Originally Posted by
BlueJetDork
The discussion is in regards to SFO becoming a new base when we are rumored to get permanent gates.
A new base would have to comply with the "industry-leading" pairing parameters which require a certain trip mix and 5% of pairings would have to be 1-day pairings.
Other than SFO to LGB, SFO only operates transcons with Mint equipped aircraft.
Unless something drastic changes to SFO and the company decides to add back old city pairs or adds new ones the flying in SFO may support a crew base but the contract as written does not permit it.
So, let's take this apart.
The thing that's stopping a base from opening in SFO is the lack of frequency to and from the station. With only 15 flights a day, it doesn't make any sense to operate a domicile from that small of a station.
But let's say the company decided to open a domicile. At 15 flights a day, with 2 flights per day going to LGB, that's 13% of the schedule. They could make the 5% requirement comply. Even better, it'd likely be a co-domicile with SJC and OAK, boosting that number even more. I have no doubt the company could figure out how to shoehorn one line of day trips into a single line of flying out of 20 lines.
It's easy to make the rest of the trip mix work using the trans cons, but there's no need to do that, because the flying is covered just fine from the East coast at present.
If DCA, which I'm pretty sure has more flights per day than LGB, isn't a domicile yet, SFO isn't going to become one. It isn't because of the contract, it's because it makes no sense to open SFO as a domicile.