Per Parker at a Crew News PHX is a tier 2 hub. He broke all hubs down by 1-3. LAX is maxed out, and can’t serve all the cities AA wants to serve with frequency. PHX handles much of the west coast/mountain region flying. It is very important to the company and provides relief for LAX AND DFW. It’s the 6th or 7th largest city, depending on whatever matrix, in the USA, a vacation destination, and has many companies inside its boarders.

SWA would laugh and take all the domestic and some international flying if AA left, and AA would never get any of it back. I believe PHX will stay for a lot longer than people think. Not all the traffic to the mountains and west can flow through DFW and LAX. Let’s not even get started on how much PHX cleans up the East Coast and Central weather issues. A lot the passengers were never suppose to go through PHX, but have to when DFW goes to hell.