Originally Posted by
nene
Yes indeed, this reeks of "free beer tomorrow sign"
If/when JB decides that operating international from BOS and JFK won't work, then a BOS base will go back on a back burner faster than last weeks dinner.
A plethora of events could happen between now and the end of next summer (many of which haven't even been thought of yet) that could/would change this declaration.
JB's international aspirations have nothing to do with this IMO.
There is and has been far more flying than needed to justify a base there for a while now. The problem has been too many redundant fleet types force multiplied by marketing's absolute dominance over flight ops. Every flight operated in or out of BOS has to be from a different equipment or different bases. That dilutes it so severely that bases easily as big as JB's bases there become radically less efficient.
But despite all that, its finally getting to critical mass where it justifies it despite the overlapping inefficiencies of a million BES's.
JB cleaned DL's clock in BOS for a long time. We gave them an entire terminal by building the billion dolalr Taj Mullin and abandoning the old one. That's the real reason JB initially pulled their red eye trans cons out of ATL; it was never DL and AirTran's subcontracted fre wars. It was JB seeing an opportunity to pounce and absolutely dominate one of the best domestic markets in the world while their competitors were collapsing on the Chapter 11 courthouse steps.
IMO DL's actual presence in BOS is far more important than any small ball hotel cost saving crew base. That said, it seems very likely it will be a crew base for pilots.