AA to Barcelona; JFK-FCO

MAH4546

Veteran
Aug 22, 2002
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I''m really glad to see AA is launching Barcelona, Spain, but really dissapointed that it will be from New York City, not Miami. Maybe it will run MIA-BCN during the winter, but that''s just me being hopeful. JFK-BCN, daily 763, runs 01Jun03 through 25Oct03, AA171/172. JFK-FCO, daily 763, runs during the same period as AA 165/166. Nothing new for us at MIA :-( (at least not yet).
 
[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 11/11/2002 5:57:20 PM AA D2 TW SP wrote:
[P]...were those a part of the assets purchase in the bankruptcy court last year?[/P]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P][/P]Maybe. However, IIRC, the TWA route to Italy was MXP, not FCO.[BR][BR]Can one purchase route authorities??? I know you can purchase and sell domestic slots.[BR][BR]
 
Mah4546,

JFK is the US hub to the world. What is so great about service to Europe from MIA. ITS focus is South America not the Atlantic. Other then LHR & MAD, service to Europe from Miami is a niche. Some airlines like Swiss and Air France fly to Miami because they already fly to more important American citis like JFK, ORD, IAD and LAX so this is another place to go. MIA also gives these European airline a way to serve central ameica and the caribean through one airport with off-line connections. AA will serve Europe first from ORD then JFK then DFW then Miami.

Miami's mighty European dream died when National was taken over by Pan AM. Eastern tried so briefly but got its self creamed by BA, PAN AM and a small airline called VIRGIN ATlantic in 1986. AA will never give MIA a NATIONAL level of European service.
 
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[/P]Maybe. However, IIRC, the TWA route to Italy was MXP, not FCO.

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We did JFK-FCO for fifty years, as well as MXP. In the summer we often ran 2 747's daily on the JFK-FCO route.

MK
 
TWA was a huge force in service to Europe. It flew everywhere. Before it sold LHR to AA in 1991 it also had a hub at CDG. ITS had service to LHR from BOS, ORD, JFK, PHL, & LAX. At various times it flew to LGW from STL, BWI, PHL, & PIT. CDG was served from BOS, IAD, JFK, LAX and STL. JFK was the core with 747 service, in the 1980's, to ATH, FCO, MXP, MAD, CDG, FRA, AMS and LHR. L-1011's and later 767's flew to LIS, BCN, BRU and other cities. It was a regular night when 10 or more 747's left JFK for Europe and daily Tel Aviv service. Cairo was also regularly served from JFK nonstop and via CDG. TWA was especially powerful to the Mediterrean countries, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal. This new AA service is one of the reasons AA saw value in TWA. TWA was in such bad shape that they have route authorities all over the world they don't use, even over the Pacific. The treasure chest of TWA has only just been opened by AA. Look for more treasure in the future.
 
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On 11/11/2002 6:56:14 PM JFK777 wrote:

Mah4546,

JFK is the US hub to the world. What is so great about service to Europe from MIA. ITS focus is South America not the Atlantic. Other then LHR & MAD, service to Europe from Miami is a niche. Some airlines like Swiss and Air France fly to Miami because they already fly to more important American citis like JFK, ORD, IAD and LAX so this is another place to go. MIA also gives these European airline a way to serve central ameica and the caribean through one airport with off-line connections. AA will serve Europe first from ORD then JFK then DFW then Miami.

Miami's mighty European dream died when National was taken over by Pan AM. Eastern tried so briefly but got its self creamed by BA, PAN AM and a small airline called VIRGIN ATlantic in 1986. AA will never give MIA a NATIONAL level of European service.
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JFK777,

Miami is one of the biggest O&D markets between the United States and Europe. Miami's business and culture ties with Europe are much stronger than people realize. Miami, for example, is home to over 200,000 Italians. While that is nothing compared to the 800,000+ living in Boston, those are big numbers none the less. There are banking ties to London and major fashion industry ties to Milan. Miami is served by ten European carriers to nine gateways. That is far more than many larger US cities can claim...Houston has four, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit have three, Dallas has only two. Miami is the seventh largest US-Europe market, after NYC, CHI, LAX, SFO, WAS, and BOS. That is nothing small.

And your statements about why European carriers fly here are don't explain some things, like how....
...SwissAir launched MIA before IAD (even though MIA is just another place to go after IAD)
...Alitalia serves MIA, but not LAX, nor IAD
...Iberia serves MIA, but not LAX, nor IAD
...MIA was one of British Airways very early trans-Atlantic destinations back in 1971.
...MIA was one of KLM's first trans-Atlantic destinations, back in 1946.

And when you consider facts such as there is more O&D traffic between Miami and Paris than Washington and Paris, or that Miami is the #2 trans-Atlantic O&D destination from Zurich, they make even less sense.

I am not doubting JFK's role as the #1 international gateway, I am just dissapointed to see them ignore the profitable MIA-Europe market once again. Of all major trans-Atlantic markets since 11 September, Miami has held stronger than anyone else, with load factors and yields still very high, and with only three less trans-Atlantic crossing per week.

Iberia has been wanting to do MIA-BCN for a long time, but they have never been able to get the route authority, and the lack of US-Spain Open Skies has not helped at all.
 
