More MEM cuts

You can argue all day long that DL was of no consequence in the west as if it makes some sort of difference as to whether DL had a "right" to shut down the MEM hub or not but DL knew the MEM hub long before you ever graced the earth with your presence and knew the MEM market when it made the decision to gut the hub. And there is nothing that MEM can do.
Right. DL knew the capabilities of the MEM hub before I was alive? Are you certain about that?

Please. Let's actually discuss what MEM was before the 1960's... They had a couple of mail routes which crossed at MEM, like the tags to LIT and KCI.

If you actually analyse the patterns of service (feel free -- there are timetables available online), you'll see pretty quickly it was no more of a hub than Dallas Love was with its tag service to Fort Worth Meacham & Amon Carter. MEM was nothing more than a glorified train junction where a north-south line happened to cross an east-west line. Even DL felt that they were operating a railroad -- their timetables were still printed in train schedule format...
 
{lots and lots of blithering about AA}
That's the typical WT response we've all grown to love: Don't actually address what's been pointed out in his own flawed arguments like the DC9's from NW somehow giving DL magic insights into the profitability of the MEM hub, or how flying tag flights thru MEM gave DL an idea of how a real hub would perform. Instead, turn the discussion to something about what challenges AA faces, even though this is the DL forum.

When you can actually discuss the topic *and* the airline who this forum serves, let us know, OK?
 
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uh... thank you for confirming actually what I said. MEM wasn't a hub and was a regional transportation center at best until NW made it into a full-fledged passenger hub in a strategy that was driven largely because NW needed to have nationwide coverage but its network was heavily northern tier focused.

MEM was built heavily around RJs, just like CVG, but MEM never had the size of the local business market that CVG or PIT or even CMH has.

Since you were unable to connect the dots regarding the DC9s... let me try again. DL retired many of the same DC9s that NW ended up flying. Those DC9s didn't fly to CA and all those points west. They flew heavily in the SE. DL knew and still knows the SE. They also knew that MEM - where many of the retired DC9s ended up - was not capable of supporting a hub any more than LIT or BNA could. AA found the latter out on its own.

Thank you again for confirming for me that MEM, which was right in the middle of the DL/C&S route system was just a city on the route map. ATL was and still is the SE's and the US' premier hub.
 
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you really are a condescending asshole..... some life you must have, surrounded by ipads, blackberry's...laptops's, stroking that little thing whenever you see something pop up about Delta...
 
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and in the absence of any ability to engage in the conversation, you turn to character assassination.

Your facts to counter what I have written are?

I have no Ipad or blackberry.

My dog loves to be patted on the head and have his back scratched... your fixation with how I use my hands shows your issues, not mine.
 
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WorldTraveler said:
uh... thank you for confirming actually what I said. MEM wasn't a hub and was a regional transportation center at best until NW made it into a full-fledged passenger hub in a strategy that was driven largely because NW needed to have nationwide coverage but its network was heavily northern tier focused.
[snip]
Thank you again for confirming for me that MEM, which was right in the middle of the DL/C&S route system was just a city on the route map. ATL was and still is the SE's and the US' premier hub.
Ah, more revisionism. You were claiming "DL's roots are along the Mississippi River. They know the MEM market well and knew it long before it was a hub for NW."

Even though it was on the fringes of their network (nowhere near the middle, unless the middle now includes having 75% of your service being on the other side of it...), a couple days ago you were claiming DL apparently knew it well, because, well, they got their start 400 miles down the river two states away...

So well they understood the place, they could rely on 50 year old knowledge and predict how the city would perform as a hub?...

But today, you're trying to pawn off your comments as saying it was just some backwater city they happened to serve as a function of where it was on the air mail routes...

Astounding how the logic works with you at times, WT. Simply astounding.
 
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You do realize that DL is the product of a 1953 merger with Chicago and Southern Air Lines, don't you?

The birthplace of Delta Air Lines was Monroe, LA.

MEM was near the geographic center of the domestic C&S route system which extended generally a few hundred miles east and west of the Miss. River.

DL's roots from both DL and C&S are well established in the south central part of the US.

MEM was a significant city in DL's route system and you would like to believe that because C&S' name was dropped that DL all of a sudden forgot all C&S learned about the merger.

Let's cut to the chase here, E.

