TLV service ending?

[700UW]

DL announced ORD-LHR and pulled the route before it started.

 

[WorldTraveler]

and the route never operated, right?

AA has said they would start LAX-HND and yet have to announce a schedule.

They aren't going to fly the route this winter... which may be just what everyone including DL wants.

If LAX-HND was as viable as AA pretended it would be, then it would have been announced by now.

And you also seem to forget that DL DID announce and start LAX-LHR as an additional flight which operated and is now being replaced by SLC-LHR.

There is and will be no replacement for AA's TLV service.

The city is ending for AA.

Attempting to throw mud backfires when other carriers have actually grown their networks in the cities that you want to continue to use as examples while AA isn't going to be at TLV for a long time to come.

Having two sets of laid off employees does nothing to build good will in Israel for AA.

 

[robbedagain]

so why would one airline announce a route  only never to operate it.... 
there is way more to the story about AA ending TLV   I find it awfully strange it never made money    in the 6 plus or minus give or take its been operating

 

[WorldTraveler]

Airlines sometimes announce service in order to determine how much of the market they can get, including as part of corporate negotiations.

It is entirely possible that DL announced ORD-LHR as part of negotiations with a corporate account, added the service, then found out how much of the business from that account they would get an decided it wasn't worth it.... and instead deployed the aircraft elsewhere - which turned out to be LAX and now SLC. It is also possible that there are logistic reasons why VS could not or would not operate the route only during the peak season and leave DL to operate it during the off-peak season which is the way ORD-CDG operates with AF and DL.

but again, all of that is a smokescreen to the fact that AA IS ENDING TLV, not just moving routes around while DL has expanded the number of gateways it serves from LHR including in partnership with VS.

I do agree with you that things don't add up regarding the decision to terminate TLV but FWAAA's explanation does make more sense than some others.

 

[autofixer]

http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Whats-really-behind-American-Airlines-cancellation-of-the-Tel-Aviv-Philadelphia-route-413320   The implication is that the financial loss due to the Gaza War was used a cover to terminate the route. 

 

[FWAAA]

http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Whats-really-behind-American-Airlines-cancellation-of-the-Tel-Aviv-Philadelphia-route-413320  

The implication is that the financial loss due to the Gaza War was used a cover to terminate the route.

No such implication was made in that article.

American maintains that it lost $20 million on the route last year, but that the loss was typical, and not simply the result of the 50-day war with Gaza that summer, Operation Protective Edge, which hit Israeli tourism hard.

The implication is that the losses were routine and not caused by last year's war with terrorist Palestinians in Gaza.

The Jerusalem Post article does a decent job at refuting some of the crackpot conspiracy theories advanced by Rina Rozenberg and Zohar Blumenkrantz (and other ignorant commentators).

AA cancelled TLV because AA wants to start service to/from Tehran? Wow.

AA cancelled TLV because it wants to please its new Oneworld Overlord, Qatar? Wow. The same Qatar that owns 10% of the corporate parent of BA and IB? BA and IB both fly to TLV. If AA had to cancel TLV to please a tiny insignificant pimple like QR, then why hasn't QR ordered BA and IB to cease flying to TLV?

Yes, it's odd that Parker waited six long years of losses before finally throwing in the towel on TLV, but that's only because of the Parker fan club that has built up the urban legend that "Parker and Kirby are numbers guys" and "Parker would never fly a loser for six years - he always cancels losers quickly." And suddenly, the fans of Parker don't know what to think.

AA flew to DEL for about five years before finally giving up. AA flew to DME for quite a while before finally giving up. TWA flew to TLV for a long time before cancelling JFK-TLV on the eve of the AA asset purchase.

Maybe UA and DL are printing money flying to TLV. And maybe they're suffering losses that they figure are outweighed by the corporate contracts they've gained in NYC.

Eventually, Parker will kill something that pmAA has flown for a long time and I'll flail my arms in disbelief, demonstrating that even I sometimes have trouble accepting reality and demonstrating the well-known stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Right now, I'm seeing a lot of Denial and Anger on the part of observers who refuse to believe that Parker actually killed a long-time money loser. Eventually, they'll come to Accept the reality that the airways to TLV aren't paved with gold.

 

[diamondcutter]

This tread is dead!

 

[dash8roa]

No such implication was made in that article.


The implication is that the losses were routine and not caused by last year's war with terrorist Palestinians in Gaza.

The Jerusalem Post article does a decent job at refuting some of the crackpot conspiracy theories advanced by Rina Rozenberg and Zohar Blumenkrantz (and other ignorant commentators).

AA cancelled TLV because AA wants to start service to/from Tehran? Wow.

AA cancelled TLV because it wants to please its new Oneworld Overlord, Qatar? Wow. The same Qatar that owns 10% of the corporate parent of BA and IB? BA and IB both fly to TLV. If AA had to cancel TLV to please a tiny insignificant pimple like QR, then why hasn't QR ordered BA and IB to cease flying to TLV?

Yes, it's odd that Parker waited six long years of losses before finally throwing in the towel on TLV, but that's only because of the Parker fan club that has built up the urban legend that "Parker and Kirby are numbers guys" and "Parker would never fly a loser for six years - he always cancels losers quickly." And suddenly, the fans of Parker don't know what to think.

AA flew to DEL for about five years before finally giving up. AA flew to DME for quite a while before finally giving up. TWA flew to TLV for a long time before cancelling JFK-TLV on the eve of the AA asset purchase.

Maybe UA and DL are printing money flying to TLV. And maybe they're suffering losses that they figure are outweighed by the corporate contracts they've gained in NYC.

