Rippin has a point.

We are doing quite a bit of pax connections now thru AUS. That's so we insure we get the number of gates we want there. Bergstrom AUS airport assigns gates based on utilization. We are upping that by connecting thru AUS. Expect that to increase.

This is a precursor to a base. Will AUS be a pilot base. Yes. But not until after the new terminal is completed and we see how many gates the airport authority gives us. We are doing what we can to crank up the utilization rate there.

 

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/aust...ncentives/amp/

 

We really are not concerned about that.

 

Meanwhile BOS still doesn’t have a NB pilot base despite having hub status AND more gates than AUS’s best case scenario for many years.

You’ve been here long enough to understand this management team’s philosophy toward pilot basing. If a pilot base isn’t an absolute, overdue necessity (it won’t be), then a base won’t exist. If Flight Ops can’t get a firm commitment from Network to focus a specific fleet in AUS (they won’t), then a base won’t exist. If there’s any significant hiccup in the economy and/or industry (there will be), then a base (or even a hub) won’t exist.

 

In order for flight ops to open a pilot base it needs to reduce credit. That’s 98% of what goes into the decision. Everything else is background noise.

 

Thank you HK

I appreciate you seeing my point. I’ll take it as a small victory since I doubt we’ve ever agreed on something.

Austin build-up is clearly focused around capturing the strong O&D growing in central TX and giving Delta exposure to the Texas economy. It won’t be an DFW or IAH sized hub, but it’s being developed to do what Delta needs out of Texas: capturing corporate business, young tech professionals, and high-disposable income families.

As our operation scales with the O&D, connections will grow too. In fact, we already sale connection flights through AUS such as, “SEA>AUS>MSY or LAX>AUS>JAX”. The RJ ops will be up-gauged with mainline and frequency increase given time to mature. Intra-TX will come eventually, but be last. MFE, MAF, and HRL were gate squats that have since been moved to more lucrative flying.

It’s no secret Delta has longed for a TX presence since losing DFW. Everything they have done in Austin up to this point indicates “hub building”. Delta burned money in developing NYC and LAX to become number one and from what I understand, organically built up SEA and BOS to be hubs.

As much as I wish Southwest would offer AUS up on a silver platter to Delta they will defend their incumbent position and ABIA will not play favorites. I believe, their growth in AUS is reactionary to Delta just as it was to AA growth. If they become hub and spoke I don’t see how they hub AUS, DAL, and HOU. We will find out January when ABIA publicizes the lease agreement who gets how many gates, future growth allocation, club allocation, and more. Definitely no base until new terminal unfortunately.

 

BOS 320 flying has far exceeded the threshold for a base/category for years. There are some months when BOS has nearly double the 320 departures than SEA. Word is the current excuse as to why they won't open the category is that the MAX will be flooding into BOS once it arrives (supposedly to the extent that a 73N category will be opened next year), not that anyone really believes it. Further adding to the hypocrisy was the statement they made in opening MSP 220 regarding departures and reserve staffing as BOS already exceeds those thresholds. Maybe MSP passengers are just more important?

What crew resources fails to understand/grasp is that the more people who drive to work, the more reliability they will gain (even though the CPOs supposedly did the study and presented the data to crew resources). God forbid we reduce some of the behemoth ATL NB categories in size to allow us staffing in places where we have a sizable presence.

 

SWA lurker here, just interested in this discussion and what’s happening in AUS… plus I just enjoy a good old fashion airline turf war chat. Hope it’s okay if I hop in here. I agree that SWA is being reactionary and highly interested in defending AUS… DL is a formidable foe after all. Heard it directly from leadership in training actually. I also agree that the proximity to DAL and HOU could be problematic, unless SWA is betting its Texas future and business model shift on AUS, which is kind of what I suspect based on some internal messaging we’ve gotten. Of course though time will tell and I’m just speculating. DAL is gate and domestic flying limited by law and HOU lacks the infrastructure for any major flying mission shift. AUS has our most RON aircraft of any station and is up there on the commuter stations so I could absolutely see DAL and HOU being drawn down to mostly O&D and TX connections being moved mostly through AUS. The company appears to think that AUS is our future in Texas and will be a larger operation then both DAL and HOU by a wide margin as the network, mission, and product changes continue. I’m very curious about what the airport use and lease agreement looks like and will be watching closely. I suspect both DL and SWA will be fairly happy with the results and a good competition and solid fare deals in central Texas are brewing. Last thing I’ll say, crew planning for us put out a march vacancy projection that announced a new base without saying what city it will be. AUS is the prime suspect and we are expecting to hear by the end of this month. Something to watch I guess. DL definitely laying the groundwork for an AUS buildup and I will be watching closely.

 

Southwest is absolutely getting a AUS base. I can’t see how their recent commitment to the region goes without a pilot base. But, I imagine that will open in tandem with the FA base since it was just closed? Has a pilot base been opened before without a FA base?

 

All our pilot bases are in tandem with the FA bases now. The company had trialed some satellite basing for FAs only but ultimately shut them all down due to the extra cost and reliability issues the satellite station sick calls created. I can’t cite the source directly and this could be heresy but I’ve been told our FAs CBA requires closure of a satellite station before full domicile build up.