Salt Lake City International Airport

American answers Delta’s expansion in Los Angeles with its own new push from LAX

American Airlines is joining its US legacy rival Delta during 2013 in making a push from Los Angeles International Airport, a strategic but highly fragmented market where no one carrier holds a dominant, commanding position. Presently United has a marginal edge over its two rivals in terms of seat share, but it appears that American and Delta are aiming to close that gap by adding new service from Los Angeles throughout the year.

Unlike Delta, which is launching service to some already-crowded markets from Los Angeles, American appears to be undertaking a different strategy, introducing service in markets served by only one other carrier. In some instances the only other competitor is Allegiant Air, which is a low-frequency operator whose business model is not built on competing with other airlines based on schedules. In other markets Delta is American’s lone competitor, introducing an interesting set of competitive dynamics into the Los Angeles market.

Delta’s new push to Paris confronts United and shows commitment to SkyTeam amid alliance shifts

Major shifts in the three major global airline alliances during the last few weeks have triggered a bevy questions regarding the future of those tie-ups. But just as Qantas attempts to forge a broad agreement with unaligned Emriates, British Airways has convinced reluctant members to allow Qatar to join oneworld and Air France has reversed its stance to embrace Etihad and airberlin, SkyTeam partners Delta and Air France are bolstering their presence in the US-France market.

It is not clear if Delta could benefit from the new Air France-Etihad tie-up that entails codesharing on flights to Abu Dhabi, but eventually Delta’s connecting customers in Paris could utlilise connections to the Middle East opened up by the new non-SkyTeam partnership.

Beginning in the northern hemisphere summer of 2013, Delta is introducing new flights from Newark Liberty International Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle, and new seasonal flights from Boston to Paris. Delta also plans to add another daily flight from its Atlanta hub to Paris, which will increase to four the combined number of daily services offered by Delta and Air France on the pairing.

FedEx cargo props up Memphis airport, but Delta cuts lower passenger traffic

In our examination of US hubs, Memphis stood out as its geography makes it vulnerable to being downsized. The latest announcements from Delta make that outcome more plausible.

Salt Lake City - a vulnerable hub?

In our recent review of the world’s largest airports, Salt Lake City failed to make the list. As a matter of fact, it is far down that list according to the airport’s own web site, at number 62 globally and 25th in terms of US ranked airports.

World Airport Rankings 2010: US airports dominate, Atlanta still biggest. Tokyo Haneda into Top 30

The world’s air traffic controllers had a slightly busier year in 2010, handling 0.8% more flights across the leading airports. But regional differences abound. Aircraft movements increased the most in Latin America-Caribbean (+6.2%), Middle East (+6.1%) and Asia Pacific (+5%) while movements continued to decline in Europe (-0.4%) and North America (-1.2%), according to Airports Council International.

American Airlines, Eagle launch corner-stone upgrade at Los Angeles

After rolling out its corner-stone strategy throughout the rest of its domestic network, American Airlines rounded out its service expansions and terminal upgrades by announcing 10 new destinations for its Los Angeles hub, from 05-Apr-2011. American estimates that its expanded service will add approximately USD600 million a year in local economic impact, increasing its total annual economic impact in Los Angeles to approximately USD6 billion. However, it did not quantify what the new service would do for the airline itself. American expects to add to its current 4,400 employee complement with the expansion.