Eventually, Parker will kill something that pmAA has flown for a long time and I'll flail my arms in disbelief, demonstrating that even I sometimes have trouble accepting reality and demonstrating the well-known stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Right now, I'm seeing a lot of Denial and Anger on the part of observers who refuse to believe that Parker actually killed a long-time money loser. Eventually, they'll come to Accept the reality that the airways to TLV aren't paved with gold.

So UA and DL stand to benefit from AA's leaving the market. Too much metal flying to TLV for 3 carriers and maybe the yields were low with leisure flyers. 

 

[WorldTraveler]

if the issue is solely about market economics and has nothing to do with anything political, alliance issues, or fines or penalties because of AA's previous service to TLV, then the most likely reason is what FWAAA has outlined that the route stuck around as long as it did because Parker couldn't cut a high profile route while he was pushing for a merger or engaged in merger negotiations.

And the 2nd part is that much of US' int'l network was based on connecting traffic and the US-TLV market is too heavily concentrated in NYC for any other hub to be viable. El Al gets by with serving other US markets because they have the size in the market to serve other cities but the US airlines generally have to serve the largest markets and connect them via their hubs - which is no different from the way they serve cities around the world.

 

[eolesen]

Yes, it's odd that Parker waited six long years of losses before finally throwing in the towel on TLV, but that's only because of the Parker fan club that has built up the urban legend that "Parker and Kirby are numbers guys" and "Parker would never fly a loser for six years - he always cancels losers quickly." And suddenly, the fans of Parker don't know what to think.

Truth.

Eventually, Parker will kill something that pmAA has flown for a long time and I'll flail my arms in disbelief, demonstrating that even I sometimes have trouble accepting reality and demonstrating the well-known stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Right now, I'm seeing a lot of Denial and Anger on the part of observers who refuse to believe that Parker actually killed a long-time money loser. Eventually, they'll come to Accept the reality that the airways to TLV aren't paved with gold.

Yep. AA might have been able to do a better job by moving TLV from PHL to JFK (that's where most of the demand is for TLV), but the NYC market is pretty well saturated between LY, UA, and DL. I suspect those yields are equally trashy, but pulling back may have been politically impossible.

 

[jimntx]

So UA and DL stand to benefit from AA's leaving the market. Too much metal flying to TLV for 3 carriers and maybe the yields were low with leisure flyers. 

And, there are routes out there that DL and UA have abandoned to AA.  So what?  We've also abandoned routes to WN (see also DAL-STL or STL-SEA or STL-BOS).  For whatever reason there are some  routes each of us can make work and some that we can't.  We hung on to ORD-DEL for 5 years trying to make it work.  It didn't, ever.  I was told by someone in the company that not a single flight on that route ever showed a profit because the fares were so low, relatively speaking.  And, we all survived.  It's called business.
 
The main problem I see here is a desire to cook up a vast conspiracy of some sort because some of us are bored.

 

[wings396]

Jim, in contrast to what you're saying about the ORD route, the TLV was constantly being touted as being profitable. When the company makes a big deal about a new climate controlled cargo facility that was intended to handle pharmaceuticals in PHL for primarily TLV, then decides to cancel the route less than a year later it raises suspicion. Had the route indeed been a loser all along, wouldn't they have considered that prior to investing in the cargo facility? Several factors don't add up with the elimination of this route. I don't think that the cancelation of TLV is the main reason for people speaking out, it's more about the company lying as to why. Losing money is always the most plausible excuse, but many within the company know better than that.

 

[WorldTraveler]

While FWAAA's explanation is the most plausible, there is plenty of evidence exactly as what wings has said that doesn't fully explain everything that is going on with this decision.

further, given that AA sr. mgmt. today IS US mgmt., it is very hard to argue that the two mgmt. teams are seeing the situation differently.

I doubt if anyone will really know but it does leave a "got kicked in the pants" feeling to those who were convinced about a key aspect of the way US operated and now based on that event will be left asking over and over again about what else were they not told the whole truth about.

Perhaps PHL-TLV was surrounded by urban legend that wasn't based in reality but this case highlights the danger of allowing that to happen regarding an airline's network

 

[jimntx]

. I don't think that the cancelation of TLV is the main reason for people speaking out, it's more about the company lying as to why.

The company lying?  I'm shocked!  As my aunt in Alabama would say, "Consider my pearls clutched."
 
If this were the first time something like this had happened, ok.  But, it's not.  In my case it was back in the Spring of 2003 that I was told, "there are no plans for furloughs."  I was furloughed July 3, 2003.  Then, in 2005 after I had been recalled and assigned to STL... " STL will remain an important hub for AA."  (There were still 200 departures/day from STL).  Not too long after that, they started cutting flying from STL.  (See the examples of routes given to WN at STL.)  Today there are something like 30 or 35 departures/day from STL.
 
The company lying is not news.  Besides, in the airline business, I doubt that there is any route that has an ironclad assurance of survival regardless of circumstances.

 

[PHL]

Jim, in contrast to what you're saying about the ORD route, the TLV was constantly being touted as being profitable. When the company makes a big deal about a new climate controlled cargo facility that was intended to handle pharmaceuticals in PHL for primarily TLV

 
Has senior management been on record, at such forums as investment calls, where they've stated the TLV route is profitable?   If they say it's successful, that can be construed many ways including popular or benefiting the passengers....but not necessarily making money.   And the cargo facility that opened - are there not other global destinations that can benefit from this besides Israel?  Did the company say on the record it was intended primarily for pharmaceuticals headed for TLV?