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With CO being the parent company, I am sure Houston would have gotten the HQ. There was even a discussion about it on other forums. CO wouldn't move its operations to Atlanta. Number one carrier in terms of flights, but the airline is a piece of crap. No wonder why it isn't growing.
I still disagree. But we'll never know. It's opinion. And other forums are opinion. We are having a forum on this. I think it would be an East coast city, probably Atlanta for cost reasons, you think Houston. HIstoricially, the larger company will concentrate its HQ where most of its operations are. Houston would probably fall to the #3 market behind Atlanta and NYC area as Delta has hubs at JFK, LGA, and Continental at Newark.
I wouldnt consider American a piece of crap either. They're the only legacy carrier to have never gone into Ch. 11 bankruptcy court protection.
So they must have done something right...and if it werent for our current bankruptcy laws, Continental wouldnt even be here today in the post deregulation era. American Airlines are the creators of the frequent flier program and have the largest membership.
AMerican is largest in the world on a variety of parameters: the most important passenger-miles. But it's also #1 in fleet size, and 2nd largest in the world in operating revenue.
Continental is 8th largest in the world for revenue passenger miles.
Like I say, Continental is great at what it does...it's a niche carrier that caters to the high end business traveler. It offers a premium product. They should keep doing what they're doing. American is great at what it does...it offers great frequency of flights to the business traveler and offers lots of options to America's largest population centers. Continental only has captured 7.7% of the market share. American stands #1 at 15.3%. Delta 11.1%, United 12.1%.
To illustrate that Continental is great at what it does is that it lacks the Top 10 domestic routes in the country. That's b/c it focuses on the product. It's great. No denying that. But for convenience, that's where American comes in. IT has twice the departures of Continental. It offes more connecting opportunities at its 3 mid-continent hubs of Chicago, St. Louis, and DFW. It offers more O/D options out of America's East/West Coast, and has large hubs in Miami and at NYC's JFK/LGA airports. It has focus operations out of Boston. And focus operations in LA.
And its product, though probably not as upscale as Continental, offers the most convenience for travelers leisure and business alike.
As for Delta, it's out of Ch. 11. It's costs are much lower. They're going to grow again and given its size, scope, and brand name recognition, and resources, will continue to expand their revenue streams.
There will be no merger.
The most likely merger to happen is Air Tran on Midwest Air.
If Continental and Delta hook up now that Delta is out of Ch. 11, COntinental will become Delta airlines. THe only way Continental would have been able to do it is the same way US Airways did it, through the bankruptcy court process.
But again, it's all opinion a/b where the HQ would have been. I have followed the Delta board for years since I follow the industry closely.
AS for American, they still have turbulence ahead...once they work out a deal with the pilots, hopefully things will smooth over and they can start expanding again. Ultimately, the best things for the US airline industry is consolidation, though it may not be optimal for the consumer. For the consumer, you should hope for continued growth of the next generation LCC's (Low Cost Carriers)...and what I Mean a/b that is not Southwest (though I'm rooting for SWA to fix their recent slide), I mean Virgin America, Skybus, Air Tran, Jet Blue. It will be interesting to see if Continental can keep up its product in the next downturn, as their costs are rising as it is only 1 of 2 legacy carriers that didnt declare Ch. 11 in this latest downturn....as a result...both American and Continental face competitive hurdles with the likes of Delta, NWA, United, US Airways. Though I truly believe United's business model is still broken. Now United/Continental hook up has been entertained...but again, Continental would lose the name forever and be retired in Houston IAH history...just like TWA and St. Louis.
So, back to the point.
I disagree with you on the HQ location of a delta/continental hook up. We'll never know now that Delta is out of Ch. 11 and with a better model than United's post Ch. 11 era.
I disagree with you a/b American being a piece of crap airline. They got the frequency, the market share, the frequent flier program, the number one rated hub in terms of connecting passengers and also number one hub in terms of the Airport itself, the right codeshare partners in BA, Cathay, Qantas to succeed. Liabilities include aging fleet, continued rising fuel costs, rising labor costs...but that goes for Continental and all other airlines.
