The Cranky Network Awards will air TOMORROW March 24 at 5p PT/8p ET, and we now have a link where you’ll be able to watch! Head there now and youc an set a reminder. Please join us for a live chat tomorrow night when the awards air.
When it comes to air travel, it is a pretty good time to be living in Austin. Tech workers continue to flood the area, and airlines are all stepping on top of each other to try and woo all those people to board their airplanes. In this modern day gold rush, there will be winners and losers. Let’s take a look at the prospects.
To start the discussion, I naturally turned to Cirium to get the cold, hard data. Here’s a look at departing seats by airline by year going back all the way to 2005.
Austin Departing Seats by Airline by Year
As you can see, there is no dominant airline in Austin. It’s certainly a far cry from the single-airline-dominated airports in Houston and the Dallas Metroplex. That being said, there is a clear leader when it comes to capacity, and that is Southwest Airlines.
Southwest: Steady as She Goes
Southwest has consistently been the largest passenger carrier at the airport throughout recent memory. Looking at government data, Southwest had over 35 percent of seats departing Austin in 2019, and it carried just shy of 35 percent of all passengers who started or ended their trip there.
Southwest has grown with the city, serving 15 destinations in 2005 and rising to 33 in 2020, with both Long Beach and Salt Lake joining the network in 2020. Southwest will continue to max out its operations the best it can, but there is little gate space available for any significant growth right now. Southwest certainly has little interest in ceding any ground, so the strategy must be about fending off any incursions from other airlines and maintaining its position of leadership.
American: Making a Play
When America West took over US Airways, the team focused on ridding the system of as much non-hub flying as they could. They knew that the best opportunity to make money was to rally around the hubs and ditch the rest. That was a strategy that remained in place even when that team took over American during the US Airways merger. Then Boston and Austin started creeping back in.
In Austin, even before the pandemic, American had granted special status by adding flights to Boston and San Jose for business travelers along with weekend service to Cabo San Lucas for leisure. It was the number 2 airline behind Southwest, carrying just shy of 18 percent of the local passengers. Now in the pandemic, things have changed and Austin is benefiting.
American has recently announced it will fly from Austin to Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans, Orlando, Raleigh/Durham, Tampa, and Washington/Dulles. It will also fly seasonally to both Aspen and Fort Walton Beach. And yes Cabo and Boston remain… but San Jose is gone. Let’s also not forget that partner Alaska has been growing significantly in Austin, flying to Seattle (increasing to 4x daily this summer), Portland (up to 2x daily this summer), San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego. It also recently added Boise.
Throw on top JetBlue’s presence in Boston and New York along with joint venture-partner British Airways’s service to London, and American has a pretty compelling argument these days. If we could just finalize that long-loved merger dream of mine between Alaska and Hawaiian, we could add that new Hawaiian nonstop to Honolulu into the fold.
This is American making a leisure play at a time when business travel is down. There is plenty of money around Austin that resides with people who can work anywhere, so they have the ability to travel freely. American is able to better utilize its gates to add all these flights, and thanks to PSP 3.0, it has crews — not to mention airplanes — that aren’t being fully utilized either. The bar is low for new service, and this is a sensible place to start. When business travel comes back, American is trying to set itself up to be able to step right in and change its mix of flights.
Delta: A Focus City?
I wrote recently about how Delta was abandoning all focus cities except for two, one of which is Austin. So what does that mean? We don’t really know yet. The only non-hub Delta serves from Austin this year is fellow focus city Raleigh/Durham. Cincinnati service has ended.
That doesn’t mean that Delta hasn’t been active in recent years. In 2017, the airline increased seats by 20 percent followed by another 19 percent in 2018 and 8 percent in 2019. With 12.7 percent of departing capacity in 2019, Delta took 14.3 percent of local traffic. That’s not bad, but it’s also not enough if it wants to fight to be the legacy airline of choice now that American has decided to bulk up. It’s now Delta’s turn to make a move.
