Originally Posted by
GPullR
Sorry,
Yields to orlando from anywhere are lower then most places. Its vacationers not business people. Vacationers book their travel months ahead of time and rarely pay full fare for business class. Just the nature of what Orlando is. Vacationers are looking for bargain fares as a general rule. You will never see an international hub in Orlando for United.
This is where Orlando is now. I have to imagine SK et al are thinking about what Orlando looks like in 10-30 years from now. The
3rd largest university in America, massive population growth
across the entire I-4 corridor (wink wink TPA co-base), and the
largest hospital in America. I want to move there, so maybe I'm biased, but this is a very different Orlando from even 10 years ago.
I can't imagine a scenario in which Orlando does not see the kind of high-income business traffic that makes a IAH/DEN/PHX/SLC viable as a hub (NYC/LAX/ORD/SFO, it is not... for sure). And it's a chance to hit AA in FL. And it's the most logical UA foothold in the Southeast. Compounded with the desire to get ahead of DAL and the international carriers who are already making moves in MCO/TPA...
But they already know all of this, which is why they are starting with the pilot base and
massive MRO. As soon as they've maximized new delivery demand in the existing hubs, MCO is the obvious choice. Maybe even sooner if they buy JetBlue and get those shiny new C gates...