And the best transcon airline is...

[Glenn Quagmire]

And AA is still the top rated transcontinental carrier.

 

[WorldTraveler]

and I have said multiple times that is indeed great.

but AA is a business and cannot continue to maintain products/service which are not also profitable.

I would also bet that you could find similar accolades of AA's service if you looked thru history.

but given that AA has continued to shrink its presence in NYC while other carriers grow, is it really a consolation to be told you offer the best product but you continue to have to give up pieces of that market to other carriers because you can't make money?

with all the talk about AA's growth in new European markets and at LAX, even while AA shrinks its presence in NYC and in Chicago, the question seriously has to be asked if AA has what it takes to compete in the largest and most competitive markets in the world.

it is great to talk about LAX growth but when AA's revenue performance is bottom of the list among US carriers on the two Pacific routes it competes on out of LAX, it is hard to believe that AA is going to really succeed at taking on a whole bunch of Asian carriers that are far more aggressive than AA.
When AA's trajectory in NYC has been one of shrinkage while the market has at least stayed flat if not grown and other carriers have grown, you have to ask why.

and when AA is well behind UA in the int'l market from ORD, is all of the talk about expanding AA's int'l market realistic - unless it is done from hubs like MIA and DFW where AA for now faces little int'l competition?

 

[mistified]

it's not a question of patience.it is a question of knowing what you are looking at and how to use the data.you aren't going to learn how to use the data because you all of a sudden decided to click on a link.The simple fact is that AA maintained its position as JFK's largest cargo airline for years.AA lost that title within months of eliminating 767 service on JFK-LAX.DL is now the largest cargo carrier at JFK and also continues to widen its lead over B6 as the largest passenger carrier as well.You can tell me what else AA did to its network to lose that title, esp. during the summer, but I will tell you flat out it is because AA walked away from the transcon cargo market in an attempt to try to increase its passenger revenues - and yet in the process created an even larger opening for DL, UA, and VX to all increase their share of the market while AA's costs have not gone down but its revenues sure have.you are free to believe whatever you want regarding cargo in the JFK-LAX market but it was a multi-million pound per month market that AA decided was no longer worth pursuing. You can do the math on how much cargo AA's system lost from publicly available data which is a lot more user friendly - such as the Port Authority's data here.http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/AUG2014_JFK.pdfit's also worth noting that DL is the largest cargo carrier among passenger airlines at ALL 3 NYC airports. AA held that title last year but also gave it up and dropped from #1 to #3 behind not just DL but also UA.http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/ATR2013.pdfthe transcon cargo market from JFK is huge; AA chose to give up it up and has provided yet one more opening for DL to increase its strength in NYC which further weakens AA given that AA and DL directly compete against each other in most markets

The data link you provide is interesting but none of them show route specific numbers broken down by airline (at least not that I can find).
That being said I am the first to agree with you that on the surface it would appear that AA left a lot of cargo on the table when it stopped using the 767-200 on the LAX-JFK route.
No argument there. So please calm towards me on that one.
Where I do disagree with you (or at least doubt the accuracy) is the way in which you throw around numbers and stats that are not directly readily available and open to interpretation.
And then you skew the description to suit your Delta bias.I.e 9000 lbs is a lot of cargo for a 767??????



Show us LAX-JFK cargo numbers BY AIRLINE point blank.

 

[eolesen]

WT will never show his math because it undercuts his narrative...

As a % of cargo lift at JFK, DL carries 7.9%, FX has 7.6% and AA carries 7.1%.

Domestic cargo is only 18% of the total lift, and on a margin basis, it's probably less than 5% of the revenue.

Sure, AA walked away from the transcon lift. Maybe that's because they had decades worth of data to show just how low margin it was, and if my guess on the rates & margin are even close to correct, chasing that 18% of lift simply wasn't worth it. When the widebodies were there, there wasn't a good enough argument to refuse the cargo.

The simple fact is that DL has no choice other than to operate widebodies in the market, because their narrowbody product can't keep up with what UA, AA, and VX are offering to HVC's. It can't be positioned any other way. Great that DL is offsetting the lower passenger revenue with the cargo revenue, but I doubt that it's all that profitable even at DL's costs.

 

[WorldTraveler]

if you could do math, you would see that about 2 million pounds of cargo per month changed hands from AA to DL.

If you can tell us what else AA gave up, then you might get by with pretending it wasn't 2 JFK-LAX.

I didn't try to calculate cargo share; it should be obvious that 0.8% of the JFK cargo market is a whole lot.

Feel free to talk trash about DL's product. 20% of the passenger market and 90% of the cargo market is moving to DL.

Given that you seem to think 5% of that market is ok to walk away from, it isn't a surprise that AA is in the shape it is in if they have people like you running the show.

2% here, 5% there adds up. and it also makes the difference between being at the bottom of the industry in term s of RASM or not.

 

[Royal Ambassador]

I can't give you a tutorial on how to find the market specific data. It is in massive tables that you either know how to use or you don't.

 
In other words, it's a figment of your imagination.

 

[WorldTraveler]

no, its beyond your pay grade

 

[eolesen]

Given that you seem to think 5% of that market is ok to walk away from, it isn't a surprise that AA is in the shape it is in if they have people like you running the show.

