-----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of David MR Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 8:32 PM To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: US Airways; Stock Hurt By Southwest ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bahadir Acuner" <bahadiracuner@xxxxxxxxx> To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 16:14 Subject: Re: [AIRLINE] NYTimes.com Article: US Airways; Stock Hurt By Southwest > >Hubs, in my opinion, suck. While it may be good for the airline, in many > >cases it makes no sense for the passenger. Come on - look at a map. The > >LA area is nearly due south of SEA. Yet, if you want to fly Delta, you > >need to go hundreds of miles out of the way and connect in SLC! Except > >for airline nuts like myself, that makes no sense whatsoever. > >David R > > That's your personal opinion David. >Thanks for stating the obvious, Baha. Maybe I didn't use the word "personal" >but that's what I said. Hahahahah!!! Ok :) >On the other hand hubs work. Why? They > do make sense from economics perspective. They also work from pax > perspective. > > Thanks to hubs, small to mid size cities get more destinations. >Yes, it does work for small/mid size cities (even though the airlines are >constantly tring to drop services to the small cities - see, for example, >http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=261377&docketid=14536 - I >get notification of these terminations nearly daily). That's normal. This is essential air service where the government pays the airlines to fly that route. With government cutting funding these routes will go away.. It also has got to do with the fact that "commuter" airlines have become Part 121, since that EAgle crash in RDU in mid 90s. When these 19 seaters could be operated as Part 135, the cost of operating it was much lower. If the commuters were Part 135 I am sure these routes would be economical to operate, even without the government subsidies. > For instance, a ROA-DSM market may not be economical no matter what kind > of aircraft you use. On the other hand, if you route the pax through > a hub <IAD, DTW, CLE, ORD, CLT, PIT> then you can pick enough pax from > ROA to any of these hubs, and then route them to the other places. > On the small city to hub flight you can put enough pax to justify > the cost of operating from ROA to hub, and then distribute them to the > various destinations. >It use to be that the airlines operated many direct flights between various >cities with the passenger having to change flights. For example, CO use to >operate many flights a day between LAX and IAH with 1 or 2 stops in Arizona >and Texas to serve smaller cites. The result was that you could fly between >smaller cities without having to connect in an out-of-the way hub. DL used to do this also. I still remember some 727 coast to coast "milk runs" that had a routing like TPA-ATL-TUL-DFW-COS-LAX. But the busines is very dynamic that calls for mixed solutions. As I said, I flew RIC-CVG-YUL on the return today, but on Sat. morning it was YUL-LGA-RIC. LGA is not their hub, but it is their "focus point" in the NE. > Let us not forget that airlines that are profitable have successful > hub-spoke operations. AirTran in ATL, BWI; JetBlue in JFK; Alaska > in SEA/PDX; etc. >I'm still up in the air about if JetBlue has a true hub. Yes, nearly all >flights go through JFK. However, with New York being such a large >metropolitan area, I wonder how many pax on JetBlue that use JFK are O&D as >compared to connecting to other flights. Well, of course JFK is self-sufficient, but they are also connecting people from upstate NY. It would be foolish to buy a FLL-JFK-LAX ticket on B6, but that still doesn't say that JFK isn't hub. > Yes , it may suck to transfer through a hub and wait few hours > (like my flight today RIC-CVG-YUL), but I am sure if a non-stop > RIC-YUL would be profitable, would already be served by now.. >The airilnes are addicted to hubs. Yes, because they make sense. >I think there are many city pairs that >would support point-to-point service with regional jets but the airlines >have become to entrenched in their hubs to do it. ALso, the unions are >afraid of regional jets and won't allow airlines to expand their usage. Unions can't do anything at this point. RJs are here and here to stay. But let's not forget that 35-70 seat range RJs are not that economical to operate since there are less butts to devide the direct operational costs. > BAHA > Fan of ComAir CRJs having leather seats compared to ACA's >Congrats on not using UA Well, I was forced to.. I bought the ticket through the last minute deals that gave me YUL-RIC-YUL and hotel , which I didn't use, for $400. If I booked it through the airline, it would have been $1400. Now, if we are going to talk about something weird, let's talk about the weird pricing practice on those flights.. BAHA Fan of airlines and flying.. wish I was up in the air in 2 days :(