Wolfie

I have a proposal for the overload that many airports may/are experiencing, and that is to open up new hubs in cities that aren't nearly at capacity, of course if the airline has enough funds/workers to do so. It would alleviate problems at airports, and would create new jobs in cities that are now hubs. A few I have in mind are Reno/Tahoe Airport as an alternative for the Northern Pacific area, as a relief hub for these airports, SFO, SJC, OAK, PDX, and possibly SEA.
An alternative for SoCal, and Phoenix Sky Harbor would be Tucson International, which I do not believe is at capacity yet. For the more congested Eastern US, TEB might serve as a NYC area airport reliever, and ISP may also.
A possible way to connect the relieving airports would be to use widebodies from the relief hub to the main hub, for example, if US Airways used TUS as a relief hub for PHX, they could have A330/757/767s operating PHX-TUS while said aircraft is waiting to be turned back to an international/Hawaii route. Any others that I may have missed, please provide input. Mods, if this is in the wrong place for this thread, please move it into the correct place. Any comments, questions welcome.

forgot to bid

As to NYC, TEB is not an option as it is already over saturated and has limited space and Islip never caught on with SWA or they wouldn't want LGA so bad. Half of NYs problems are not just limited in space but also the gates in and out and Washington centers saturation to the south.

iPilot

It's cheaper for the airlines to live with the delays. In fact, they often MAKE delays to ensure that other airlines don't try and get footholds in their turf. The moment an airline opens up space for landings at their fortress hub, other airlines will just fill them up with competing flights. Why start operations at satellite hubs just to have your competitors fill in the space you just left open?

Wolfie

I was thinking along the lines of relieving overcapacity, and not letting other airlines get in, but making it more comfortable for the good of the airline, so that there are not excessive delays.

Justdoinmyjob

Delta used to use the 777 between ATL and MCO like that, and bled money like a hymophiliac. The first thing GH did when he took over route management was axe it.

flynwmn

Wasn't NW using 330's between SEA and MSP/DTW?

propsync

My favorite jumpseat was a L-1011 on the same route pre 9-11. I sat in the gate area for two hours listening to screaming kids amped for the mouse. When I got up front, the captain was gracious to offer me anything in first. I explained my ordeal (I was done with screaming kids) and he set me up behind his chair in the best jumpseat I was ever in, and I witnessed the best landing I expect to ever see.

To the OP. The airlines can't make money now. They won't spend any more just to TRY something like reduce delays. Plus, you need plenty of O+D from the area to make a go. Most of those places can't support a hub. I live in MKE, and you really can't get a good enough scale to provide enough destinations to really call it a hub. AirTran might get 20-25 cities out of it. That would get you within an hours drive of the majority of the nation, but is that enough to really call it a hub?

Tankerhead

"Amped for the mouse" took me a minute. When it finally clicked I choked on my Count Chocula. Good one.

I used to enjoy the empty tristars on the pre-911 ATL-TPA route.

Avroman

Yes when they were cancelling numerous narrowbody flights from lack of crew. They were also running 330s between DTW and MSP to clean up the backlog. In fact 1 day it was so bad they ran a 744 to cover 3 cancelled 757s.