[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE]----------------[BR]On 11/11/2002 6:41:49 PM JFK777 wrote:
[P]TWA was a huge force in service to Europe. It flew everywhere. Before it sold LHR to AA in 1991 it also had a hub at CDG. ITS had service to LHR from BOS, ORD, JFK, PHL, & LAX. At various times it flew to LGW from STL, BWI, PHL, & PIT. CDG was served from BOS, IAD, JFK, LAX and STL. JFK was the core with 747 service, in the 1980's, to ATH, FCO, MXP, MAD, CDG, FRA, AMS and LHR. L-1011's and later 767's flew to LIS, BCN, BRU and other cities. It was a regular night when 10 or more 747's left JFK for Europe and daily Tel Aviv service. Cairo was also regularly served from JFK nonstop and via CDG. TWA was especially powerful to the Mediterrean countries, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal. This new AA service is one of the reasons AA saw value in TWA. TWA was in such bad shape that they have route authorities all over the world they don't use, even over the Pacific. The treasure chest of TWA has only just been opened by AA. Look for more treasure in the future.[/P]----------------[BR][BR]Good points JFK777,[BR][BR]And just off the top of my head, some of the dormant authorities that TWA held but no longer flew included, Bombay, Casablanca, Hong Kong and numerous other Asia and Pacific destinations, (remember their around the world flights?) and in Europe, Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich, I believe Oslo and Stockholm, Geneva, Zurich, Vienna, Shannon, Dublin, Nice, and God knows what else. They used to have a couple of 727's parked over there (remember the flight 847? hijacking) and flew them intra-European. I recall flying a 727-100 from Frankfurt to Berlin in the early 90's. And of course they had route authority to Moscow as well, which they flew with a 727 from CDG I think. [BR][BR]With no open skies between Spain and the US, that means AA is using the TWA authority to MAD, which tells you why it's from JFK, as you have explained. I wonder if they'll tag Barcelona onto that if the route is successful. [BR]Finally, TWA was awarded, but had not yet exercised it's relatively new route authority from STL to Tokyo. This could come in very handy for AA's Asian market growth once the economy turns around. In terms of international route authorities, AA paid less for TWA than the value of those routes alone. They got quite a bargain, at least until Open Skies agreements proliferate, which is probably still quite a way off. Somewhere in the tons of legal filings related to the BK, I remember seeing a list of the international route authorities TWA held and AA acquired, and the list was truly mind boggling. [BR][BR]When the timing is once again right, AA has positioned themselves to truly rule the world with these vast route authorities. Just go back to TWA's heyday and superimpose their international route map over AA's existing international route map and you'll get an idea of just how impressive the power is that AA holds in its back pocket. It's awesome!![BR][BR]m[STRONG]AA[/STRONG]rky[/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P][/P]
 
[BR][FONT size=1]Could we have a link to verify this with? A quick check on AA.com reveals only connections in ZRH and LHR.[BR][BR]One thing I should point out regarding BCN regardless of where the authority came from is the fact that Iberia dropped the route entirely shortly after 9/11.[BR][BR]If the flag carrier can't make it work why do we think we can?[BR][BR]I worked the IB BCN trip many times and it was never a killer flight.Heavy on cargo, not passengers.[BR][BR]Of course this may be part of the desire to increase Core Europe flying instead of focusing entirely on LHR and avoiding the rest of the continent.[/FONT]
 
Here are some routes TWA once operated, with date unknown (prior to the elimination of the ORD hub. This is by no means a complete list, as it is based off of a single map by TWA, so it only represents that single point in time.

Departure points in US heading to Europe (dest unknown, but likely LHR or LGW for most):

SFO, LAX, ORD, DTW, BOS, JFK

European destinations nonstop from US:

Shannon, London, Paris, Rome, Lisbon (possible stop in the Azores still (the map was a low quality scan)

Intra-Europe and Europe-Asia/Africa routes:

London-Frankfurt
Frankfurt-Zurich
Paris-Zurich
Paris-Geneva
Zurich-Milan
Geneva-Milan
Milan-Rome
Paris-Rome
Lisbon-Madrid
Madrid-Rome
Rome-Athens
Athens-Tel Aviv
Athens-Cairo-Dhahran(?)-Bombay

There were also routes marked with dashed lines for:
Madrid-Algiers
Algier-Tunis
Rome-Tunis
Tunis-Tripoli
Tripoli-Benghazi-Cairo
Rome-Cairo
Cairo-Basra
Bombay-Bangkok
Bombay-Columbo
Columbo-Bangkok
Bangkok-Manila

As for recent years, I can remember JFK service on TWA to London (prior to 91 of course), Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Athens, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Rome, Milan, Brussels, Stockholm, Oslo, Geneva, Moscow (for 1 summer), and possibly others (for some reason Stuttgart, Nice, and Vienna come to mind, though those may have been connections). And that doesn't even include the extensive intra-european flights TWA had....

Even a partial list of international destinations served at one time or another is mind-boggling.
 
Having worked for TWA for 24yrs as a F/A and having worked International off and on since 1985 I have personally worked flights to:

London
Paris
Rome
Madrid
Barcelona
Lisbon
Athens
Milan
Geneva
Zurich
Amsterdam
Oslo
Stockholm
Shannon
Bombay
Cairo
Tel Aviv
Frankfurt
Berlin
Munich
Brussels


Others that I didn't have the opportunity to fly but were available were:

Malaga
Nice
Moscow
Venice
Dublin


That's 26 but I remember there were 27 during the 80's and 90's. I didn't get to work my first International flight until 1985 so I can't speak for routes we flew or had authority to fly before then and of course there were all the intra-european which has already been mentioned.

Of course, in addition, we flew to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii also during that time.

Some of the ones prior to my being able to fly international were some Pacific routes. We did, however, have several Polar routes from the West Coast in the 80's.