What's old is new; AA de-banking DFW
 

They swore they'd never do this again lol.

They also swore they'd never lose money again.

How did it work out last time?

More banks spread out. Does this mean more redeyes and ODANs for DFW bubbas?

It means more pay, fewer MICs, fewer lost bags. Better for pilots, better for passengers. Costs the company money in the short-term. Finally some investment in the future, it's about time.

Znotins did this at IAH when he was here. The reliability of the hub shot up and the airport operations team took the credit. It resulted in a lot of lost revenue though and the recovery post Covid resulted in more traditional banks being added as passenger traffic warranted. I guess my point here is the success that will follow this strategy will depend on the metric chosen to highlight. From the pilot perspective, I believe you will see it as a positive.

The revenue benefit will return in the medium-long term, at least in theory. It's part of creating a better customer experience. Hopefully they're serious about this and follow through for the long-term benefit. Instead of chickening out and going back to the same losing strategy that's been tried and failed already.

Thanks for the insight! I agree; stoked to see more moves to make us better, more competitive, more profitable.

It worked awesome. When they went back to the banks several years ago, it was borderline dangerous. You could hear the FTW Center controllers getting overwhelmed with vectors and speed changes. It was also a mess on the ground.

Not my monkeys anymore but less bunched up DFW traffic can only help when I fly into there or the adjacent airports.

ETA: It’s not more banks, it’s continuous flow at a manageable rate.

Just out of genuine curiosity: how does it cost money in the short term?

Technically it is more banks, increasing from 9 to 13. But yes it smooths out the flow.

In the short term it increases crew pay, reduces aircraft utilization efficiency, and prevents the company from squeezing revenue capture out of selling unrealistic connections.

In the medium/long term it improves reliability, customer experience, and mishandled bag rate.

A rolling hub is great when the weather is great (ATL). But when thunderstorms roll throughand departure/arrival gates get shut down the system gets overwhelmed and there is no longer any accumulator to absorb the shock. If the airport shuts down it’s even worse, it’s impossible to catch up.

Look at what happens to Delta in ATL when thunderstorms roll through or it snows. It takes Delta days to recover.

I predict this will fail and will last for a single summer.

Delta makes a fortune out of ATL—what’s your point again?

My point is DFWs weather is terrible and ATL is not.

Sure Jan….

On the flip side maybe they'll have more gates available so less chicken before the egg problem in regards to crews stuck on inbounds waiting on airplanes to push, which are waiting on the crews to park at said gate.

In the past it has always been about connections; maybe they were able to rig up a solution just based on the shear number of flights. By that I mean maybe DFW is just so big now, that a rolling hub can preserve most of the connections that used to only exist with say 600 departures whereas now we do like 900.

LMAO what?

ATL seems to get a lot less TS that just sit, some squall lines that pass through quickly and that's it. Also a ton less winter weather. It's a much better hub, not just in weather but geographical location, and layout as well.

according to the NWS ATL has 45 days with thunderstorms a year mostly in the spring. DFW has 77 mostly in the summer (July) durring the peak schedule.

not my data just a fact.

you guys ***** on here all the time about how terrible DFW weather is and how bad AA is at handling it.

I would say the same thing if United said they were turning DEN into a rolling hub. It would be a god awful idea. Some hubs need the accumulator to barely function

Do you have a link to your source. I thought a significant amount of weather related delays in DFW occurred in April and May.

Winter weather in DFW? I think we had one morning last year where they had the Deice trucks ready to go and nothing happened.

all I did was google it. Didn’t do much research.

averages 2.6 inches of snow per year….again I just googled it.

do you not remember Ted Cruz fleeing to CUN as Armageddon swept over Texas?

“DFW gets relatively little snow, averaging about 1.7 inches per winter season, though totals vary significantly, with some winters seeing trace amounts and others experiencing significant accumulation.”


“Chicago O'Hare (ORD) Airport typically sees about 38 inchesof snow annually, with winters bringing around 28 snowy days, though totals vary significantly year-to-year, ranging from very little to over 80 inches during heavy seasons like 1978-79.”

so winter weather is a thing?

I was responding to a post that said Atlanta gets a lot less winter weather. ATL gets an average of 2.9
inches of snow. Neither Metros experience real winters. It was 80 degrees during Christmas in Dallas.

Yeah the place basically shut down for a week.

They will probably give us more 3 hour sits to help mitigate crew misconnects.

ok don’t think that’s what you said. And yes ATL gets a lot less winter weather than DFW.

anyways don’t care anymore good luck!

Delta has problems because their operation isn't actually better than anyone else's, despite the lies they feed the public and their employees. They do things like beefing block time to make it appear better on normal days.

When **** hits the fan, they can't keep up.

Meanwhile American causes its own problems with things like unrealistic connections and underblocking the schedule. This block time increase and spreading out more banks will help solve the problems the airline has created for itself.

Lol, source is “google”. Trust me bro.

New "look what Delta has, and we don't" obsession unlocked.

I just pulled up ATL to DFW flight schedules for a random weekday this week. AA and DL both operate the route 8 times daily. AA’s average scheduled block is 2:36. DL’s is 2:33.

I would agree with you about our management at DL offering more talk than substance though.

You can't pull up one route on one day like this and think it tells you anything. That comparison means nothing for several reasons:

(1) Gate positions, taxi out times, route selection, etc. all have impacts on average block time.

(2) When talking about thousands of daily flights, a sample size of 8 is irrelevant, you have to look at a multitude of routes to get a complete picture.

(3) The comparison isn't "AA block time versus DL block time", it's *actual* expected block time versus *scheduled* block time for each airline. In the comparison you gave, let's say Delta's actual average block time for ATL-DFW is 2:25 and American's actual average block is 2:35 for that same route (due to the factors I listed in point 1). Delta has 2:33 scheduled (they've buffered the scheduled time by 8 minutes), while American has 2:36 scheduled (they've only buffered the scheduled time by 1 minute). Obviously Delta's on-time performance on paper will be superior, because they've built in more time beyond the actual expected duration. What you'll see starting in April is American using the same technique to improve their on-time performance.

Not trying to be a jerk here, but pulling up a single route comparison like that is literally a waste of time.

Do you have any data to support your claim that Delta consistently pads block times, relative to American?

I’m not saying that a sample size of 8 can prove otherwise, but it should be easy to support your claim if the issue is truly widespread.

Delta generally does the opposite - they have tighter block times but increased the time on the ground so that any moderate and under delays can be absorbed into the system. This still allows passengers to make connections and reduces crew costs due to lower block times.

Not sure about others but I hardly ever over-block here which means the company is overpaying on labor the vast majority of the time.

Atlanta is a ****hole poorly ran crime ridden city where nobody wants to live. Dallas on the other-hand is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. They can have Hotlanta lol.

But Delta had Atlanta based rapper Ludacris perform at their 100th anniversary bash. What Dallas based artist is AA going to hire for our 100th anniversary bash?

Kelly Clarkson and Post Malone of course!

And Lainey Wilson.

Willy Nelson
Is he still alive?