the question as to what AA and AS can do for eacn other are indeed valid.
If they can't be positively answered, then there is little certainly as to how a deal could have value.
jcw said:
There is nothing AS can do for AA for Asia except provide feed into LAX from loyal AS customers AS can provide better coverage in the Northwest - AS could also provide feed to BA and other carriers flying out of the west coast - for example Palm Springs to San Fran onto SQ, CX, JL, etc
except that AS' traffic from LAX is predominantly to the north, PDX, SEA, and YVR as well as to Mexican beach resorts. AA's own routes from LAX are better suited to feed whatever Pacific operation it builds than what AS has. It is more likely that AA can put passnegers on AS flights at LAX but much less so the other way around.
jcw said:
Thanks for making my point - NRT has declining appeal from a profitability perspective hence the airline Meca (Atlanta - sarcasim alert - they have a good management team at DL) came up with a strategy to build a west coast hub - once again great idea
AA on the other hand in the Dallas Dump (sarcasim alert - they have a good management team at AA as well) came up with a strategy of focusing on their hubs - which they consider LAX one of them knowing they have long term strategic advantage from a gate perspective and a large number of Asian partners out of LAX (CX, QF, JL, etc) - so AA's strategy is to focus on building Asia from it's hubs vs DL's which is start a new hub - rememer corner stone strategy
Both are great ideas - DL could have decided to increase LAX and decided against it - which once again is good for them - they have their reasons for focusing some place else just like AA has their reasons for focusing on LAX
I agree with the last poster - we should focus on AS not Asia on this thread
So I will repeat AS can provide good connectivity to AA and all other OneWorld members on the west coast - both skyteam and oneworld are weaker than Star in Asia
no, profits via NRT likely will decline but so far they are still strong. DL sees the necessity to proactively restructure its Pacific operation to be less Japan focused - the same thing AA is trying to do. The difference is that DL already has a large base of traffic that it can redirect over direct hubs while AA is building from scratch.
remember also that the industry had a period of significant hub building and AA participated in it with several hubs which don't exist at all now.
So to say that AA will focus on its own hubs belies the fact that AA did build several hubs at one time and is now resorting to LAX as its only option on the west coast.
And again, it is still far from clear that AA will succeed at any kind of size of Asian operation either at DFW or LAX, both of which have enough competition to undermine AA's efforts as well as geographical disadvantages.
and the clear connection between AS and AA is on developing what AA needs that AA can help provide - and AA's biggest need is Asia and AS can do very little to help in that regard, unless AA decided to build out PDX. SEA is not big enough for both AA and DL to set up dual hubs while AS does very little for AA at LAX.
FrugalFlyerv2.0 said:
AA doesn't have to bring anything for AS. If, and that's a big if, AA were to buy or merge with AS, one of the main advantages would be to eliminate an airline so there would be no more of 'playing the field'. No more feed whatsoever on the west coast for DL or anybody that is not a part of AA/1-world. How viable would that great SEA hub be for DL then?
and it is indeed possible that AA would buy a carrier to eliminate competition if the DOJ would allow them - but it is far from a certainty that it would be allowed.
further, eliminating a competing carrier only works if you have another place to deploy the assets.
AS is a lower cost carrier but they also waste alot of their cost advantage by routing passengers from thoughout the US via SEA to other parts of the US because that is the only large hub that AS has.
That would not be the case in a combined AA-AS but you have to figure out what to do with the excess capacity you are eliminating.... and it is also possible that any combinations involving AS - which could also include WN - might involve reducing the amount of gates AS uses at SEA, a city that is not a logical connecting point for lower 48 domestic to domestic connections - but which also opens the door to you know who to grow using SEA as a hub where it does make more sense - as a gateway to Asia.
I still bet we will reopen this thread in five years to find that AS is still an independent airline and AA will have done what it can from LAX to Asia but will be a lot less than either what UA will have at SFO or DL will have at SEA - and less than alot of people here think that AA can do on the west coast overall.
the besst part is that threads of this forum are visible for the long haul and can be replied to years later if someone is so inclined.