Brickell305 wrote:tphuang wrote:wow, can believe they were at 5x on JFK-RDU before.
JFK - They have fewer flights a day than DL because they have fewer slots. I don't think it's a real problem right now since they have restored capacity almost everywhere. They can always fly more short haul stuff if slot constraint goes away. Longer term, they'd have to be sublease or buy 50 to 60 slots to reach the 230 to 240 flights a day that DL was operating out of JFK pre-COVID during peak days. The other possibility is if slot constraint goes away. it certainly helps them that DL has scaled down its T-4 project.
Here is their opportunity in NYC. It's time to add more of those short haul flights to feed all their transcon + international stuff. There is no reason they can't make a major run in the NYC corporate market now that they have access through AA's corporate sales team. I'd be very surprised if we don't get another NYC heavy route announcement for fall.
Re: FLL - I think they should be able to co-exist with NK there. Given NK's focus on FLL and their speed of expansion, they probably have surpassed B6 for good unless B6 just manages to secure more gates than NK in the medium term. The most obvious trade-off for B6 is to work out something with WN to sublease some of their gates. Until NYC buildup is a lot further along, there is just no resource for FLL. There are certain inherent strength that B6 has over NK out of FLL: transcon, northeast + international. there is high taxes to many Latam markets. NK simply can't undercut B6 in those type of markets. Keep in mind when they were trying to build FLL up, they managed to overcome WN in many markets where WN was larger. Which means B6 does really well on FLL point of sale. But as things stand, B6 is focused on NEA and NYC over this next year.
MCO - It looks like they are happy with running about 45 flights a day out of there right now. I'm sure that number with go up a little bit, but I don't see them recovering to pre-COVID size for a while. If they are planning a buildup here, it won't happen for several years.
LAX - consolidating LGB into LAX is a great thing. A split focus city situation where both station is around 20 flights a day is a disaster. They have more capacity scheduled in for LAX this summer than I would've expected several months ago. I think the big challenge for them is to secure enough real estate for a 70+ flight operation. They got some time before their planned expansion starts. They have enough flight to tell LAWA that they've lived up to their end of their bargain and should be allocated the additional space in somewhere not MSC. Having a meaningful presence in LAX is important to their network. I don't see any issues with where they are right now.
Re FLL, leasing gates from WN would be impractical. WN uses terminal 1 which is as far away from the terminal B6 uses as one can get. It’s also not connected landside or airside and would also likely require B6 to open new check in counters in terminal 1 to accommodate passengers on flights departing that terminal or alternatively have passengers walk back to terminal 1. It would also eliminate any practical connections for flights that would use that terminal.
One limited option would be to expand the use of Terminal 1 for international arrivals. Pre-covid they were using some A gates for Cuba and CUN arrivals. It wouldn't be a huge help but it's something.
