Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
asuflyer wrote:American will add three-times daily service to El Paso, Texas (ELP); twice-daily service to Cincinnati (CVG); Indianapolis (IND); Kansas City, Missouri (MCI); and St. Louis (STL); and daily service to Jacksonville, Florida (JAX); Oklahoma City (OKC); Reno, Nevada (RNO); San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU); and Tulsa, Oklahoma (TUL)
American adds nonstop service to Cancun, Mexico (CUN); Liberia, Costa Rica (LIR); Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (PVR); Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (PUJ). The carrier will also begin year-round nonstop service from AUS to Los Cabos, Mexico (SJD) and Nassau, Bahamas (NAS) following this summer’s successful seasonal service.
https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2 ... fault.aspx
tphuang wrote:AA is picking the wrong fight here.
Runway765 wrote:So they are building another mini-hub from AUS when they already have one right up the road? Wow. DL should have been the one doing this, they were way too slow to act.
Where are they going to fit these flights in? The AUS terminal only has 33 gates.
hohd wrote:AUS is now a larger affluent city and AA will partially succeed. While all the cities mentioned may not last, quite a few of them will stick. Still surprised at SJU and PUJ and somewhat surprising is the absence of New Orleans. WN missed a chance to add routes and UA is just content with the routes from AUS.
onwFan wrote:Runway765 wrote:So they are building another mini-hub from AUS when they already have one right up the road? Wow. DL should have been the one doing this, they were way too slow to act.
Where are they going to fit these flights in? The AUS terminal only has 33 gates.
What’s even more surprising is that this looks even larger than what a DL focus city at AUS would have been. One would think this might cannibalize DFW connections; but this for sure says one thing: the AUS experiment seems to have worked really well for AA. Otherwise, there is no need for AA to expand this way in a market where they already had the largest business share.
PA727 wrote:They can't staff their current operation, yet want to duplicate capacity available just up the road? Way to fight a pointless battle when you're already losing the overall war. Wonder if the incoming morning flights will include "voluntary" HO help to staff the day's operations.
USAirALB wrote:I'm not too familiar with DFW, but is AA running out of room there? I'm wondering if AA at AUS is somewhat developing into a post-TWA ORD/STL type of situation.
USAirALB wrote:I can't figure out if this is part of a larger strategy to develop AUS into a DFW-Satellite/Annex type of a focus city or is specifically related to Austin O/D in general. Some of these recently announced routes are relatively underserved (like AUS-JAX/IND/CVG) and lack daily, year-round service on a carrier outside of G4. Other routes, like AUS-ELP/TUL make me think AA is attempting to feed connections over AUS.
LCDFlight wrote:AA overall would have a bigger FF base than DL. I think they will protect AUS aggressively. It is a 5 million population city in the future, among the wealthiest. So it is a major strategic prize, even if it loses money right now. I won't say the losses are irrelevant, but AUS is such a big strategic prize that it's worth paying very large costs to win.
USAirALB wrote:I can't figure out if this is part of a larger strategy to develop AUS into a DFW-Satellite/Annex type of a focus city or is specifically related to Austin O/D in general. Some of these recently announced routes are relatively underserved (like AUS-JAX/IND/CVG) and lack daily, year-round service on a carrier outside of G4. Other routes, like AUS-ELP/TUL make me think AA is attempting to feed connections over AUS.
DeltaRules wrote:onwFan wrote:Runway765 wrote:So they are building another mini-hub from AUS when they already have one right up the road? Wow. DL should have been the one doing this, they were way too slow to act.
Where are they going to fit these flights in? The AUS terminal only has 33 gates.
What’s even more surprising is that this looks even larger than what a DL focus city at AUS would have been. One would think this might cannibalize DFW connections; but this for sure says one thing: the AUS experiment seems to have worked really well for AA. Otherwise, there is no need for AA to expand this way in a market where they already had the largest business share.
I think people keep overestimating what DL's focus cities were going to be. Weren't they more "We want to be your favorite airline!" as opposed to "Add a bunch of P2P routes in addition to hubs because these cities are America's trendy, pet cities right now" at BNA, AUS, SJC, and whatever the fourth was?
DeltaRules wrote:onwFan wrote:Runway765 wrote:So they are building another mini-hub from AUS when they already have one right up the road? Wow. DL should have been the one doing this, they were way too slow to act.
Where are they going to fit these flights in? The AUS terminal only has 33 gates.
What’s even more surprising is that this looks even larger than what a DL focus city at AUS would have been. One would think this might cannibalize DFW connections; but this for sure says one thing: the AUS experiment seems to have worked really well for AA. Otherwise, there is no need for AA to expand this way in a market where they already had the largest business share.
I think people keep overestimating what DL's focus cities were going to be. Weren't they more "We want to be your favorite airline!" as opposed to "Add a bunch of P2P routes in addition to hubs because these cities are America's trendy, pet cities right now" at BNA, AUS, SJC, and whatever the fourth was?
DeltaRules wrote:onwFan wrote:Runway765 wrote:So they are building another mini-hub from AUS when they already have one right up the road? Wow. DL should have been the one doing this, they were way too slow to act.
