RL757PVD From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4537 posts, RR: 13 Posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2582 times:
OK maybe not all or nothing, but lets look at alot of examples for this theory..
Theory... AA either wants large market share or just provide minimal service
Examples:
BUF... small market share, lost DFW flight to MDT, one would imagine BUF-DFW would be a much stronger market than MDT-DFW, but with 5 flights their MDT market share will be much higher than BUF
PVD...AA had mainline for decades, with solid passenger #'s, Overall the market share was between 5 and 10%. PVD now had 3x ORD which makes it the smallest AA market in the entire northeast in terms of seat capacity, When PVD is in the top 10 busiest airports in the northeats.
BDL... AA was # 1 or #2 there for many years, strong presence, but since DL expanded and WN entered, AA has been in full retreat and this fall will have only 5 mainline flights at BDL..the peak near 2000 was 19.
XNA...AA has taken advantage of being able to dominate the market and provides extensive service with a large market share. XNA will have only 9 daily seats less than BDL (airport 10x the size) this fall.
Im sure there are more examples out there, but it seems with AA, they go to the big airports, or the smaller airports and go for market share, if they can't get it, they leave. Dont get me wrong, market share is always important, but seems every other airline is happy with their slice of the pie as long as its making money.
Experience is what you get when what you thought would work out didn't!
FlyCMH From United States of America, joined Jul 1999, 2260 posts, RR: 11 Reply 1, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2559 times:
Interesting analysis. It does definitely seem like that's the route American has been taking as of late. Other examples would be Indianapolis (where Northwest and AirTran have been dominating the market as of late, and American has pulled down service to ORD, DFW, and MIA in the form of downgrading mainline to Eagle), and Dayton (where American has discontinued MIA service and cut ORD down to only 3 RJs a day). It does seem that AA is focusing on cities where it does maintain a high profile, assumingly because the chances are better to maintain and grow their customer base, especially their frequent fliers, but that's just my own though. I'm sure there are pleantly of people in Dallas/Ft. Worth that get paid the big bucks to figure this stuff out.
Luv2fly From United States of America, joined May 2003, 11957 posts, RR: 51 Reply 2, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2543 times:
Dutchjet From Netherlands, joined Oct 2000, 7864 posts, RR: 58 Reply 3, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2527 times:
The point you are missing is yeilds......AA only wants to be in markets where the yeilds are high enough to make some money and tends to reduce service in markets where LCCs have considerable presence.
The result is that AA will pull back in markets where they cannot control pricing......thus, AA has only a small presence in markets such as PVD which are dominated by other airlines (think Southwest). At the end of the story, you are correct, AA tends to play the all or nothing game in many markets.
PVD757 From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 3375 posts, RR: 18 Reply 4, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 2469 times:
this could be the same reason for not even bothering to open MHT as a station too. I was surprised to see what little service they have in PDX - a rather large market in general but dominated by AS with some WN service as well.
AeroWesty From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 18871 posts, RR: 64 Reply 5, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 2433 times:
Is this something unique to AA and not to other airlines? On a market-by-market basis the same conclusions could probably be drawn to some extent.
Out of PDX we've seen AA cut STL once they took over TW, and the red-eye to ORD after 9/11 or thereabouts, but they still maintain 2 flights a day to ORD and 5 to DFW. Sure, they're they only player in town non-stop to DFW, but we had service on DL before they drew down the DFW hub.
AA isn't exactly the biggest powerhouse out here, but they also aren't the smallest player vying for connecting traffic to the midwest, south and northeast, either. The same could be said for SEA and any number of other stations too, I believe.
MaxQ2351 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 2370 times:
I would not completely agree that AA is "all or nothing".
I live in CO, so the best example I can provide is KDEN!! When I moved here, about 12 years ago now, AA had a handful of flights out of DEN (Stapleton at the time) to ORD and DFW. Now they have:
12x daily - DFW
7x daily - ORD
4x daily - LAX
1x daily - MIA
6x daily - STL (AA Connection)
They used to have 2x daily (I think it was) to SJU, but that was one of the many casualties of 9/11.
RL757PVD From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4537 posts, RR: 13 Reply 7, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 2352 times:
Quoting Dutchjet (Reply 3): The result is that AA will pull back in markets where they cannot control pricing......
That is directly realted to market share, so it could be said AA want to control they price, and if they cant, regardless fo passenger demand, the service will likely suffer.
Granted revenue is #2 priority for any airline, I guess AA chooses to go any where they can have the market share and control the price, however, is this a smart domestic strategy to have with LCC's spreading like wildfire? It doesnt seem like many other majors act the same way to market share and price control the way that AA does.
Experience is what you get when what you thought would work out didn't!
Dartland From United States of America, joined Apr 2005, 637 posts, RR: 2 Reply 8, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 2343 times:
Quoting Dutchjet (Reply 3): AA only wants to be in markets where the yeilds are high enough to make some money and tends to reduce service in markets where LCCs have considerable presence.
Bingo. If you can't control pricing, you can't get revenue premium, you can't make money unless you're the low cost provider. Since AA is not the low cost provider in any market, they prefer to put capacity in those where they can influence pricing and get a premium. By default, that generally means dominating some airports, and not flying into others.
Amazingly enough, they are doing this while still being the largest airline (at least for now). But they realize that you cannot continue to grow fast with this strategy, so they shrink. As long as they are still big enough that their network alone demands a premium (which they are and they do), it works. The problem becomes when they leave enough airports or reduce service to the point that people need to look elsewhere, then their pricing power erodes, so it's a fine line. But since they are the world's largest...it's unclear how much they can shrink and still succeed.
MAH4546 From Sweden, joined Jan 2001, 31118 posts, RR: 73 Reply 9, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 2152 times:
Quoting MaxQ2351 (Reply 6): They used to have 2x daily (I think it was) to SJU, but that was one of the many casualties of 9/11.
AA has never, ever flown DEN-SJU. The cloest DEN came to San Juan service was when United made bookable (but never issued a PR) weekend DEN-SJU service to operate for the winter 01/02 timetable. It never started.
HPAEAA From United States of America, joined May 2006, 1020 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 2100 times:
Quoting RL757PVD (Thread starter): XNA...AA has taken advantage of being able to dominate the market and provides extensive service with a large market share. XNA will have only 9 daily seats less than BDL (airport 10x the size) this fall.
XNA gets soooo many eagle CRJ's from ORD and DFW because they have a very large MX operation there.
Briguy1974 From United States of America, joined Aug 2005, 133 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 1993 times:
SJC is an example of a city that has marginal AA existance. AA was a focus city/hub and now??? Who knows. A shame, CA 3rd largest city, home of silicon valley. You would think an airline could make a mini hub work. It seems AA never fully committed to SJC. I have never seen an AA advertisment or anything locally directed towards the flights to NRT CDG. Also, how does AA not try mexico destinations out of SJC?
The city has paid the price for AA's inability to make SJC work as a hub.
Willyj From United States of America, joined Oct 2005, 467 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (6 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 1979 times:
Quoting MAH4546 (Reply 9): AA has never, ever flown DEN-SJU. The cloest DEN came to San Juan service was when United made bookable (but never issued a PR) weekend DEN-SJU service to operate for the winter 01/02 timetable. It never started.
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