You are really only interested in painting DL as a small regional airline from Georgia because it makes you feel better to see them that way instead of as the global airline that has successfully displayed American Airlines from key airports including as the dominant carrier at LGA. Do you cry when you fly into LGA and see all of the DL jets taxiing past AA's former headquarters and hangar?

You have repeatedly tried to paint DL as a southern airline that has no knowledge of the sophisticated coastal markets that AA pioneered because of DL's backwards roots but also that DL has no real knowledge of the markets it serves, including MEM.

If DL were the one that had managed to close FIVE domestic hubs and lost even the local market in those former hub cities to other carriers, then you might have a point.

But it is AA who has done that, not DL.

It DL who is the dominant network carrier in RDU and BNA, AA's former hubs. DL is now within a few percent of overtaking AA in STL and right behind WN. Low fare carriers are now the dominant carriers in the local markets of SJC and SJU, both former AA hubs.

So let's be honest here.

DL is still the dominant carrier in CVG and MEM despite the downsizing DL has done in those cities.

DL has defended its network and retained business in its hubs to a level that AA has only managed to do in two hubs - DFW and MIA and yet both cities will see significant new competition in the next two years, thanks in part to the merger agreement that AA just signed.

SO, E, your assessment of DL might make you feel good but it not only isn't the truth but it also is a completely accurate description of AA, not DL.

You keep holding onto the AA which you remember and which you wish they still were.

The simple reality is that DL is a whole lot more nimble in the marketplace while AA has repeatedly stumbled in market after market where it should have known the market, but if it did, it sure wasn't able to translate that knowledge into revenue.

THAT explains why your AA is now controlled by Parker and will be systematically remade into the image that he, not you, wants.
 
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You're such a sycophant when it comes to DL it's laughable.

Not only do you miss the point above, but you continue making arguments about AA?

Classic.

I'm not questioning DL, I'm questioning the sheer idiocy of the statements you made a few days ago, and still can't manage to try and argue coherently.


Unlike you, I've let go of my former employer's need to succeed.

Frankly, my only interest is my elite status. Selfish, I know, but with a million miles flown as a revenue customer (and with the card to prove it), I could care less who runs the place as long as the service doesn't suck.


You? You're like cigarette smoke in a small office.

Easy to ignore once in a while, but intolerable and nauseating on an ongoing basis.
 
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yet you are the one who keeps coming back trying to denigrate Delta.

Have you not figured out YOU are the problem?

You have spouted off endless times trying to assert that DL can't make it, all based on your opinions that have no basis in reality, including trying to argue that DL was picking on MEM because it couldn't possibly have known that the hub was not viable.

What difference does it really make whether DL knew that MEM was viable as a hub or not other than in your attempts to try to frame DL as an ignorant southern hic that couldn't possibly be worldly enough to figure out whether a hub in MEM could work or not?

It doesn't, E.

DL made the decision to close MEM based on sound business analysis. I haven't questioned the fact that AA decided to close STL or any other hub. My only beef is that they haven't been able to even retain the local market in those cities.
DL still controls the local market in MEM and CVG - as well as in several of AA's former hubs.

You are the one that makes the room stink in your efforts to try to denigrate others based on your flimsy understanding of the industry.

If you actually brought out facts that conclusively proved that DL didn't know what they were doing, then you might be believed. But when you make statements that DL is defined by attire that hasn't been used in 40 years, you truly have no clue - and it shows.

If you want the air to clear, then how about you clear out.
 
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just see E's post on the AA forum and my response if you want to understand how E has tried for years to try to prove me wrong only to make such enormous mistakes in what he says that anyone with even a street level understanding of the industry knows he is wrong.

yet he keeps coming back hoping he can find the smoking gun which he then proceeds to use to shoot himself with in the foot.

what he has tried to do with this whole MEM thread is no different than his ignorance about N. Texas market shares between AA and WN.
 
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yes and it is all of those great plans that AA/US and WN had to carve up the domestic market to the exclusion of DL being thrown in the fire.
 
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the topic here is that DL is cutting its MEM hub to match demand in the marketplace.

You are the one who came on here trying to paint the picture that DL didn't know the market yet it doesn't change that DL made the decision, was legally entitled to do so, and if the market dictates more capacity above what DL is willing to offer, competitors are free to offer it.

What part of that would you like to debate with facts instead of comments such as that DL is a southern airline because people remember that their FAs wore a certain type of dress 50 years ago?
 
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