Originally Posted by
Tinpusher007
This is promising. It's great that we are attempting to spread our wings a bit more across the globe and compete on our own metal. I do wonder if there will be more of a balancing of the core hubs though. Like, is it necessary or even good network strategy to have ATL at 900+ flights a day while DTW sits at, what ~ 300? I think MSP and SLC are a little better. But ATL and DTW handle a lot of the same connecting flows from the northeast and southeast, respectively. DTW has been scaled down so much so that the B and C gates almost look mothballed at certain times of the day. Meanwhile money is being spent in ATL to widen concourse D (rightfully so) to accommodate more people.
While true, that may not tell the entire story. The regional gates there have been significantly up-gauged. Gone are the days of trying to fly the world 50 (or less!) seats at a time. The 50 seaters were truly maxed out at 50. Today’s 76ers are really mostly 90 (all coach) seaters scoped to 76 which the company wants anyway because of first class. Airlines no longer have to compete with each others (and their own) inefficient 50 seater super hubs, so we see illusions that we like to label “ghost town” even at airports that continually set pax enplanement records like CVG. ATL D gates are getting swoled up because they’re not full of 50s and 30 seat Brazilias anymore, but 321s and 739s a lot.
IMO we get value from our presence in DTW. Even 300ish daily flights is significant. Current gauge makes that the equivalent of 500+ daily flights not that long ago. We only need one super hub, but it’s good to have other hubs. Just ask a gate or res agent during an irop!