ULCC Supremacy: Frontier vs Spirit
Austin should be a big ultra low cost carrier (ULCC) market since without a dominant hub carrier, it doesn’t have as many nonstop destinations as you might think it could support. The ULCCs can certainly fill that void.
Frontier has been in the market since long before it became a ULCC. In 2017, it started to make a real move, increasing seats more than 50 percent to 282,000 followed by more than doubling in 2018 where it peaked with 675,000 seats to 33 destinations. But there was trouble in paradise as Frontier cut seats 23 percent in 2019 and served only 19 destinations. Of course in the pandemic, it has come down further. In 2021, it has only 4 summer destinations scheduled with 187,000 seats at the moment.
On the other side we have Spirit, an airline that didn’t even serve the market until it burst on the scene with 500,000 seats to 10 destinations in 2019, nearly even with Frontier that year. The pandemic knocked the airline down, but in 2021 it is stepping back on the gas. Right now it has nearly 350,000 seats scheduled in 2021 to 11 destinations, including the recent addition of Pensacola.
I didn’t mention Allegiant, but the airline is in this market as well. It’s just small, as it always the case. It has 171,000 seats in 2018, but that dropped down to 108,000 in 2019. It’s growing again, so keep an eye on the airline, but for now, it’s well behind the others.
All the Rest
We can’t have an Austin conversation without talking about Hawaiian, can we? Hawaiian has just joined the market with the first nonstop to Honolulu. It started with 2x weekly but has recently upped that to 3x weekly. Hawaiian is not fighting for dominance here by any stretch, but it is hoping to find a profitable niche.
On the foreign carrier front, plans have taken a step back. British Airways continues to be the long-haul standard-bearer, but even it isn’t planning on bringing back the London flight until June 1 at this point. The only other long-haul operator with anything scheduled this year is Lufthansa, also in June. Mexican carriers have all walked away for now. Air Canada is now planning to return after Labor Day while WestJet still has infrequent summer flights in the schedule that likely won’t happen.
Finally, there’s United. United is a sizable operator at the airport, but it hasn’t overtly made any moves to focus on growth there. Whether that ends up changing, only time will tell. Everyone else seems to want a piece of the action, so United might be content watching the others beat each other up. You just never know.
No matter what happens, it’s going to be a challenge for any airline that’s trying to get ahead. The main terminal has no space to grow now, and demand is clearly high for any space that exists. So, the airlines will continue to try to beat each other up, scraping as much demand their way and they can. The end result will be plentiful service and probably cheap fares for travelers until the dust settles.
36 comments on “Everybody Loves Austin”
Are there any connecting codes for AA/AS/B6 through AUS? It would seem a way for AS to connect to the southeast from places other than SEA.
More importantly, what would your proposed child of Chester and Pualani be named? (And don’t say “jetBlue”)(Or “American”).
If, and that is a big if , AS and HA merged I could see both brands surviving similar to how Horizon survived for as long as it did. Assuming AS was the acquiring airline, I think they would understand that HA is more that just a brand but is more of a touchstone for the Islands. Not saying it wouldn’t go away eventually but it wouldn’t be as quick as Virgin
I just looked up some sample itineraries, and after looking not very hard at all it doesn’t look like they’re using AUS as a connecting hub. BUT…. here’s a weird one… AS will sell you SAN to VPS via AUS by connecting on DL! SAN-AUS-ATL-VPS-WTF?
I can’t see most of those new AUS adds by AA lasting more than a year. People are getting overly excited about these route announcements and AA’s new P2P strategy. There is a reason it didn’t work before. AA has terrible finances. More importantly, they have no need to add those routes since their allies have their weak points out of AUS covered pretty well.
AUS right now has more competition than any other medium sized airport or even large airport outside of LAX. It seems like a bad idea for DL to try a real focus city, but who knows.
While it’s nice enough, I think Austin is one of THE MOST overrated cities in the country. Horrendous traffic, and far flung suburbs. But there are some nice restaurants here and there so I guess that is what makes it worthwhile?
