LOL, “economic gravity is going to eventually win.” That's how I feel about a lot of companies (how is Tesla still alive?). But the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, to paraphrase another economist.
That said, I think AA strengthens ORD. If they were to be snapped out of existence, it would take UA a long time to fill 50% of the gap, and they would never get to 100%.
This is getting exhausting. Kirby is a brilliant leader and has done a great job at United but the obsession with talking about American’s failures is repetitive and frankly annoying.
Agreed. Clearly he has a personal grudge because he was exited from American, but he needs to grow up. That is his personal grudge - not anyone else's. We don't care how much he hates AA or wants to beat them. Keep it to yourself and focus more on where you're investing and growing the airline and passenger experience, not how much AA sucks.
I agree he has a bone to pick with AA....but agree the focus is now comical....move on and focus on your airline....
Also, in terms of the consumer benefit, I watched clips of his interview with Crains and he's not really talking about prices as directly per se.
The way he framed it was that today, American and United have a lot of replicated catchment area flights for ORD (e.g., Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Bloomington, etc.). Because they are both competing in this market, they have to duplicate capacity in those places (and often with smaller planes to maintain economics, which takes up flight slots).
Whereas if AA wasn't a major competitor, United could up-guage those flights, reduce frequencies, and then fly other new routes, and more new international routes, with the newly available flight slots / capacity. Also those regional routes would be on nicer / bigger planes.
Now, I'm not saying I agree with this argument! But I think he's more so saying consumers would benefit from more routes, bigger planes, not that they would benefit from lower prices or schedule flexibility or anything like that...
Yep, exactly. United would save money, and then squeeze out even more in fares. It is quite the opposite of what any thinking consumer would support.
What is wrong with smaller planes and greater frequency? I'd rather spend an hour with fewer people on a regional jet with 1-2 or 2-2 configuration, than 2-2 or 3-3. Of course, I would rather take the train, but that alternative has left the station. Taxiing to the gate now takes as much time as the flight, But fewer short-hop flights would just open slots for more long-haul and the maneuvering would be just as bad.
Kirby's arrogance will be his downfall.
And the future looks a heck of a lot brighter for the DFW area than it looks for the Chicagoland area.
I hope AA is starting to gets it act together, and if so the easy wins for Kirby are over.
Considering what a disaster Newark is, a United O'Hare quasi-monopoly would be even worse. Kirby and United need their wings klipped. I am through flying them.
Newark would be a disaster no matter which airline is there. The airport is a dump, the city is a dump, the state is a dump...
We need American Airlines out of the way so Delta and United can lead.
We need Delta out of the way because it's evil and because the rest of US airports can be like O'Hare.
"What choice does American really have? [It] needs a hub in the Midwest." Welp, speaking as a St. Louis resident, the schadenfreude here is delicious.
As an Expat living in a foreign country, the only other big mid west city alongside Chicago that most people in Britain seem to know of is Detroit. In rural Denmark both Minneapolis and St. Louis are much better known than in the UK, not sure why.