American Airlines has given up on St. Louis’s Lambert Airport.
Back in the day, TWA had an extensive hub operation at the airport. American has gradually reduced service and now after these cuts, the airport will have only 36 flights a day to nine cities, LAX, Chicago-O’Hare, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Miami, New York-JFK, Boston, New York-LaGuardia, Seattle, and Washington-National. This is down from 101 daily last summer.
By eliminating what was left of the St. Louis hub it took over from TWA, American will be walking away from more than a 620-thousand passengers a year. And they will walk away from approximately $108 million in system revenue,” the mayor of St. Louis says. For example, American will eliminate a direct flight to San Diego that on average was 87% full.
St. Louis has seen expansion. Southwest announced new service to Boston, seeing an opportunity there. Its central location in the Midwest makes it one of the ideal locations for connecting passengers mid-country. Chicago has this status as well, but is severely overloaded.
The Cranky Flier outlines exactly where the capacity is going. The airline will add 57 flights at O’Hare. New cities include Beijing, Vancouver, and Calgary internationally and Allentown, Anchorage, Charleston/WV, Dayton, Fargo, Harrisburg, Honolulu, Jacksonville, Lexington, Rapid City, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and Sioux Falls, all routes served by United Airlines(except Anchorage and Rapid City).
There is more to the American announcement, but we’ll address that separately.
