Originally Posted by
APTAP
I do agree that losing ground to any airline in Austin is a mistake. But realistically, it will be way more than 20 years before- or if- Austin becomes a mega-hub for any one. As it stands, the city of Austin’s use of imminent domain to take the south terminal away from Lonestar Airport Holdings- and the ensuing lawsuit- slowed expansion efforts
The Terminal B expansion project won’t be complete until around 2029/30. And that only adds 20 gates- bringing it to 54. Far from a mega-hub.
There is not a date to begin construction on a future Terminal C- which would be connected via tunnel. Even then, that’s only another 20 gates as proposed right now.
I would have loved to have Austin as a base.
I would have liked to see it as a base too, although quite impractical due to its distance from DFW. I also agree with your analysis.
DFW metro population 8.34M
ATL metro population 6.41M
AUS metro population 2.5M
Could it be a connection mega-hub like Charlotte? Probably but Delta already has one of those (a little farther than DFW but close enough) so it makes little sense to compete with themselves. Most likely it will just be a decent but not amazing city for O&D traffic.
Does that mean I'm happy conceding it to Delta? No, but we have more important battles to fight in the meantime.
Blaming the retreat on APA (for all their faults) is silly. AA management opted to violate the scope clause instead of negotiating. I would have been happy to grant them an RJ mini-hub for Delta's global scope and a 1 for 1 match of United's widebody fleet size.