TWA902fly From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 3048 posts, RR: 4 Posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 4 days 2 hours ago) and read 1374 times:
i was just thinking TWA is fastly growing right now. Do you think they need another hub? I know they have focus cities at LAX and SJU and their JFK hub, but thats been going doen the hole lately (JFK hub). So do you think this is needed? an where would be a good place for it?
I am guessing New Orleans, biggest city in the US without a hub carrier right now.
-TWA902fly
Chicago Illinois
life wasn't worth the balance, or the crumpled paper it was written on
Trvlr From United States of America, joined Feb 2000, 4430 posts, RR: 24 Reply 1, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 1305 times:
Except for San Diego. But I do think NO would be a good choice.
TWA902fly From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 3048 posts, RR: 4 Reply 3, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 1295 times:
BOS is a hub for Delta, although not big it has i think about 60 destinations. Also, Buisness Express/American Eagle have a hub there.
-TWA902fly
PS Boston and San Diego are too much in the corner of the country to really expand nationally. no one from MCI would fly MCI-BOS-MIA or MCI-SAN-MIA if they were going to Miami.
life wasn't worth the balance, or the crumpled paper it was written on
Blink182 From Azerbaijan, joined Oct 1999, 5430 posts, RR: 19 Reply 4, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 4 days ago) and read 1280 times:
AA also has a hub at BOS. TWA used to have a small hub at DFW a couple of years back, they served HNL,and a whole bunch of other cities, they might want to try DFW again. I think NO would be a good place to have a hub, TWA should look at New Orleans.
rgds,
blink182
Give me a break, I created this username when I was a kid...
TWAneedsNOhelp From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 5, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 4 days ago) and read 1281 times:
Basically this question is disguised as one asking where the best new focus city should be. TWA doen't have the resources to start a full scale new hub and very few airports (if any) in the US can accomodate a new true hub operation.
So, in order to expand TWA has decided to open new focus city operations in cities that either can support a second large carrier (SJU) or in ones where they can fly to routes under served by existing carriers (LAX and JFK). This is their strategy. In addition, they are adding these "saturday subsidized flights from JFK, EWR, and BOS to points in the Carribean were TW sells the entire aircraft to a vacation distributor who couples the seats with hotel rooms and sells the package for profit. This work is guaranteed profit, albeit not huge).
So where will the next TW focus city be? Well SJU is seeing activity with three new daily flights to MIA and an additional daily flight to STL.
LAX will see additional Hawaiian flying with LIH opened first and an HNL and OGG opening rhumored.
I would rule out MSY as a new focus city for several reasons all discussed before. The most important being that TW has tried it before with flights to DFW, MEX, and JFK, all of which were cut or will be soon. The SAT flight may become a tag of STL-MSY.
Sn330 From Belgium, joined Nov 2004, 16 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 1241 times:
I also heard that FLL was becoming a focus city for TWA. I really don't think that they will establish themselves too much in SJU, as the market is really not big enough to support more than one hub by different airlines.
Redraider From United States of America, joined Oct 2000, 531 posts, RR: 2 Reply 8, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 1229 times:
Blink, TWA has never had any significant operations at DFW. They have flown to St. Louis and JFK, that's about it. They have never flown to Honolulu from DFW.
My wife can't wrestle, but you should see her box.
ACVITALE From United States of America, joined Aug 2001, 921 posts, RR: 13 Reply 9, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 2 days 13 hours ago) and read 1205 times:
Segment King,
TWA will begin service to LIH in February I believe. (Service out of LAX) ending travellers lack of choices and their subjection to UAs poor service, delays and monopoly on the route.
DCA-ROCguy From United States of America, joined Apr 2000, 4402 posts, RR: 38 Reply 10, posted (12 years 6 months 1 week 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 1182 times:
Maybe. TWA's focus cities aren't large enough to be considered 'hubs,' in comparison to STL or the Big 6/ Oligopoly-carrier hubs. TWA needs to assess whether its current one-hub-plus-focus cities size, is a "critical mass" that can support it in the current industry structure.
TWA has demonstrated its ability to survive despite the giant Karabu leech stuck to its aorta, an accomplishment in itself. But until 2003 at least, they need to figure in that parasite if they want to make large capital expenditures to build another huge hub. So if TWA determines that they need to add a full large hub, I see two options.
First, merger. We've discussed the merits of a merger with US, whose route system and fleet compliment TW well. TW largely does not compete with US. A merger would only cement US's position as a Big 6 carrier, without spurring an anticompetitive consolidation frenzy. But due to Karabu's poison pill provision, a merger would not be wise until after 2003. (For which Carl Icahn should suffer the fate of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail ;+) ).
Second, building a hub. I don't see any part of the country right now whose infrastructure could support a new sui-generis major airline hub. The focus-city arrangment allows TWA to grow without overly taxing infrastructure or its own financial structure.
So I'd say, TWA should stick with its STL-plus-focus-cities structure, and look forward to 2003. At which date it can say to Icahn, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries--thbfffff! thbbffff!" and will have the freedom to move.
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