D L X wrote:

Adipocere wrote:

Corpsnerd09 wrote:

They don't need to build a hub there, they have AS... Without a central mountain hub like DEN or SLC, a split PHX/SEA strategy with AS using their established loyalty and FF base could compete better with PHX reinforcing the American southwest than alone

At least this ends any hopes of PHX landing a route to Tokyo for now. AA has ignored its “hub” in starting LAS-Tokyo and now SEA-BLR with planes that could have picked up PHX-Tokyo.

LAS-NRT is not year round. It’s only a week or two around CES.

AA applied for LAS-HND flights but didn’t get the slot.

I wonder if AA will consider building a flagship lounge in SEA. Maybe take over the BA Lounge space?

IMHO, I don't think AA will take up AS. Some States, like Alaska, will take the combination to court to stop it. Based on past history, AA will dismantle the AS network in a couple of years. But some at DOT will be in bed with the shareholders of AA and state that the combination will increase competition.

onwFan wrote:

Oh, don’t worry about taht. When DL starts dropping HND routes one by one, they will be available. Come on, the only reason why DL requested the slots is because they knew they would get it and could delay them from going to AA/UA.

100% false statement. DL inherited a huge FF base from Northwest and is still a viable player in the U.S. to Tokyo market. Moving all their flights to Haneda was a smart move and will be very successful.

MAH4546 wrote:

usflyer msp wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

Agree. No relation at all. Plus, AA has 20+ more 787's on order with some deliveries this year.

I don't know about that. SEA-BLR will need 2.5 frames. The new 787's are basically replacing the 763's one for one. I don't see how AA gets airframe time for this route without cutting elsewhere.

Have you seen how many 787s AA has been flying to Hawaii and Cancun during the winter off season? Not to mention it continues to receive more 787s and there is nothing forcing 763s to be retired if AA wants them to stick a little longer.

The excess winter capacity is mostlu 788's, the 789 fleet is almost completely spoken for at the moment. I really think this is a sign that LAX-PEK/PVG are going to be suspended for at least a year.

MAH4546 wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

I suppose this will mean the end of AS LAX-BOS.

On the contrary. Such behavior would be anti-competitive and possibly lead DOT/DOJ to denying the codeshare agreement.

In fact, I bet elements of the expanded/renewed codeshare will specifically state they must maintain competing presence in certain markets. If anything, this might see AS strenghten it's LAX network to places like BOS, FLL, etc. where it has been going back-and-forth with frequency.

EA CO AS wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

I suppose this will mean the end of AS LAX-BOS.

Not at all.

Agree.

DOT / DOJ's standard test is HHI concentration. SEA is a big market and AA isn't really saying that they're merging. In addition, AS / AA would argue that DL had no difficulty in establishing and expanding its presence in the SEA market.

luckyone wrote:

Back in the day we had Continental, Delta, and Northwestern in SkyTeam. United and US Airways in Star.

I'm not sure how the finances were before the big mergers, but today the "other airlines" together are only slightly bigger than Southwest.
Alaska Airlines Inc.
JetBlue Airways
Spirit Air Lines
Hawaiian Airlines Inc.
Frontier Airlines Inc.
Allegiant Air
Sun Country Airlines d/b/a MN Airlines


It looks like the airlines are currently have only LAX as a common hub, with direct competition on LAX-
Chicago–O'Hare
Dallas/Fort Worth
New York–JFK
Washington–National
..
Las Vegas
Boston
Washington–Dulles
Honolulu
Kahului
San José del Cabo

Carrier Shares for December 2018 - November 2019 (U.S. only)
American 20.20%
Delta 18.43%
Southwest 15.66%
United 14.97%
Alaska 8.65%
Other 22.09%

What are the legal requirements in todays world? Could AA own 49% of AS stock? Can they divvy up the LAX routes?


