RJcasualty said:
Interesting. Consolidation wont require as many hubs? Tell that to the AA DP facilitators. I guess that hot potato was discussed ad nauseum on another thread. The RJ boom is ending? Tell that to all the bond holders and tax payers who underwrote the nation-wide RJ facility infrastructure at the behest of the industry. How do you propose to keep a regional airport alive with your minimums? This is looney.
whether DP has admitted it or not, AA will not have as many hubs as it has today. It has too much internal network competition between its hubs today. I'm not going to get into an argument of what will stay and what will go but part of the point of consolidation among network carriers is to create more efficient and larger hubs. Much of the RJ networks at the network airlines came about because every airline felt they needed to have enough hubs to cover the US. Now with consolidation, there are multiple hubs that cover the same geographic area.
Whether DL intended for that to happen when it merged with NW or not, the 50% or so increase in the cost of jet fuel between DL's merger and when it started aggressively cutting CVG and MEM forced a reduction in hubs.
By the time UA and CO merged, those economics of small RJs were known and they are very obvious with AA/US.
RJs won't be completely eliminated but the 50 seater's days will be maintained only because there are enough relatively new 50 seaters that they can't be parked in the next few years without taking a significant hit to the finances of the carriers that operate them.
The facilities that can support 50 seaters can largely support larger RJs as well.
Further, as much as some people fail to see it, the economics of mergers at the network carriers is AIDED by eliminating small hubs that are heavily dependent on small RJs and forcing traffic over larger hubs where mainline employees can carry those passengers.
Within the next 10 years, maybe less, you will not see 50 seat aircraft flying in the US aviation network.
The primary network difference between the legacy carriers (AA/DL/UA) and WN is that the legacies will use at least some RJs - large RJs likely - to serve cities that otherwise would receive no airline service at all and to fly point to point routes which are too large for mainline aircraft of any carrier.