When I fly for business or pleasure, I'm happy that American has the frequency of flights it has, b/c it allows me to get in and out of places whenever I need to.
Okay seriously, out of IAH and DFW, Continental and American are not that much different in number of flights. It is nothing that blows CO away.
Yes, but the vast options of American makes me want American as my hub carrier over Continental. I love Continental's product. It's sort of what Midwest Air had done for itself...create a niche. But I still prefer American for its vast reach across markets, its FF program, etc.
But Continental is in a good position, but it will face the same problems as American will as they're facing fierce competition from the post-Ch. 11 carriers who have managed to brutally lower their costs in bankruptcy...cost advantage is huge in this industry...that's why SWA's fuel hedges have made life great for consumers and itself all these years. To me, the whole process unfairly rewards carriers that did not make good decisions. Having said that, it kept CO alive all these years from their 1990 filings...but overall it's a flawed process. The process kept TWA longer than it should have been kept around....though it was a sad day to see TWA disappear as this was one legacy carrier that really changed American History in so many ways. If the legacy carriers liquidated, the LCC's and newer carriers would have in due time fill in the gaps. And both American and Continental would have been rewarded for their good decisions. More jobs would have been brought to Texas, etc.
So the big question now remains...can the legacy carriers who did not use Ch. 11 in this latest downturn compete effectively against the post Ch. 11 carriers?
I do believe United's business model is still broken. Their insistance on keeping TED around is IMO a big mistake. Delta is taking a better approach overall, but they're still plus/minus. US Airways (aka America West) has a good plan...but they're competing heavily against carriers with lower cost structures: ie Frontier, Jet Blue, Air Tran, and Southwest.
Northwest has a decent shield in Minneapolis/St. Paul (fyi, it's also a multi city area like DFW), Detroit, and Memphis...so they're still well positioned, though their hub cities are not great O/D markets like CO's Houston and Newark or American's Miami, NY, DFW, LA, and Chicago.
Cleveland and St. Louis to me are small markets in the grand scheme of the airline industry.
Interpretation of your posts (i.e. text) which can only be interpreted whether a statement was articulated in a proper manner or not is what gave my opinion "accuracy". In other words, if you word it in a manner you did not intend, you will still get an interpretation that best fits the text if it's blatantly ovbious to dissect..
Sweety, your opinion was not accurate. You can dress up your post with all your fancy word play all you want to, but instead of it making you sound like your right, it's making you sound silly.
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Of course you can, as long as the text implies it. Any misunderstanding is apprently caused by you posting something and me taking it the wrong way? If so, then stop boasting of dallas being a small city by itself and refusing the use of DFW to be a means of competing with the houston. If bigger does not equal better you should logically allow such, but instead dread it with great dislike as if DFW is an unfair comparison to greater houston. (or possibly better)
No one was boasting about anything. I was simply stating the facts. You're making it seem like I was saying "Houston will always be bigger ha ha ha ha."
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Believe what? Because i don't believe you, you will disagree to statements you actually agree with? I don't get it.
No, you won't believe that there was no bias is my stating of facts.
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That is exactly where you digressed...The subject was that dallas is a success without the conveniance of a body of water. You replied to a statement of mine that had nothing to do with my post, therefore it was you who strayed from topic. I said that "dallas prospered anyway" because you weren't adressing my comment regarding dallas's success as a landlocked city..
Oh my God. Where did you go to school? You cannot digress from a new topic when the other topic wasn't even finished. I was replying to what you said before. Why? Because I wasn't done. You changed the subject, so you digressed.
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What? Of course you can...
Um, no you can't.
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Here:
[i]What you don't understand however, is that Dallas is its own city,that doesn't plan on adding buildings for the sake of competition. It obviously doesn't require a port or more buildings to surpass houston in certain aspects.
and: Wait a minute..So the port offers no great benefit to houston? As opposed to the many statements i have seen regarding the" blessing" of an ocean/port you're suggesting that the landlocked city limits of houton are doing most of the work and deserve the most credit for its prosperity. Just as the landlocked DFW metro is prospering without the aforementioned.[/I
^ You starred them for some reason.