American Hubs
Los Angeles
Charlotte
Chicago–O'Hare
Dallas/Fort Worth
Miami
New York–JFK
New York–LaGuardia
Philadelphia
Phoenix–Sky Harbor
Washington–National

Alaska Air Hubs
Los Angeles
Seattle/Tacoma
Anchorage
Portland (OR)
San Francisco
Alaska Air Focus cities
San Diego
San Jose (CA)

PacoMartin wrote:

It looks like the airlines are currently have only LAX as a common hub, with direct competition on LAX-
Chicago–O'Hare
Dallas/Fort Worth
New York–JFK
Washington–National
..
Las Vegas
Boston
Washington–Dulles
Honolulu
Kahului
San José del Cabo

There is a lot more direct overlap - Redmond, Puerto Vallarta, Seattle, Portland, Anchorage to name a few.

I have to agree that an interesting aspect of this is going to be LAX. Controlling T4, T5, and T6 via 1W is a big deal and makes the joined group solidifed in terms of its LAX share - at about 17,500,000 passengers per year. While 30% share is not dominant at all, having three terminals allows for a lot of flexibility in gates, IRROPS, and the like.

One market that hasn't been discussed is Hawaii. I'm guessing but I'll bet that AS may be #2 or #3 from the mainland. AA is probaby #3 or #4 (I'm guessing battling with UA). A 1W group to Hawaii makes them very dominant.

voxkel wrote:

Ishrion wrote:

WTF?? BANGALORE? Did NOT see that coming

Yeah I had a gut AA would try BLR but just from DFW or ORD. Not SEA. This flight seemed less likely than if UA were to start EWR-AMD nonstop.

One thing that concerns me about this flight is that essentially everyone will be O/D at BLR due to its positioning in India. I don't know what the demand is from SEA but certainly less than SFO/JFK and maybe ORD/DFW.

I see UA announcing SFO-BLR in the coming weeks tbh. A DL ATL-BLR or JFK-BLR is also possible.

I thought it may be EWR BLR. UA may now announce EWR MAA , hopefully. MAA has a big start alliance base with LH and SQ flyers. BLR can easily connect to MAA and HYD. These are two other business centers apart from BLR in SOuthern India

KK

Top ten anime plot twists.

SEATAC Is going to need a whole new terminal now. Maybe on the 34L/16R side?

washingtonflyer wrote:

I have to agree that an interesting aspect of this is going to be LAX. Controlling T4, T5, and T6 via 1W is a big deal and makes the joined group solidifed in terms of its LAX share - at about 17,500,000 passengers per year. While 30% share is not dominant at all, having three terminals allows for a lot of flexibility in gates, IRROPS, and the like.

AA and AS aren't going to suddenly convert the terminals to common-use and an expanded international partnership doesn't help in most matters. Each carrier will still have their own gates; without a JV they can't really coordinate efforts in LAX (and a JV would never be approved).

So no, there really isn't flexibility in gates (you can't use QIK to work an AS flight, nor can you use IMAGE to board an AA flight) and neither company's corporate branding/image group is going to settle for using eachothers' branded podiums, backwalls and gate areas on any sort of regular basis.

KFTG wrote:

With what gates?

Heh heh . . South Satellite! Since that is where the current customs facility is . . .

voxkel wrote:

I am also shocked they chose BLR over Australia (SYD/MEL). They will get onward QF feed there.

Yes, but BLR has big offices for Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook and there is considerable travel between these two cities in Premium class. This will also tap into SFO, SJC - BLR traffic. Easy to fill Business class seats. This is clearly out of box thinking. We will hve to see if this can succeed.

I also wonder what the routing would be, a direct routing is not possible as it would fly over Himalayas down to DEL. Probably SEA SVX and then down to BLR. It will add 200 miles to the GC routing.

KK

tphuang wrote:

x1234 wrote:

Also I think its high time for DL and their Pacific JV partner KE to make BOM & DEL daily and launch BLR like they have with their EU partners (AF/KL).

What do you think is the relationship between South Korea and India that would warrant such additional service.

Hyundai motors is pretty big in India. Plus India seems to be getting defence products from Korea a bit more now. There is more east asian expats in Chennai atleast as compared to expats from anywhere else

KK

Adipocere wrote:

I am shocked at what happened on the India side. I can’t think of any other major airline that flies to BLR that already doesn’t fly to BOM and DEL. It’s shocking that AA bypassed India’s Tier 1 cities in DEL, BOM, CCU and MAA and went straight to BLR. MAA is southern India’s premier gateway city and has been shockingly bypassed. I hope AA knows it’s geography with this plan..

