A Southwest 737 lands on STX today!

MCI transplant

Veteran
Jun 4, 2003
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As Air Tran transitions to Southwest, Southwest is showing their colors in the Carib. as AA pulls out! STX, and STT, are alternates for them if SJU should close. But, it's only one small step south into what once was AA's terf!
 
As Air Tran transitions to Southwest, Southwest is showing their colors in the Carib. as AA pulls out! STX, and STT, are alternates for them if SJU should close. But, it's only one small step south into what once was AA's terf!
Non-issue. AA de-hubbed SJU because the focus switched to MIA. MCLA ops run through MIA's multibillion dollar terminal now.
 
Who cares? Cheap dive flights sound good to me.

I hope that everybody in Tulsa is not like you that does not care. Sometimes it looks like that. A lot of AA families are afected, there is a direct relation between AA shink in the region and the grow of the low cost carriers.
 
I hope that everybody in Tulsa is not like you that does not care. Sometimes it looks like that. A lot of AA families are afected, there is a direct relation between AA shink in the region and the grow of the low cost carriers.

Tulsa employees are usually for themselves so don't take it personally
 
Why should the pullback in SJU matter to AA or WN as far as who flies where? SJU operations began when most of the island airports could only accomodate rjs. Now that a lot (if not all) of them can handle double-aisle size a/c, there is no need for an rj operation in the Caribbean.
If WN wants to fly to STX or any other of the Caribbean islands, their 737s can easily reach most, if not all, of them from FLL--just as AA is reaching those same islands with its 73s from MIA.

We (aa) probably won't be flying to the islands for long. Now that JB and WN are going to be flying there, I 'spect that AA will give them the market, like they have so many others. Shrinking to profitability. We are AMR. We will succeed at it even though countless others have failed.* First, we are going to outsource the maintenance, then the airport operations (gate agents and the like), and finally we will outsource the flying. We are going to make millions!


*And, if we do fail, it's because we pay the employees too much. That's the only thing that has ever been wrong with this company.
 
Jim gets it right, Bob snarks for no apparent reason.

There were at least three major airport projects which saw airports previously limited to props adding or extending their runways to allow big jet ops:

2000: LRM builds new airport with 13,000m runway
2002: STI adds 7800ft runway
2011: PUJ adds 10,000ft runway

Those are just the ones I'm familiar with. There have been upgrades at other airports as well, but they were already capable of handling a 727 or larger.

With the exception of STT/STX/SXM/UVF/BGI, flying the Caribbean via SJU required backtracking, and added anywhere from 30-90 minutes longer travel time than connecting on the mainland. Being able to funnel via MIA has always made more sense than backhauling, especially after the FIS hall was upgraded.