Originally Posted by
hercretired
Historically, a base has needed 20-ish direct flights to other cities as Step-1 before consideration for base. It has also needed on-site local Airbus maintenance talent, contractor or otherwise, and hangar space for overnight maintenance or maintenance while bad weather existed.
A large number of TDY/RON/overnights in that location was also a consideration, as this cost the company alot of money.
IAH has 6 cities served by Frontier
HOU has 3 cities.
CLE and CVG each have 11 or 12 cities
so...
If you really want to get technical:
CVG -
11 (DEN, LAS, PHX, CUN, MIA, RSW, TPA, MCO, ATL, RDU, PHL)
CLE -
13 (DEN, LAS, PHX, DFW, CUN, MIA, FLL, RSW, TPA, MCO, ATL, RDU, PHL)
DFW - 19 (DEN, LAS, PHX, SFO, ONT, SNA, SAN, CUN, MBJ, MIA, TPA, MCO, ATL, RDU, BWI, PHL, LGA, CLE, MDW)
IAH -
6 (DEN, LAS, CUN, MCO, ATL, PHL)
HOU -
4 (DEN, LAS, CUN, MCO)
I doubt either IAH or HOU will ever be a base. Flying out of either airport has not picked up since Nov '22. We will have nine bases starting in May. IMO, a base would have to be within the top 15 preforming locations consistently before being considered. Let's see where things are starting May through the summer.