BLR is pretty big in terms of business travel to India, just behind BOM and DEL in overall business terms. CCU is not even a patch

KK

There will be no merger. There is no point to one for either airline. What are you folks smoking?

CPS001 wrote:

adi00654 wrote:

Adipocere wrote:

I am shocked at what happened on the India side. I can’t think of any other major airline that flies to BLR that already doesn’t fly to BOM and DEL. It’s shocking that AA bypassed India’s Tier 1 cities in DEL, BOM, CCU and MAA and went straight to BLR. MAA is southern India’s premier gateway city and has been shockingly bypassed. I hope AA knows it’s geography with this plan..

FYKI,BLR has already surpassed MAA long ago and it's now the south India's premier gateway.It relatively has more pax numbers and third leading airport in India.BLR is a tier 1 city.

Next in the lot UA SFO-BLR.

In terms of numbers, BLR is #5 in international pax, behind MAA and even COK. Not saying that international isn't growing, but it will be a few years before they overtake MAA at #3. Most of the growth is due to IndiGo's hub.

That being said, congrats to BLR and a refreshing change to BOM/DEL for US flights.

Numbers are misleading. BLR has more international traffic to West than Chennai ( which is more towards SIN, Malaysia and Gulf). COK is low yielding travel to Gulf.

KK

BigGSFO wrote:

Osubuckeyes wrote:

I would not be surprised at all to see SEA-SYD on AA or QF relatively soon.

I was thinking the same thing, probably on QF. I'd also expect to see a return of SEA-HEL and possibly SEA-MAD. This will definitely help boost PDX-LHR when it launches this year too.

I can already feel the claustrophobia in the terminal from here....

EMB170 wrote:

DL will be happy to funnel the US-BLR traffic via the daily AF connection or the 4 weekly KL connections for ST members.

They will lose that battle from SEA because:
SEA-BLR 7,019 nm
SEA-CDG-BLR 8,587 nm (+22.3%) + connection time

Don't want to throw cold water on AA's parade, but...

Two routes from SEA (LHR and BLR) do not an international gateway make. Does AA serve BLR from any of its existing hubs, like ORD or LAX? If not, then these routes, while bold adds, seem like non-sequiturs to me. Clearly AA believes it can feed these flights with AS's connecting traffic, but the question remains, if all of AS's connecting traffic wasn't enough to sufficiently feed DL's international flights, what makes AA think they'll be more successful? And with fewer destinations to choose from?[/quote]

I am really scratching my head on SEA BLR. There are so many one stop options
1) BA via LHR
2) LH via FRA
3) DL via CDG/AMS
4) EK via DXB
5) JAL via NRT



So, i really don't know, let's see. Is this a case of "we have tried all possible US India non stop city pairs on the drawing board and this has the best chance of working so let's give it a shot" OR "we have everything covered and we are certain this is going to work" ? Because, speaking of connections; if AS thinks it will connect people from rest of the major West coast hubs (SAN, LAX, SFO, SJC) then they are mistaken as folks would rather take the 1 hop on the other carriers i just mentioned than transit through the nightmare SEA is (remember the return journey involves the customs/immigration mess and the strong possibility of missed connections). So, let's see, unless like someone stated they have something going with Amazon, MSFT etc.
corporate contracts.
One would have thought AA would have done DFW/JFK/PHL/ORD - India because of the connections on the US side. Yeah, i know they tried to make ORD work, so JFK/DFW would have been more logical choices (not sure of 789 has the legs to do DFW-India non stop).

As a side note; the US carriers are definitely giving the ME3 a run for their money for sure. That combined with Australia-Europe non stops on the horizon Mr Clark, Mr Al Bakr & My Tony Douglas must be shitting in their pants.

This is of course provided oil stays at 58~ a barrell. But if oil hits the roof at say 150$ a barrell it's a whole different story and the 3 guys i mentioned will be smiling with glee & the US India non stops will disappear faster than they appeared.

Now when the heck are getting back our dang AA ORD-BOM/DEL?