Because you got off topic.
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You showed me an image showing a body of water going through houston. I believed you, i wasn't being sarcastic.
Yeah? Well according to you, I guess I can infer "accurately" that you were being sarcastic since your text lead me to believe so.
But you know what? We're not discussing anymore, we're practically arguing and it's very off topic, so...you know what to do.
I do believe United's business model is still broken. Their insistance on keeping TED around is IMO a big mistake. Delta is taking a better approach overall, but they're still plus/minus. US Airways (aka America West) has a good plan...but they're competing heavily against carriers with lower cost structures: ie Frontier, Jet Blue, Air Tran, and Southwest.
Northwest has a decent shield in Minneapolis/St. Paul (fyi, it's also a multi city area like DFW), Detroit, and Memphis...so they're still well positioned, though their hub cities are not great O/D markets like CO's Houston and Newark or American's Miami, NY, DFW, LA, and Chicago.
Cleveland and St. Louis to me are small markets in the grand scheme of the airline industry.
About those hub cities. CO has Houston, Newark, and Cleveland, while American has DFW, Chicago, Miami, and St. Louis. Where did you other hubs come from? Those are more focus cities than hubs.
About those hub cities. CO has Houston, Newark, and Cleveland, while American has DFW, Chicago, Miami, and St. Louis. Where did you other hubs come from? Those are more focus cities than hubs.
Ah, you've been reading wikipedia I see. Wikipedia is not always accurate since it's written by ordinary folks.
FYI,
You forgot San Juan, which is the United States also So DFW, Chicago, Miami, St. Louis, and San Juan, but aviation analyst typcially call American's JFK their international hub and regional NE gateway as they have several American Eagle flights feeding into the hub for Europe, S. America, and Florida. HIstorically, American had been the largest operator out of JFK until Jet Blue arrived, which had a much lower cost structure than American. Now Jet Blue has gone from nothing to controlling 49% of the JFK market. It's the "Jet Blue" effect instead of the "Southwest effect", a term coined by the FAA. Combine that with the handicap effect of 9-11 on American, and you got Jet Blue winning the JFK battle.
American is the 2nd largest carrier at JFK by market share in at 16.69% and takes a lot of O/D traffic, however, it does have connectivity of a hub as well. They are currently working on constructing a brand new terminal for American Airlines. It's partly done already and is state of the art and beautiful...befitting for the flagship carrier of the United States. The new JFK terminal has won some awards already. They're currently working on Terminal 8 to join Terminal 9. The finished product will be excellent as American's main international gateway hub. The finished product will have 32 gates, which is a hub my many people's standards. The JFK terminal is roughly the same size as Continental's Cleveland hub, but of course more mainline jets out of JFk as Cleveland's Continental Hub is actually mostly operated by ExpressJet, which is not owned by Continental.
The American airline St. Louis hub is more of a fair comparison to CO's Cleveland hub. Both are operated more by their regional jet carriers, the difference is that American Eagle is wholly owned by the AMR corp. However admittedly, American Connection also provides several flights and like Expressjet, it is not owned by the mainline carrier.
But domestically outside of Newark, Houston, and Cleveland, Continental does not have much market share anywhere else compared to the likes of American, United, and Delta.
American: DFW, Chicago, Miami, St. Louis, San Juan, then JFK, LA (which also has feeder traffic with connections), LaGuardia, Boston, & Raleigh Durham. They also have considerable growing market share in Austin, TX as they're making that a focus city. Focus cities are meant for O/D traffic typically and to bypass large hubs. Austin recently has been a growing market for Austin: Non stops served from Austin by American include: Chicago, Dallas, LA, Orange Co, Raleigh/Durham, St. Louis, and San Jose. The San Jose has done real well since American recently added that on.
Express Jet's stand alone carrier also has some added service to Austin, but it's not in conjunction with Continental.
Last edited by metroplex2003; 06-30-2007 at 07:32 PM..
Well CO has a hub somewhere else. Forgot where it was and Wikipedia is not just written by ordinary fold . It would have been changed if untrue.
