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Originally Posted by DoubleC
Anymore? Where was it originally?
Also, couldn't a city like Austin become a hub anytime, even with a lack of traffic most hubs have? A Delta hub in Austin would mean Texas would have a base for each of the current airline giants (American, United, and Delta), not to mention Southwest already has a large presence in its 4 largest cities. People wouldn't necessarily have to want to go to Austin, but Austin could still be of use if it serves as a place for people to connect to other flights. Delta currently has no hubs in the central US (except Memphis maybe, which has less traffic than Bergstrom), so this would provide some competition with American and United in Texas.
My father recently flew on Delta from Austin to Minneapolis to Phoenix since it was the cheapest route available (Southwest was pricy). It did seem inconvenient to fly all the way up North to Minneapolis, and then travel a long distance southwest since there wasn't another closer hub to connect with.
I'm not so sure an Austin hub with Delta would provide a lot of international or transoceanic flights though.
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Delta has no intention of creating a hub again in Texas. They shuttered their DFW hub (which was quite substantial) about 15 years ago. They got rid of a Cincinnati hub after the NW merger, and they downsized NW's Memphis hub after the merger. They seem to have decided to have hubs only at airports that can serve both as hubs and support a large local customer base, but Delta does still maintain a small hub in Salt Lake City. There are rumors that it might not last long. Delta is most interested in beefing up it's presence on the West Coast and is trying hard to dominate at Seattle by upping competition with Alaska Air in spite of the fact that Delta and Alaska Air have a history of marketing alliances in the past. These moves give Delta added strength at LAX and SFO. Don't forget that Delta is a very major US airline serving Asia and Europe too. I would not be surprised to see a Delta/Alaska Air merger one of these days. Alaska Air is very strong on north/south routes on the west coast, and they really have no other potential merger partners. Delta is also eager to maintain and increase market share in the Northeast. They can best do this by maintaining Fortress Atlanta and making full use of their hubs in Detroit and Mpls/St.Paul. They have lots of slots at La Guardia, Boston Logan, and Washington National (Reagan) in addition to a big international terminal at JFK. I think Delta has more or less forfeited the South Central US airline passenger business to AA and UA.
Delta does plan to add 18 flights out of Love Field to Atlanta and their other hubs plus LA and La Guardia later this year after the Wright Amendment finally phases out. It is kind of an end run around AA at their Fortress DFW. It now appears that Delta and Virgin America are going to slug it out to see who gets the needed gates at Love Field. AA has to give up the gates as part of the consent agreement that they signed when the merger with US Air took place. Delta is already selling tickets, but Virgin America is putting up a fight for the two gates.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayi...field/6052767/