2% here, 5% there adds up. and it also makes the difference between being at the bottom of the industry in term s of RASM or not.

If that 5% is responsible for 7% (or greater) of your expenses, then it absolutely makes sense to walk away from it.

Clearly, DL has been engaged in a years long strategy of buying market share in NYC. This may be no different.

Perhaps all that time you spent setting fares without regard for profitability has probably skewed your view. Wasn't DL in or just exiting bankruptcy when you were there?

AA certainly wasn't in bankruptcy when I was there. They were actually in decent shape when I left in 2006. I even got to sell my stock for >6x what my 2003 options were priced at, and about 1.5x what my pre-9/11 options were at.

 

[WorldTraveler]

you obviously skipped past the post where I showed that the 763 in DL's transcon config burns less fuel per seat than AA's 762s or 321s. try to tell me that DL spends more on any other cost item for 1 767 vs 2 A321s since DL's 763s hold 2X the amount of revenue that AA's 321s hold

no, DL didn't buy market share.

they just walked thru doors that AA left open.

would you like me to help you list the markets which AA has reduced from JFK over the past 5 years?

DL was handedly out of BK when I left.

 

[eolesen]

I didn't skip over anything important.

"Fuel burn per seat" is an entirely worthless measure, especially if you're not able to extract a premium for it.

 

[WorldTraveler]

uh, tell Dougie that fuel burn improvements don't matter when you press * on your touchtone telephone on the analyst conference call.

we'll see soon enough how much of a revenue premium AA has received for all of its transcon restructuring.

on the segment, passengers boarded is down 20% despite flights being up by 40%.

that's a whole lot of revenue premium to come up with in order just to get above the previous cost base - which was clearly not sustainable.

 

[mistified]

So there are no hard core numbers in any of those stats that say what you are saying?
Your coming to a  conclusion based off your interpretation of some differences in numbers?
Again I agree AA may have made a mistake giving up on the cargo between LAX and JFK. 
Where I disagree with you is that I think ( I know) it was a hell of a lot more than that in the belly of those 767's.
If it was only a average of 9000 lbs per flight in the belly of a 767-200, then maybe they did the right thing?
Could it be that they did not hand over all the cargo and only a part of it (i.e 9000 lbs average) and. reroute the rest?
 
 

if you could do math, you would see that about 2 million pounds of cargo per month changed hands from AA to DL.

If you can tell us what else AA gave up, then you might get by with pretending it wasn't 2 JFK-LAX.

I didn't try to calculate cargo share; it should be obvious that 0.8% of the JFK cargo market is a whole lot.

Feel free to talk trash about DL's product. 20% of the passenger market and 90% of the cargo market is moving to DL.

Given that you seem to think 5% of that market is ok to walk away from, it isn't a surprise that AA is in the shape it is in if they have people like you running the show.

2% here, 5% there adds up. and it also makes the difference between being at the bottom of the industry in term s of RASM or not.

 

[WorldTraveler]

there are indeed hard numbers.

you just have to figure out how to download multiple files, some of which have over 1 million lines and access the data.

you are free to dismiss the data because you can't see it but do you not trust gravity because you can't see it either?


JFK-LAX was one of AA's largest cargo markets, for many months surpassed only by JFK-LHR.

there are relatively few markets in which any passenger US carrier carriers more than 2 million pounds of freight per month; JFK-LAX was one of those. The market is enormous.

AA operated 9 767 flights/day. 2+ million pounds per month comes out to about 75,000 pounds per day or less than 10K per flight. In many months, the total cargo was over 2.5 million pounds... when you carry ON AVERAGE 9K pounds of cargo on 9 flts/day, the numbers add up fast.

from what I can tell, JFK-LAX became DL's largest cargo market with AA's 321 restructuring, surpassing ATL-LAX which is only a little bit smaller.

AA walked away from that market in an effort to cut costs by using smaller aircraft but added back much of the cost cuts by using more frequencies which still resulted in 20% fewer seats and loss of the cargo revenue.

and as noted, DL is about at the same level of cargo that AA carried but is doing it on only 5 763 flights/day which means on average those flights are carrying more than 15K pounds per flight.

factor in that some flights for either AA or DL are going to be better performers for cargo and it isn't at all hard to imagine that some flights for either AA or DL could carry far more than the average.

you simply cannot brush off one of the largest cargo markets that US passenger carriers off as simply "maybe it wasn't worth it after all" or cargo just doesn't matter at all.

 

[mistified]

there are indeed hard numbers.you just have to figure out how to download multiple files,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Why don't you take a stab on how much AA cargo you think is being moved now on the A-321T,s between LAX-JFK?
What do your millions of data points tell you about that?

 

[WorldTraveler]

sure does. AA carried about 260K pounds of cargo on the 321s in June which validates exactly what many said and I acknowledged; the 321 can carry cargo.

so can the 757s because UA carried just about the same amount.

the difference is that DL carried 10 times the amount that either AA or UA carried.

and a year ago AA carried the volume that DL now carries.

My statement has consistently been that AA gave up over 2 million pounds of cargo or 90% of what they carried