new service from MIA to MXP

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interesting that the thread is about MIA-MXP and yet nearly - if not all - of the responses are a chest-thumping exercise about German routes which weren't chosen.

AA's relatively small presence in Germany is precisely because Germany is a much larger market for a competitor's alliance partner and a large part of AA's network to continental Europe competes against that US carrier. AB whether in oneworld or not is now known for its ability to attract business passengers which is exactly the type of business passengers AA needs to make int'l routes work.

The benefit of MXP-MIA is the connections to the rest of Latin America which is what the MIA hub does best - and MXP does have a fairly high concentration of business passengers. And Italians also happen to enjoy Florida for both business and personal reasons.

Tourism-heavy routes between Europe and Florida are not what US carriers can profitably serve, esp. during the winter when fares can drop to a couple hundred dollars each way (based on RT purchase...)
 
There are many airlines that have flights from secondary cities to europe, DL does it from PIT and I think PHL to CDG, RDU to LHR on AA are ones right off the top of my head.

BOS isnt a hub and there are us carriers flying to europe from there.

Dont you remember CLT-LGW was awarded and flown till after the merger TPA-CLT-LGW?
i thought dl dropped the phl-cdg after they took over air france
 
DL didnt take over Air France.

DL bought Singapore Airlines' share in Virgin Atlantic which is still waiting approval from regulators.
 
Miami-Frankfurt is the third most travelled local market between the entire United States and the entire Germany after JFKFRA and JFKMUC, so, yes, the local market obviously exists.

Best opportunity for expansion is Miami-Zurich. The market is huge - larger than MIABCN or MIAMXP - and the average fares are extremely high.

And to clear up confusion, AA didn't "used to fly to FRA." it still does, obviously, from Dallas.

AA used to fly MIAFRA in the 1990s to awesomely high loads, but low fares.
 
DL took over the PHL-CDG route, and runs it with a 757 on a seasonal basis.
that is correct but even the "point to point" routes like PIT-CDG and RDU-LHR are to/from a European carrier/alliance partner hub (although AA's operation on RDU-LHR predated AA/BA's JV); even FRA-MIA on LH is a joint venture route with UA .

Despite the size of the FRA-MIA market, it is low-yielding.... about the same value per passenger as FRA-JFK which is a lot shorter and about 1/3 less than FRA-eastern US as a group. MXP-eastern US and MIA are far more valuable connections and MXP has a lot less int'l service which means it is far easier for AA to come in and develop a new route, including w/ connections to Latin America, from MXP than it would be from FRA.

MXP makes sense; FRA does not.

BTW, US is the largest US carrier in the FRA-MIA market depending on the quarter, an example of how much of the US int'l route system is built around low fare int'l connections that probably will not be viable under the higher cost structure that will come after the merger.
 
Funny US has been running CLT-FRA for years successfully, and they add a second daily flight at peak travel.

Do you realize CLT is named after Queen Charlotte of Germany?


Don't be surprise if US exits this market once its no longer part of the
Star alliance.
 
US has served FRA way before it entered Star, I dont think it will be going anywhere.
 
Don't be surprise if US exits this market once its no longer part of the
Star alliance.
New AA can certainly make its German routes work post merger and post Star but not with the amount of capacity they have now on their existing routes.
More than 25% of the passengers on each of US' current German routes connect beyond MUC or FRA via codeshares with LH. Most of those connections are possible only because of US' ability to put its code on LH and other Star routes.
Further, US' crew costs will rise as part of the merger agreements. Many of those connections are lower value passengers that will not be economical.
Some of that traffic might shift elsewhere to oneworld's system but oneworld is not near as strong in continental Europe where there is more opportunity to connect more traffic. IB would be the most natural replacement for what LH does but IB is much smaller and shrinking. Further, because LHR is so limited on capacity, there is little incentive for BA to accept lower value connecting traffic and AA/BA already carry as much low value traffic as they want. The whole point of joint ventures is to think of the connecting flights to/from the US and European gateways as one unit; if it doesn't make sense to carry passengers on the TATL flights, then there is no incentive under the JV to try to sell the connecting flights.

There will be some 'rationalization" of the current US' European network but there are also more opportunities for new long-haul service, from PHL to Asia (NRT has got to be near the top of the list) as well as Latin America. The whole point of the merger is that the two parts together should generate more revenue than they could individually but the pieces that that make up the new total will look different than the pieces of each part today
 
wt you say nrt should be close to the top what about pek and shanghi i would imagine they could be just as well or may be even ICN
 
AA has a partner at NRT... they don't in China or Korea. They could make service to those cities work but NRT is far more certain, esp. since Tokyo is a bigger market.
It is even possible that AA's HND flight could do better from PHL than it could from JFK. NYC - both EWR and JFK - have lots of competition but PHL has no Pacific service and AA/US will have more than enough connections to provide the feed.

There are a lot of cities where new AA will have to decide if it is worth it to slug it out w/ competitors at JFK or move flights to PHL if that service doesn't already exist or start new service from there.

Even if AA pulls back a few int'l flights from other hubs including JFK, there are far more opportunities for new flights from PHL. The only reason those haven't existed in the past is because US doesn't have the market presence in other regions to make flights work there.

A few destinations in Africa and the Arab Middle East are within the realm of possibility.

Look at what UA has at IAD and the chances are pretty good that new AA could make some of those destinations work at PHL if they aren't already served there. Remember that UA also has dual hubs at EWR and IAD and at some point will have to rationalize those hubs.... If AA is even reasonably aggressive, they stand a good chance of being able to pull some of that traffic from IAD to PHL where US has far more domestic feed than UA has at IAD. IN fact, US has not only the largest domestic operation but also the highest percentage of domestic to int'l seats at PHL compared to DL at JFK or UA at IAD. Factor in the size of the PHL local int'l market which US largely has to a higher percentage than other carriers have in other NE gateways and it makes all the sense to add more int'l service to PHL, esp. to regions of the world which US doesn't serve but where new AA strategically needs to be.
 
when you say middle east and africa... which cities would be the best choices... lagos, accra, for africa then move to middle east keep tlv, may be add doa athens greece or turkey??
 
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