747megatop wrote:

EMB170 wrote:

DL will be happy to funnel the US-BLR traffic via the daily AF connection or the 4 weekly KL connections for ST members.

They will lose that battle from SEA because:
SEA-BLR 7,019 nm
SEA-CDG-BLR 8,587 nm (+22.3%) + connection time

Don't want to throw cold water on AA's parade, but...

Two routes from SEA (LHR and BLR) do not an international gateway make.

"Set up SEA as an International Gateway"

https://twitter.com/xJonNYC/status/1227 ... 60/photo/1

747megatop wrote:

I am really scratching my head on SEA BLR. There are so many one stop options
1) BA via LHR
2) LH via FRA
3) DL via CDG/AMS
4) EK via DXB
5) JAL via NRT



So, i really don't know, let's see. Is this a case of "we have tried all possible US India non stop city pairs on the drawing board and this has the best chance of working so let's give it a shot" OR "we have everything covered and we are certain this is going to work" ? Because, speaking of connections; if AS thinks it will connect people from rest of the major West coast hubs (SAN, LAX, SFO, SJC) then they are mistaken as folks would rather take the 1 hop on the other carriers i just mentioned than transit through the nightmare SEA is (remember the return journey involves the customs/immigration mess and the strong possibility of missed connections). So, let's see, unless like someone stated they have something going with Amazon, MSFT etc.
corporate contracts.
One would have thought AA would have done DFW/JFK/PHL/ORD - India because of the connections on the US side. Yeah, i know they tried to make ORD work, so JFK/DFW would have been more logical choices (not sure of 789 has the legs to do DFW-India non stop).

As a side note; the US carriers are definitely giving the ME3 a run for their money for sure. That combined with Australia-Europe non stops on the horizon Mr Clark, Mr Al Bakr & My Tony Douglas must be shitting in their pants.

This is of course provided oil stays at 58~ a barrell. But if oil hits the roof at say 150$ a barrell it's a whole different story and the 3 guys i mentioned will be smiling with glee & the US India non stops will disappear faster than they appeared.

US-BLR is not a small market, it is over 1000 PDEW, a significant amount of it coming from the west coast



https://crankyflier.com/2020/02/13/the- ... n-seattle/

ldvaviation wrote:

blink182 wrote:

I'm curious about is what this will do to BA's own LHR-BLR flight? Surely high yields from the west coast are going to go to AA?

Not just LHR-BLR, but also LAX-HKG-BLR (Cathay/Dragon).

I suspect that AA plans to recapture a lot of premium traffic that it's been sharing with BA and Cathay.

LHR-BLR is O&D heavy. So much so that AI added a non-stop and BA are upgrading to A35K. These in addition to ME carriers who keep taking a significant numbers to EU/NA. I think SQ and CX along with EK will feel the most impact of this non-stop.

UpNAWAy wrote:

There will be no merger. There is no point to one for either airline. What are you folks smoking?

LOL! I was poking the beast with the merger comment.

speedbird52 wrote:

Top ten anime plot twists.

SEATAC Is going to need a whole new terminal now. Maybe on the 34L/16R side?

The master plan is to build a new terminal w/ 19 gates at the current bus gate/cargo area. It will be built around 2027-2030.

rentonview wrote:

ctrabs0114 wrote:

usflyer msp wrote:

I wonder if this means a 788/789 would be rotated in from DFW, MIA, LAX or ORD. For some reason, ORD makes sense because Chicago's is Boeing's home office and they have their plants in the Seattle area, but I wouldn't be shocked if the reposition flights end up being SEA-DFW or SEA-MIA.

The amount of Boeing traffic between ORD and SEA is minimal, so a 787 on the route would be overkill, considering the existing frequencies on AS, AA and UA (13 daily flights total, I think). But it'd be a fun ride on a 787 with a lot of empty seats!

Good point. The main reason I mentioned ORD-SEA as a potential 787 rotation candidate was because, if I'm not mistaken, there are 787s based at ORD. I wasn't sure how much traffic between the two cities was Boeing-based.

This is a really oddball announcement. Like I had to look twice; AA, international gateway, Seattle, .... Bangalore?

