How About MIA As A Focus City?

[CLT-Douglas]

I don't think there is an airport that offers more STAR alliance carriers under one roof as the brand spaking new terminal J in MIA. Could US benifit from this by offering a decent domestic feed for it instead of a few 737's or A319's from only PHL and CLT? I know there is AA to contend with and high landing fees but it looks like a great stepping stone compaired to all the low fare competiton at FLL.

 

[700UW]

AA would crush US in MIA.

In fact AA just added PHX-MIA.

 

[Gio305]

the new J terminal is awesome. very impressive and one of the most modern facilities in the country. i dont expect US to compete with AA but adding a few more flights wouldnt hurt. wasnt MIA a good moneymaker before moving to FLL?

by the way, with UA out of the way, US is the main carrier in the new terminal. can you believe that? LOL

 

[Art at ISP]

Actually, UA and the rest of STAR are moving to that terminal, but oddly enough, next week, the first tenant will be DELTA!!!!!

I wonder how that happened.

 

[Gio305]

Actually, UA and the rest of STAR are moving to that terminal, but oddly enough, next week, the first tenant will be DELTA!!!!!

I wonder how that happened.

US will move there Sep 15

 

[songbirdstew]

I don't think there is an airport that offers more STAR alliance carriers under one roof as the brand spaking new terminal J in MIA. Could US benifit from this by offering a decent domestic feed for it instead of a few 737's or A319's from only PHL and CLT? I know there is AA to contend with and high landing fees but it looks like a great stepping stone compaired to all the low fare competiton at FLL.

We should have gone in to MIA in the first place when US launched that Caribbean service out of FLL that is now defunked. Thank Ben Baldanza for that---who is now at Spirit. Island service out of MIA made so much sense .
But NO, we went to FLL instead.
The runways in FLL were too short , and we did not have enough gates---that was a nightmare and it never would of worked and it didn't...another mgmt screw up.

 

[Gio305]

http://www.miamiherald.com/924/gallery/215197.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61077911@N00/...7/08/16/detail/

 

[flyJOE]

We should have gone in to MIA in the first place when US launched that Caribbean service out of FLL that is now defunked. Thank Ben Baldanza for that---who is now at Spirit. Island service out of MIA made so much sense .
But NO, we went to FLL instead.
The runways in FLL were too short , and we did not have enough gates---that was a nightmare and it never would of worked and it didn't...another mgmt screw up.

It would have been a bloodbath going into MIA. AA would have flexed muscles never scene before and just squashed US. Look what they're doing now to try and hold back Spirit up in FLL. They're matching some of the nonstop FLL-Caribbean service NK is offering. You would have seen AA doing nonstops on flts like PHL-LAX, CLT-LAX, CLT-LGA going mainline, etc... until a MIA focus city was abandoned.

 

[AstroLounge]

That's all these clowns need to do is establish a FOCUS CITY in MIA to prove their INCOMPETENCE. AA would devour USAirways like a lion finding his prey on a sarfari expedition. AA (and you either Love them or hate them) knows how to FIGHT a Battle and rarely loses out on anything. Even United had trouble competing out of MIA against AA several years ago- even with the former Pan Am Latin American routes in its arsenal. (If UA couldn't do it, I highly doubt ANYONE could. Delta may be stupid enough to think THEY could but then again they seem to think SaltLake-Paris will be a real winner too). FLL wasn't a total disaster, it just wasn't set-up for that level of Int'l service when it began. US could have made FLL a viable alternative to Latin America as opposed to MIA, they chose to pull the plug TOO EARLY. And THAT was the stupid MANAGEMENT MISTAKE. :down:

 

[phllax]

OK, the main reason FLL was chosen over MIA for the focus city are that landing fees at MIA are sky high. Note that US usually scales back to 300's only during the summer during the low season. They don't get anything much bigger than the 400 during the winter either.

AstroLounge is correct in that FLL isn't set up for the amount of international service US was offerening, let alone what NK is trying to pull off.

 

[JetMonkey]

AA would crush US in MIA.

In fact AA just added PHX-MIA.

Exactly! We stopped PHX-MIA one year ago because of yeilds (suposeily) more and more cruise traffic now departs out of FLL so we stopped MIA flts. from the west. Now AA is gonna pick up the slack. Of course Doug and crew will do absolutely nothing and we'll all watch. My question is simply this: If the yeilds are that bad for us to pull out, why the hell is AA which has higher costs than US is going to do it?

 

[BoeingBoy]

why the hell is AA which has higher costs than US is going to do it?

2nd quarter CASM - mainline:

AA 11.14 cents
US 11.34 cents

Jim

 

[CynicalResAgent]

What in the hell is Tempe doing that they still don't have their cost down. I mean don't they have the lowest pay in the industry? Having just come out of BK shouldn't the lease rates for A/C have been renegotiated to be some of the best in the industry? They've cut ameneties and crammed in more seats than you think possible, why doesn't US have the lowest CASM in the industry?

 

[727_4_Ever]

With our industry leading Executive pay and our industry leading PAWOB costs and totally inept management .....your costs go way up. Sorry sand castle but you can't blame it on the peanuts you give us.

 

[BoeingBoy]

why doesn't US have the lowest CASM in the industry?

A cheap operation instead of an efficient operation.

Jim