Caribbean Expansion... something I''ve been wondering

DCAflyer

Veteran
Aug 27, 2002
821
0
I don't think the feed issue would be an insurmountable obstacle... we would just have to build it up over time and fly to the Carbbean from CLT and PHL in the mean time. It's a matter of flying people between destinations they want and need. If we can fill two-thirds of a 321 or 757 with folks going to ORD and the other one-third with people going on to the Caribbean, this could work. Also, I would run MCO more as a point-to-point system rather than a hub, but people would connect there, much like BWI and MCI is to SW. I think this could have had potential over time to be lucrative to U when the economy picks up.
 
The main issue is feed. MCO never had all of the connection options PHL and CLT have, so folks would have needed to double connect.
 
I know it's too late now, but wouldn't it have made more sense to route Caribbean flights through MCO, that is before we gave up all those gates? Since MCO has so much O&D traffic (a good bit of which we HAD!) it seems to me that we could have built off of that and developed a Caribbean gateway (and perhaps later expand to a South American gateway). I don't know if we could get some of those gates back now, but this is just something where I think U really missed the boat, AGAIN! We could have even tried to work a deal with Disney Vacations for people to extend their theme park trips to Caribean destinations.
 
If US set up a mini-hub (or focus city or whatever you want to call it) at MCO for flights to the Caribbean, it would force many passengers using those flights to double-connect. Moreover, an MCO mini-hub would not only be competing against US' own CLT and PHL hubs for that traffic but it would also be competing against other carrier's hubs in ATL (DL), MIA (AA) and EWR (CO).

By all indications, US' Caribbean operation is working well and is supposedly profitable, so why screw it up? As some wise sage once said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
 
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On 3/12/2003 1:59:58 PM DCAflyer wrote:

I know it's too late now, but wouldn't it have made more sense to route Caribbean flights through MCO, that is before we gave up all those gates? Since MCO has so much O&D traffic (a good bit of which we HAD!) it seems to me that we could have built off of that and developed a Caribbean gateway (and perhaps later expand to a South American gateway). I don't know if we could get some of those gates back now, but this is just something where I think U really missed the boat, AGAIN! We could have even tried to work a deal with Disney Vacations for people to extend their theme park trips to Caribean destinations.
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we could have been a contender
 
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On 3/12/2003 1:59:58 PM DCAflyer wrote:

I know it's too late now, but wouldn't it have made more sense to route Caribbean flights through MCO, that is before we gave up all those gates? Since MCO has so much O&D traffic (a good bit of which we HAD!) it seems to me that we could have built off of that and developed a Caribbean gateway (and perhaps later expand to a South American gateway). I don't know if we could get some of those gates back now, but this is just something where I think U really missed the boat, AGAIN! We could have even tried to work a deal with Disney Vacations for people to extend their theme park trips to Caribean destinations.
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there was a time when there was nas and gcm flts out of tpa....problem was your were using seats to florida which in itself is very busy as nothing but connecting seats..