No complaints, they’ve always had a bit of a hole in the Northwest, this will help a little and also boost themselves outside of their usual hubs.

SEAflyer97 wrote:

speedbird52 wrote:

Top ten anime plot twists.

SEATAC Is going to need a whole new terminal now. Maybe on the 34L/16R side?

The master plan is to build a new terminal w/ 19 gates at the current bus gate/cargo area. It will be built around 2027-2030.

Which airline(s) is/are going into the new terminal.

wedgetail737 wrote:

UpNAWAy wrote:

There will be no merger. There is no point to one for either airline. What are you folks smoking?

LOL! I was poking the beast with the merger comment.

Money has been used for worse in the history of aviation, so it is a possibility, no?

Anyone think Compass might be staying in SEA after all? Man that would be great if AA and AS inked a deal with Compass. I mean, for it's employees, it would be great!

sabby wrote:

LHR-BLR is O&D heavy. So much so that AI added a non-stop and BA are upgrading to A35K. These in addition to ME carriers who keep taking a significant numbers to EU/NA. I think SQ and CX along with EK will feel the most impact of this non-stop.

Good point. The BA flight is often overbooked.

ctrabs0114 wrote:

Good point. The main reason I mentioned ORD-SEA as a potential 787 rotation candidate was because, if I'm not mistaken, there are 787s based at ORD. I wasn't sure how much traffic between the two cities was Boeing-based.

Someone with direct access to the numbers can correct me here, but from what I understand, it's not terribly significant. The Boeing execs in Chicago have access to a private fleet and the engineers/management staff/etc. in the Seattle area probably do as well from time to time, but are much more likely to fly commercial. Boeing HQ isn't a large site (not to say it's unimportant) when compared to other locations. The Seattle area has tens of times more employees than Chicago does...a breakdown of employment by state as of 1/1/20 (from Boeing) is below for reference:

Washington: 71,829
Other: 32,744
Missouri: 15,740
California: 13,441
South Carolina: 6,869
Texas: 4,768
Arizona: 4,655
Pennsylvania: 4,633
Oklahoma: 3,392

https://www.boeing.com/company/general-info/

I'm not aware of any Boeing facilities in Illinois aside from the headquarters, but I doubt Boeing employees contribute significantly to the SEA-ORD market. SEA-CHS (a somewhat hotly-debated selection around here when AS announced it years ago) probably depends much more on Boeing seats than anything coming from Chicago.

*edited for clarity

Does anyone know if their is a % limit of how many aircraft an individual OneWorld membership airline MAY paint upon their fleet?

So, does OneWorld, SkyTeam, and Star still allow Republic Airways to supply feed traffic to their competitors alliances?

Could Republic Airways end up feeding both Delta and American in SEA?

If Republic Airways can do this, could another affiliate carrier do this as well?

KlimaBXsst wrote:

Does anyone know if their is a % limit of how many aircraft an individual OneWorld membership airline MAY paint upon their fleet?

I believe it’s a minimum, not a maximum, number based on size of fleet, targeting aircraft used on international routes.

What a surprise announcement. Didn't see this coming. I'm a fan of AS joining oneworld. Their FF partnership with AA will be nice for customers for both sides.

As for SEA-BLR, I wish AA good luck. They'll need it. The SEA bloodbath is a tough road to hoe. I don't get why anybody but AS would want want to run up there and duke it out for low margins and a useless minority market share. It seems like airlines are so focused on capturing traffic that they forget about trying to make money with it.

Alright, GET THIS.

This is SO crazy that I'm pretty sure someone is removing Bangalore/London on SEA Airport's Wiki page!

It was there earlier but now it's gone.

On a true scale of economic significance was the AS - Virgin America merger bigger and more significant, or is the entry of AS into OneWorld even bigger or equally as important?

Does anyone else seeing AS / QX / MQ jumping upon BLI - DFW and BLI - ORD, pretty quickly to feed and capitalize upon the NEW AA OneWorld Alliance.

KlimaBXsst wrote:

So, does OneWorld, SkyTeam, and Star still allow Republic Airways to supply feed traffic to their competitors alliances?

Could Republic Airways end up feeding both Delta and American in SEA?

