJs and turboprops.
As much as some people don’t want to hear it, CLT is very vulnerable to the pilot shortage that will only increase as thousands of mainline pilots throughout the US retire.
Further, AA still has a lot of RJs tied up at LGA and JFK for a hub that is supposedly focused on O&D traffic; at a time when DL is aggressively moving to large RJs and small mainline aircraft, AA still has a high percentage of small RJs. And so does UA at EWR as well.
CLT won’t go away but AA has to rationalize its network and reduce the number of hubs it has to do it as part of the merger process.

 

[1AA]

I have a question. If CLT loses a majority of international flights can it still operate as a successful hub?

 

[WorldTraveler]

Small RJs add more value if they feed high value int'l flights and the higher costs can be justified. AA won't pull CLT's entire int'l operation down but more RJ domestic connections limits hub profitability.

Given that AA was already below DL and UA with large RJs, they will be trying to use large RJs wherever they can put them, esp. ORD, NYC, and DFW where the greater distances make small RJs less economical.

 

[700UW]

 

[WorldTraveler]

I much prefer the old logo

 

[700UW]

 

[traderjake]

I much prefer the old logo

 

 
I much prefer the old Delta logo.

 

[1AA]

I much prefer the old logo

Don't we all.

 

[WorldTraveler]

I preferred Piedmont too but that, er, ship has sailed.