Partners In Merger Have Much To Prove

[SpinDoc]

"Scott Kirby, America West's executive vice president of sales and marketing, said US Airways non-stop flights between its Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C., hubs and the West Coast would be cut in half from where it was last summer as it focuses on local instead of connecting traffic. America West would dump the last of its transcontinental routes."

Why yhe he11 would anyone want to reduce
transcon flights? Legend has it that the longer
the stage length is, the more marginal income
that can be made from each flight.

US has long erred in the type of planes that
are flown on transcon flights. I agree that
profits are difficult to make when you fly an
A319 between East Coast hubs and LAX, SFO,
SAN, PHX, SEA, and LAS. Why are they not
flying B757 or 767 aircraft? Incremental
revenue is much higher when you fly long
routes with larger aircraft. Stupid people
do stupid things, and then wonder why the
profits are not rolling in.

 

[StewGuy86]

As someone else mentioned on here, it may mean that they would cut back on transcons from the HUBS, but do more point-to-point transcon flying, i.e. TPA-LAX, MCO-LAX, etc. Just a guess?

 

[whlinder]

HP will retreat from the LAX-BOS/JFK non-hub transcon routes. All west coast flying from the US Airways hubs will be adjusted to solely meet local O and D demand. Parker says us has been taking a beating on filling planes from PHL-LAX with connecting traffic on record-low fares. He wants to adjust on the PHL/PIT/CLT-west coast routes so that the capacity exists for the local as opposed to connecting markets. He said US has been keeping these lossleaders for years simply to maintain market share and presence.

[post="271933"][/post]​

Well Parker is right about the transcons filling seats with cheap connecting traffic that barely covers marginal cost. If that bag gets lost in PHL then US would have been better off not even selling the ticket. Focusing on local traffic is smart; hopefully Parker will apply that thinking to the rest of US' existing route system. The other option is raising connecting fares, but US never seemed to grasp that concept.

I had the same thought, but if you read the quote carefully it could be saying something very positive. It will focus on LOCAL traffic. Maybe he means LOCAL traffic headed to the west coast. Maybe we'll see USAirways doing BOS-LAX, BOS-SFO, TPA-LAX (which Piedmont did successfully years ago), MCO-LAX, etc. Focusing on the LOCAL traffic may mean customers get the opportunity to avoid being CONNECTING traffic, which will be de-emphasized in west coast markets.

(I hope that's what it means.)

[post="272007"][/post]​

I hope you're right too, but hharotz's post seems to indicate that all west coast cities will only have transcons to PHL/CLT. I think that is a mistake; cutting connecting traffic on those transcons makes sense, but the combined airline should have enough marketshare in some of those cities to be able to capture traffic to fill the point to point transcons. HP has little presence is both LAX and BOS/JFK; add in US' presence and frequent flyer base and those P2P flights might be profitable. I thought the presence of US in every major east coast city would enable the new carrier to run LAX-BOS/JFK/IAD profitably, but it sounds like they won't even try.

 

[hharotz]

Well Parker is right about the transcons filling seats with cheap connecting traffic that barely covers marginal cost. If that bag gets lost in PHL then US would have been better off not even selling the ticket. Focusing on local traffic is smart; hopefully Parker will apply that thinking to the rest of US' existing route system. The other option is raising connecting fares, but US never seemed to grasp that concept.
I hope you're right too, but hharotz's post seems to indicate that all west coast cities will only have transcons to PHL/CLT. I think that is a mistake; cutting connecting traffic on those transcons makes sense, but the combined airline should have enough marketshare in some of those cities to be able to capture traffic to fill the point to point transcons. HP has little presence is both LAX and BOS/JFK; add in US' presence and frequent flyer base and those P2P flights might be profitable. I thought the presence of US in every major east coast city would enable the new carrier to run LAX-BOS/JFK/IAD profitably, but it sounds like they won't even try.

[post="272067"][/post]​

The whole problem with reducing the transcon service from the East coast hubs (instead of expanding it) is as follows: why would pax flying ABE-SMF fly on US via PHL and PHX when they can just do a single connection on AA/UA via ORD? Or is the plan to connect cities like ABE/BUF/ORF to PHX to offer greater opportunities for single connections?

Personally, I was hoping that we'd see an expansion of transcon routes from PHL, for examply PHL-YVR/PDX/SMF/etc... to facilitate East/West travel. That way, anyone traveling say MHT-YVR could fly US MHT-PHL-YVR instead of an absurd MHT-PHL-PHX-YVR. But if we offer a MHT-PHX service, the west coast is opened up to MHT pax offering a single connection MHT-PHX-YVR.

I have no dobut that we will eventually see the lining of many East coast cities with PHX, but will we ever see links like SMF/OAK/SJC-PHL/CLT to feed the East coast hub operations? Somehow, I just don't see *any* expansion of West Coast destinations from PHL/CLT/PIT, but do envision many east coast cities getting new service to PHX (at the expense of the East coast hubs) with HP managers at the helm since that is their area of comfort/expertise (the only thing I'd see US managers ever doing would be waving a white flag!).

 

[ClueByFour]

This is pretty funny.

Half of the team I used to lead when I lived in PIT has been flying westward on United, because the friggen U transcons out of PIT are packed. IIRC, something like 350-500 people a day move between PIT and SFO.

In the winter, U had it down to maybe a 319 and a 320. The route (without connecting traffic) is prolly good for a pair of 320s, easy.

Expect PIT-OAK. On WN. Soon.