A Delta Hub In St Louis? Yeah, Right

Dear CF, up until 2 years ago, I sat on the regional board of US Bank. USBank’s headquarters are in MSP. Their business/commercial HQ is in St. Louis, and that is because, to quote a USBank executive, St. Louis is the largest commercial business center for the bank, despite having a large market share in MSP, STL, and other markets such as Cincinnati. And more importantly, STL has the largest mid- and large-business commercial business base overall. But in the big picture, it’s just slightly larger than MSP. It all doesn’t make a difference. So, you win, you are right: St Louis is a terrible place for a hub because it’s served by other hubs, has inadequate business demand for o/d flights, but MSP is just fine, even though STL has a larger mid/large sized business market. MSP is fine for leisure demand because it has a metro area with 3.6 million people, whereas the 2.9 million people in STL is not nearly enough, but the 2 million in CLT is.
Maybe we should think of people in STL as only 3/5 of a person, like African Americans were by the government when counting their votes years ago. The 2.9 million people in St. Louis should just shut up and quit complaining, and take connecting flights to major US cities and international destinations rather than being so selfish by demanding non-stops like everyone else in every other similar-sized metropolitan area in the United States enjoys. The people living an hour or two to the south of STL should just drive 8-10 hours to ORD or DFW rather than expect a flight out of STL. The area around STL is served just fine by ORD and DFW, but the little hub Delta has in ATL cannot be expected to serve those in and around CLT. People in SPI should just drive the 3.5 hours to ORD, but people in Greenville, SC should not be expected to drive 2.5 hours to ATL. People in Greensboro NC should not be expected to drive 5 hours to IAD, but people in Columbia, MO should drive the 7 hours to ORD or the 10 hours to DFW. Thanks for pointing out my mistakes.

Of course the plight of lacking non-stop flights are not the same as what the African Americans faced. I’m just saying that somehow your comments (or perhaps it was only my understanding of your comments) implied that it was ludicrus to assume a hub could ever be profitable in St. Louis, but it makes complete sense to have a hub in places such as MSP and CLT. The point of my comments back is simply: hey, the St. Louis metro area is a big as these places with hubs, and larger in the case of CLT, SLC, MEM, CLE, CVG…AND…unlike some of these places, it also is near the population and geographic center of the US. If I am understanding you correctly that it makes sense to have hubs in those cities, but a hub would not work, ever, in STL, then the only other reason I could come up with, and obviously it was a little bit sarcastically, is that I guess the people of St. Louis do not count as much as in these other cities, and I drew the 3/5 comparison, because it was ludicrous to have done that back then, to the African Americans, and it is ludicrous to do it now, when analyzing the STL area. I never implied it was an equal plight, just similar (3/5=3/5, it’s a mathematical equation), and wouldn’t do so, because it isn’t. It all came about because I was thinking that it seemed to be, based on my understanding of comments, that the 3 million people in STL area were not sufficient to support a hub, but 2 million or less in other areas was, so my thought process was that somehow these people in STL count as less than one person, and it reminded me of the 3/5 tragedy in our history, and this was a similar percentage, so I said it. Regarding nonstop flights, I have to get to work, so I don’t have the time right now to look at the schedule. I know that my cousin, who is a manager at Boeing (they have their HQ for military division in STL), she complains that she NEVER can fly non-stop to SEA because there is only one non-stop, on Southwest, and it is always sold out. She also flies to her mother in San Diego, and there are no non-stops there at all. That city pair was actually mentioned by the mayor of STL when AA de-hubbed, because the nonstop flight they cut was over 80% full on average. One of my best friends lives in Austin, and have considered flying there, and the last time I checked there are no non-stops. AT&T has their headquarters in San Antonio. Their largest operations and management center besides that city is in St. Louis. I don’t recall seeing any non-stops. When I wanted to fly STL to LGA a few weeks ago, I could not get a non-stop flight. They were all full, so I had to fly through Atlanta. I guess in my particular experiences, it seems that the metro area is underserved. My apologies about the hinterland, I now understand what your point was, and I agree with you in part. It’s fair to say, however, that the CLT hinterland is fairly well served by ATL, especially for flights to the south and west. Aren’t many destinations directly to the east of CLT since it’s pretty close to the coast, of course. The STL hinterland is equally well served by ORD (UA & AA), especially for flights to the north and east, and to the west in some cases. But I am not sure that it’s fair to say that the STL hinterland is well-served by DFW, but that the CLT hinterland is not, or wouldn’t be if CLT were de-hubbed, for flights going north. There are plenty of airports to the north of CLT that are within the same distance that DFW is from STL. I think that’s fair to say. We’re comparing apples to oranges…STL doesn’t have a hub with the associated feeding flights from nearby cities, whereas CLT already does. Regarding international, STL had non-stops to London and Paris, and TW had announced non-stops to FRA and Tokyo NRT, but they weren’t implemented because soon thereafter AA bought TW. I don’t think STL would support anything more than a seasonal non-stop to London, and maybe only a few days per week. STL is 20% larger than PIT, so that would help with the demand situation. I have not done a good job of saying I’m talking about STL’s appeal as a hub in a THEORETICAL sense. As it stands now, it probably doesn’t make sense for any airline to set up a LARGE hub in STL, so we’re in agreement on the big picture, when looking at the present day situation. I hope I’m starting to make a little bit of sense…I’ve tried writing these in haste before or after my work, and that has been a mistake because I was not always clear, and for that, I apologize.