Where are they going to fit these flights in? The AUS terminal only has 33 gates.
What’s even more surprising is that this looks even larger than what a DL focus city at AUS would have been. One would think this might cannibalize DFW connections; but this for sure says one thing: the AUS experiment seems to have worked really well for AA. Otherwise, there is no need for AA to expand this way in a market where they already had the largest business share.
I think people keep overestimating what DL's focus cities were going to be. Weren't they more "We want to be your favorite airline!" as opposed to "Add a bunch of P2P routes in addition to hubs because these cities are America's trendy, pet cities right now" at BNA, AUS, SJC, and whatever the fourth was?
joeblow10 wrote:The Central America/Caribbean expansion actually doesn’t surprise me much.
Oddly enough SY seems to have been the carrier a few years back to figure out there seems to be a lot of pent up demand from TX down South. IIRC they were planning to start Intl. stuff from AUS last summer as well before COVID hit. The only difference is SY seemed to have ran the intl. stuff during the summer from DFW/TX, AA seems to suggest it may focus on the winter?
asuflyer wrote:American adds nonstop service to . . . Liberia, Costa Rica (LIR)
hohd wrote:somewhat surprising is the absence of New Orleans.
DeltaRules wrote:I think people keep overestimating what DL's focus cities were going to be. Weren't they more "We want to be your favorite airline!" as opposed to "Add a bunch of P2P routes in addition to hubs because these cities are America's trendy, pet cities right now"
MIflyer12 wrote:USAirALB wrote:I can't figure out if this is part of a larger strategy to develop AUS into a DFW-Satellite/Annex type of a focus city or is specifically related to Austin O/D in general. Some of these recently announced routes are relatively underserved (like AUS-JAX/IND/CVG) and lack daily, year-round service on a carrier outside of G4. Other routes, like AUS-ELP/TUL make me think AA is attempting to feed connections over AUS.
There's no sense in duplicating (even in miniature) the DFW hub. It would be idiotic, in fact, to divert traffic from DFW into smaller, higher CASM aircraft; or to reduce DFW frequencies and thus connectivity across the hub.
This is an O&D play. They're hoping the non-stop fare premiums justify the higher-CASM aircraft. Sure, they may run a few connections across AUS to fill some empty planes (all a regular part of AUS and DFW yield management).
SJU and Liberia surprise me a bit. CVG? I just don't see it. AA is going in as the other carrier on a minor P2P route.
Ishrion wrote:In AUS’ 2040 Masterplan, they anticipated receiving 4x weekly flights to San Jose, CR by the end of 2020... on United.
Ishrion wrote:Either way, it’s definitely interesting American’s going for Liberia. I’m not familiar with the similarities and differences between the two markets. Would it be possible to sustain both AUS-LIR/SJO?
seatback wrote:I think these routes might last longer than we think. If there's a projected 5M Austin area population within the coming years, AA is making a strategic effort and smart move to build early.
I wonder if we'll see a crew base?
tphuang wrote:AA is picking the wrong fight here.
GSOtoIND wrote:From the Indianapolis Airport Authority press release (source: https://www.ind.com/about/media/media-releases/indy-airport-announces-new-nonstop-flight-to-austin), IND-AUS starts once daily from September 8th, then goes double daily on October 2nd. IND will be on Republic E75s, but it'll be interesting to see if Envoy flies the majority of these routes that don't go to an RPA base.
cledaybuck wrote:seatback wrote:I think these routes might last longer than we think. If there's a projected 5M Austin area population within the coming years, AA is making a strategic effort and smart move to build early.
I wonder if we'll see a crew base?
Where is this 5M population idea coming from? The 2020 estimate for the Austin MSA is about 2.3 M.
LAX772LR wrote:DeltaRules wrote:I think people keep overestimating what DL's focus cities were going to be. Weren't they more "We want to be your favorite airline!" as opposed to "Add a bunch of P2P routes in addition to hubs because these cities are America's trendy, pet cities right now"
Well, a carrier BECOMES "their favorite airline" by offering targeted customers a significant value that other carriers do not.
Otherwise, what reason would those customers have to give that airline their contracts, or prioritize that airline's services?
Talk is cheap: AA is providing metal nonstops (often multiple) to a bevy of destinations. DL would've provided what; a smile, a handshake, and a connection in Atlanta?
I'm trying to find the logic in your statement, and am coming up short.
I mean, these are transportation companies-- so exactly what could/would DL offer to HVCs in Austin, of greater value than a slew of both domestic and int'l nonstops??
tphuang wrote:AA is picking the wrong fight here.
UALFAson wrote:I think you 2 are saying the same thing
Cubsrule wrote:Ishrion wrote:Either way, it’s definitely interesting American’s going for Liberia. I’m not familiar with the similarities and differences between the two markets. Would it be possible to sustain both AUS-LIR/SJO?
SJO is more VFR/business, less leisure (though it’s not TGU or MGA - there is still an appreciable leisure component).
And I’m not sure why folks are surprised to see AA starting the likes of SJO and SJU. AA has deep, historical strength in Latin America that will help get northbound and VFR traffic onto the flights in addition to the demand ex-AUS.