bourbon wrote:

David_itl wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

Not at all surprising as as KEF and PRG are leisure routes. The MAN cut is a bit surprising though it does further illustrate (as was discussed in the EI starting MAN-BOS/JFK/MCO flights) that the market doesn't really work well and isn't profitable.

NO it does not.at all. The route started in 1998 and got upgraded to A330s inside 9 months due to the pointy end bit of the 767 being filled. That AA has run down JFK, ORD and PHL by putting on inferior aircraft then introducing an unreliable aircraft before really going after the regular premium payer by messing around with the frequency tells us all about how serious AA has been about MAN ops since getting into bed with BA. If the MAN market isn't there for profitable transatlantic ops, why was Thomas Cook Airlines projected to make £115 million profit predominately on the back of point to point long-haul traffic ex-MAN with no business class?

Thomas Cook went under and didn’t make that 155mill profit.
US Air aircraft were absolute dumps. MAN might have been one place they could fill a plane up to for profit because the other airlines were making money on routes of actual significance.

That AA you keep talking about btw are the execs from America West and US Air that ruined American Airlines.

Thomas Cook's airline served leisure markets, and those markets aren't serviceable at the moment so in the current environment, the airline entity, if it were still around, wouldn't be flying anything but vaccines. USAirways was a miserable airline that should have gone out of business for good in 2004, and it almost did, but the HP merger saved it. While the current AA leadership may not be in the same league as UA/DL and often does not even seem to try, the fact is they didn't ruin AA. American was also a dump of an airline before the merger, and getting worse, flying old planes with outdated products. The merger with US was the only choice AA had, and in some clear ways, it ensured AA's survival.

USAirALB wrote:

MAN is shocking to me.

PHL-MAN was one of US's most profitable TATL routes, and was one of the first routes to see the A333 upon the types introduction in 2000. When other destinations were seasonally down-gauged to a 762 MAN was consistently an A333, and I've been told that the route had a number of corporate contracts. US also ran CLT-MAN for a season with a 752...supposedly the flight performed well but did not return after the merger was finalized.

After the AA merger, ORD-MAN went from a 763 to a 752 before being dropped, dropped JFK-MAN, and PHL-MAN went from an A333 to an A332 to a 787 before also being dropped. I wonder what happened.

I can only tell you even in summer peak travel PHL-MAN constantly underperform in the network. Hence the cut. Like someone else in this thread mentioned, there is not much corporate traffic O&D in MAN is a big problem. Leisure traffic has too much choice via LHR, DUB and even AMS alike.

Cointrin330 wrote:

USAirways was a miserable airline that should have gone out of business for good in 2004, and it almost did, but the HP merger saved it. While the current AA leadership may not be in the same league as UA/DL and often does not even seem to try, the fact is they didn't ruin AA. American was also a dump of an airline before the merger, and getting worse, flying old planes with outdated products. The merger with US was the only choice AA had, and in some clear ways, it ensured AA's survival.

This is the day I agree unreservedly with Cointrin330. To that timeline I would add this:

McCain also supported the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act which handed out airline subsidies after 9/11 to America West Airlines, US Airways, American Trans Air, Aloha Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Evergreen International Airlines, and World Airways.

Here’s Doug Parker asking the government for a bailout. He got $380 million in federal loan guarantees. If that hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t have taken over US Airways and used that as a platform to take over American Airlines.

https://viewfromthewing.com/how-john-mc ... -american/

Parker didn't ruin American - AA had been an under-performing (for both shareholders and passengers) dumpster fire since they forced out Carty.

Sorry, guys, but you can't have capitalism without market failure and bad companies going away.

Back on topic: lots of marginal routes, both domestic and international, will be cut. Nobody should be surprised that leisure destinations like KEF, PRG and MAN get cut with border restrictions what they are.

Wonder how much the Miami hub and Latin America made a positive contribution to AA. AA loves to state they are the greatest thing to happen in Miami since the "Nina, The Pinta and Santa Maria." AA updated the facilities at MIA to the standard they should be and were never under PA or EA.

chonetsao wrote:

Leisure traffic has too much choice via LHR, DUB and even AMS alike.

Or direct. Unless the schedule or pricing doesn’t suit, you wouldn’t connect if a direct option existed. In the case of Florida, there is plenty of demand for direct flights, which is probably a reason why Aer Lingus intend to start MAN-MCO and historically a lot of the now defunct charter airlines used to operate flights to SFB.

There’s a gap to LAS though given VS have cut the route and it being a former Thomas Cook route.

Onlyturnright wrote:

Back in the mid-late 2000’s, when there was a shift to digital platforms, Thomas Cook were still opening shops. When they acquired Co-op travel and My Travel they also took those stores on too. Where I grew up in a suburb of Manchester, my small town of roughly 40,000 people had 3(!) Thomas Cook shops! At a peak I’m sure they had something along the lines of 1100 or so stores nationwide. Just massive overheads. A total lack of planning for, and adapting to the changing trends of how we book holidays helped the groups demise. The airline was a very profitable part of that group. But unfortunately all the profits were washed down the drain.

One town near me had an ex-MyTravel Thomas Cook shop and a Co-op Travel shop next door to each other. The Co-op Travel shop didn’t stay open for long after the merger.

This isn’t the thread for it, but I always wonder if it was a mistake to not spin off the airline division when the Group was still in business. That said, had Thomas Cook Group not collapsed when it did, it might not have survived for much longer now we see how 2020 has panned out due to COVID-19.

Not surprised. But with all the industry experts saying it will take 2-4 years for a recovery, I am surprised it took this long to make official. I can see PRG and KEF coming back in a few years and we'll see what happens with MAN. BDA is a shock from PHL. But if anyone has been in CLT lately it is a cesspool with all the people AA if trying to jam in there.

Philly65 wrote:

Not surprised. But with all the industry experts saying it will take 2-4 years for a recovery, I am surprised it took this long to make official. I can see PRG and KEF coming back in a few years and we'll see what happens with MAN. BDA is a shock from PHL. But if anyone has been in CLT lately it is a cesspool with all the people AA if trying to jam in there.

Nothing much has changed with Bermuda from PHL.

Right now AA has been serving Bermuda only from Miami.

For April and May, that will change to being only Charlotte - geographically that makes more sense than Miami.

In June, Miami resumes along with Philadelphia and New York-JFK. Charlotte will continue but only through mid-August.