If Republic Airways can do this, could another affiliate carrier do this as well?

Doesn't skywest already do this in SEA between DL and AS ?

caflyboy wrote:

KlimaBXsst wrote:

So, does OneWorld, SkyTeam, and Star still allow Republic Airways to supply feed traffic to their competitors alliances?

Could Republic Airways end up feeding both Delta and American in SEA?

If Republic Airways can do this, could another affiliate carrier do this as well?

Doesn't skywest already do this in SEA between DL and AS ?

Very good point .... they do don’t they!

Will WN be unaffected by this new AS AA OneWorld Alliance, or does this significantly alter the playing field on the West Coast?

Ishrion wrote:

Alright, GET THIS.

This is SO crazy that I'm pretty sure someone is removing Bangalore/London on SEA Airport's Wiki page!

It was there earlier but now it's gone.

It's Wikipedia, which I find av-geeks have a particular affinity for, whether it be to add a new route to their home airport the second a press release comes out or remove one that hasn't been completely corroborated from a perceived rival. Both the SEA-BLR and SEA-LHR listings are back with citations included, but I won't be surprised to see them drop out again before an authorized editor swoops in.

airbazar wrote:

SFOtoORD wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

Pragmatically, it's an easier ULH route than LAX-BLR being ~1000 sm shorter at 8,078 sm. There's also this certain software company at both ends of that route...

Microsoft’s India HQ is Hyderabad, but the do have people in Bangalore too. My understanding is Amazon does have their largest India footprint in Bangalore.

Anyone that's ever been to Bangalore will tell you the tech sector in Bangalore is absolutely enormous and the travel it generates is huge. It's not just the technology giants. It's nearly every major company has a tech presence in Bangalore. This route will send shockwaves to the rest of the airlines who until now patronized their customers by forcing them to connect in Europe, and with poor connections at that - I'm looking at you Lufthansa.
Watch UA and DL follow suite with a BLR route announcement soon.

I would not be surprised to certainly see UA jump in there now from SFO.

Wow. Kudos to AA with this announcement with AS and SEA. Defo going to mix things up!

So, not to throw around too much wild speculation like this is airliners.net or something , but what else could we see at SEA (or LAX, or elsewhere) with this arrangement? I might have thought QF on SYD-SEA, but with a stronger LAX presence, I don't know. What about Alaska's non-Oneworld codeshares? I can't imagine they'll stick around, but maybe someone with closer knowledge of the arrangements can give us an idea of how things might play out going forward.

*Edited for bus-induced spelling error.

dstblj52 wrote:

jfk777 wrote:

aaflyer777 wrote:

Anyone know where this LHR slot is coming from?

AA has a huge amount of Heathrow slots, among the largest after BA. Every time a new AA flights starts this question always comes up, why ? Just accept they have enough slots, AA isn't going to cut back any of their other LHR flights.

You do understand that just about every heathrow slot is used everyday so something in equals something getting cut it's just math

There is a pair of slot owned by AA but used by SAS currently.

usflyer msp wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

usflyer msp wrote:

I don't know about that. SEA-BLR will need 2.5 frames. The new 787's are basically replacing the 763's one for one. I don't see how AA gets airframe time for this route without cutting elsewhere.

Have you seen how many 787s AA has been flying to Hawaii and Cancun during the winter off season? Not to mention it continues to receive more 787s and there is nothing forcing 763s to be retired if AA wants them to stick a little longer.

The excess winter capacity is mostlu 788's, the 789 fleet is almost completely spoken for at the moment. I really think this is a sign that LAX-PEK/PVG are going to be suspended for at least a year.

B77W is not going back to HKG any time soon. So it will be used on SYD route and release the B789 for the BLR mission.

Also, some B789 used on European routes will be revert back to B788 as more B788 will be coming online in 2020. And I think when China flights coming back in few months time it will be flown by B788 rather than B789.

Not to mention once A321LR/XLR arrives, some B763/B788 routes will be changed to the narrowbody and further releases B788 and then releases B789 by downgauge.

Would AA switch ICN flight from DFW to SEA now?

Would any1 guess what the timings would be? Esp the ARR and DEP time at SEA