Actually anyone can change wikipedia. I have corrected it on occasion when motivated enough to do so. That's the beauty of Wikipedia. It's an example of a free process where millions around the world take interest in particular subjects, they have an own self motivation to be watchdogs for accuracy. It's an interesting marketplace phenomenon b/c there is no financial reward involved, but the reward of knowing that the truth is texted in. But anyone can change or edit articles....even you can if you find something wrong a/b the Houston page I use wikipedia too...that's how I knew you were reading it...but mainly b/c it is accurate for the most part and convenient...but I do check out their links to see where they got their info from.
No, Continental's hubs are Newark, Houston, CLeveland in the United States. If you recall my post, I said "domestically"....I did carefully word it!
Guam is their international transfer point..via Continental Micronesia. Though Guam in itself does not have any local traffic to feed the Guam transfer point.
In fact, the airport is so small that Continental does not even bother to show its terminal map.
But you can easily look up market share at each individual airport outside of those 3. Continental only shows up #3 in Texas cities, but otherwise most other major airports it has single digit market shares. Express Jet going at it as a stand alone carrier is also hurting some of their operations, especially in Texas.
American on the otherhand frequently is the #2 carrier in non-hub markets. Example is Newark. In Cleveland, American/American Eagle is #3.
In our state of TExas, American clearly has the edge over Continental market share wise, and also DFW's other airline Southwest. Though SWA clearly has the market share over both American and Continental in Texas. However, historically speaking in non hub airports, SWA has taken over market share in pretty much all markets that are non-hub and are not served by Jet Blue, Frontier, Air Tran with the exception of BWI, where I believe SWA beats out Air Tran.
Example: Austin Texas: Southwest 33.94% American 26%...meaning greater than one out of two people from Austin choose to fly a DFW based airline.
San Antonio, TX: SWA, 36% American 20.22%. Over 1 out of 2 flyers choose SWA or American in this circumstance.
El Paso: SWA: 49.83% American 21.86% Continental 4.89%
Like I say, and we can debate this on and on, but Continental is great at what it does. I hope it doesnt change...b/c we do need a carrier that offers a premium product like MIdwest Air does but on a national level like Continental does. Continental is the only US carrier to still offer free "snacks"...which equates to "sandwiches" on long haul domestic flights. It caters to the premium business traveler, and it's a good thing as they need to differentiate themselves from all the other airlines that are increasingly looking like no frills airlines. American caters to the business traveler who needs a great frequent flier program with lots of depth and reach, the business traveler who wants frequency of flights between our nation's population centers, and also leisurly travelers who like the <$200 ticket to places like Miami from Austin, or Orlando to Vegas.
But survey after survey does show how price sensitive americans can be. American airlines got rid of its "More Room throughout Coach" program b/c it couldnt make up the revenue difference from the 15 seats it lost on narrow body flights. THis is part of the reason why I think United's model is broken. They are insistent upon using Economy plus (the equiv. of "More Room Throughout Coach" on their planes, which means they are losing revenue per flight compared to the traditional airlines.
It will be interesting though if Continental can steer through the next airline downturn keeping many of its perks up for business travelers as its costs rise relative to its post-Ch. 11 rivals. Right now, the airline industry is in turmoil...even though Continental and American are "healthier", they are by no means out of the woods. Continental does have an advantage b/c it is a much smaller carrier than American...so as much as I would like Texas' #3 airline to continue to grow like crazy...it must be met with fiscal responsibility. It has a great product as long as they can keep size at a modest pace rather than rapid pace. As people have seen United and American over the years, size has haunted them. But I think American is a resilient airline, it was one of our airlines targeted at 9-11 b/c it was the largest and still is largest in the world, and yet this airline struggled through it all and avoided Ch. 11. I think you have to tip your hat off to the employees of American airlines for keeping Texas' largest airline afloat. It's amazing, you can get from archive this CNBC special "American Airlines: A Week in the Life of 'the world's largest airline'" It tells the story of American's struggle to survive in what is still airline industry turmoil. It's a very nice documentary that will change your opinion of airlines and the fares they charge and the things they do to cost cut. Lots of behind the scenes info. I highly recommend b/c some of this can be extrapolated to Continental.
As for American, it needs to steer through labor issues and make sure at the end of negotiations with the pilots union that it maintains costs that are relatively competitive with the post Ch. 11 folks. Unfortunatley for American and Continental, they have pension liabilities that the post-Ch 11 carriers do not have.
Other liabilities include the 1 trillion unused frequent flier miles of which American owns a large share of that having the largest frequent flier program...American has reduced their expiration time to 18 months, which is smart.
FYI, I do not work for the airline industry, but I've watched it closely for years b/c it does fascinate me and its relation to our nation's economic framework.
Sweety, your opinion was not accurate. You can dress up your post with all your fancy word play all you want to, but instead of it making you sound like your right, it's making you sound silly.
Awesome...more ad hominems that are instead full of anything, but substance.
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No one was boasting about anything. I was simply stating the facts. You're making it seem like I was saying "Houston will always be bigger ha ha ha ha."
I believe you, but why in the hell do houstoners take offense when people claim that the dallas metroplex is larger than houston? No need to argue the trivial factors of a city that you claim have no influence in the city you prefer right?
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No, you won't believe that there was no bias is my stating of facts.
There will always be a bias in this thread, let's admit it. I favor Dallas and you favor Houston. I didn't bring the sustainability to state the facts but to bash houston and raise dallas on an even higher pedestal. With that in mind, what use is stating the facts on a thread that is meant to convey which city is better? There has to be some subtle use for it, is what i'm saying.
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Oh my God. Where did you go to school? You cannot digress from a new topic when the other topic wasn't even finished. I was replying to what you said before. Why? Because I wasn't done. You changed the subject, so you digressed.
What? Of course you can...i created another topic for the people of this thread to ponder, you replied to it, however at one point you dodged one of my points(said above). No one is obligated to keep talking about structures and the like. This whole thread consists of multiple digressions, going by your logic.
^ there is your answer(an answer you ignored in my last reply).
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Because you got off topic.
Ironically that is the same place that i'm saying you got off-topic. The only difference is that i never replied to any of your posts digressing, thus i never got off-topic. I'm beginning to repeat myself because of the sheer fact that you are either ignoring my replies or don't understand.
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Yeah? Well according to you, I guess I can infer "accurately" that you were being sarcastic since your text lead me to believe so.
Go ahead, although it will be lacking in any further evidence to "accurately" give it foundation.
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But you know what? We're not discussing anymore, we're practically arguing and it's very off topic, so...you know what to do.
I'm going to just take your word that houston's size has been emphasized, to only state the facts. It will be hard though, considering numerous other posters who use it in a positive manner to lower dallas.
Continental does
733 flights a day at IAH to 178 non-stop destinations with 76 being International
I know AA has more flights at DFW with fewer destinations and only serves 32 International Destinations
DFW also handles more passengers than IAH
Last Year DFW was the 6th busiest airport in the world with 60,079,107 passengers with an increase of 1.3% over the previous year.
IAH was the 16th busiest airport in the world with 42,628,663 passengers with an increase of 7.4% over the previous year.
IAH had 7,411,010 International Passengers, while
DFW has 5,686,827 International Passengers
IAH overall has less passenger traffic than DFW but more international traffic.
17.4% of IAH traffic is international passengers while
9.5% of DFW traffic is international passengers
The increase in passenger traffic and the increase in international traffic are due in large part to the success of Continental Airlines. It is by far the largest airline at IAH with a larger presence at IAH than AA at DFW.
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So DFW, Chicago, Miami, St. Louis, and San Juan, but aviation analyst typcially call American's JFK their international hub and regional NE gateway as they have several American Eagle flights feeding into the hub for Europe, S. America, and Florida. HIstorically, American had been the largest operator out of JFK until Jet Blue arrived, which had a much lower cost structure than American. Now Jet Blue has gone from nothing to controlling 49% of the JFK market. It's the "Jet Blue" effect instead of the "Southwest effect", a term coined by the FAA. Combine that with the handicap effect of 9-11 on American, and you got Jet Blue winning the JFK battle.
. It would have been changed if untrue.