Regardless, the new service will hopefully bring air fares down. whenever i’ve had to go there the fares from DC have always been way more expensive than I thought they should have been.
I like Austin & San Antonio, but not sure I’d want to live in the city center of either. However, I’m a really big fan of the rural parts and smaller towns in Texas Hill Country west of the two cities; on my short list of places to retire in.
I understand what you’re saying, and some of those hill towns are fine. HOWEVER, it’s WAY TOO HOT for too much of the year. Personal preference, and for me it’s an automatic disqualifier! Lol
I honestly don’t get the Delta play in Austin. At least with RDU they had supporting hubs in ATL and NYC to route all one stop traffic and DTW isn’t actually that far away either.
But Austin…? Delta can’t take you anywhere from NM to AZ all the way to a good part of the SE without a massive backtrack in SLC or ATL. Delta doesn’t even fly to Aspen anymore which is a large tourism market for the many well-heeled in Austin. I know the texas-sized hole for delta is well-known but I don’t get how delta ever has a compelling network offering in Austin. Austin is far from just intra-state capital traffic, but delta won’t even be able to provide any draw there.
If Austinites act how most of my friends do there, they regularly fly a combo of aa/wn or ua/wn.
And Delta’s competition whether AA, UA, or WN all has either very large hubs nearby to connect or has msssively more nonstops than delta today out of Austin. It’s just hard to imagine a world where delta even comes close to matching the network out of Austin offered by Wn or oneworld/B6.
It’s hard to imagine how many routes delta would need to add out of austin to be competitive.
All are excellent points. Even though this happened ages ago, I still maintain that DL dismantling their DFW hub was a big mistake. It was one of these actions taken during a difficult time, but it was done Wall Street-style….short sighted and focused on the NOW NOW NOW with little thought given to the long term. And the long term is that DL is incredibly weak in the south central portion of the country, which also happens to be one of the fastest growing parts of the country. Dumping Northwest’s old MEM hub also didn’t help with this problem.
I don’t see them rectifying the problem that you describe above without making a huge investment – one that they may not be willing to attempt. Until then, DL will always be relegated second tier in AUS and the rest of Texas.
One note on Allegiant: while they don’t have a ton.of seats here…they’re doing their typical 2x/wk schedule…they actually hit a surprising number of destinations, ranging from Asheville to Bozeman. So they might actually be more useful to Travelers than Frontier, who seems content at this point to throw service on (sometimes highly) competitive routes. And now that G4 is all Airbus, I have no qualms about flying them.
As for Delta, the free-for-all that is AUS, plus solid hub service, means DL was trading blows with UA for third place pre-pandemic. Their product is superior to UA/AA/WN’s on domestic, and there’s a lot of traffic for which connecting through Atlanta isn’t a big deal. Pushing a bunch of traffic through ATL allows DL to run all-A321 service at pretty high frequency, even now, so I personally don’t mind that flight va. A parabolic one to DFW.
With that said, AA/AS/B6/BA have an increasingly string operation here, so I think DL doesn’t have a shot at 3rd place again until that dies down. They have the gate space in the nice new part of the airport, but I’m not sure where they could add an A221 daily with decent yield at this point; they’ll just have to stick to the routes they have. Which is probably intentional on AA et al’s part.
The entertaining part here is that it was just three years ago that we got the new addition on the east side of the airport, and even with that…and moving F9 out of the main terminal…we’re *still* gate constrained in that terminal. The South Terminal has a bit more space at the moment I think, but that fills back up as soon as F9 figures out where they put their pre-pandemic dartboard, which will be increasingly difficult to fill now that they’re limited to A320s or larger.
Anyway, great article; the points mentioned therein match what I’ve seen looking over schedules.
I get your main points but I’m a little tired of the old “delta has a better domestic product than…” idea.
How is it better?
Their first class legroom is less than even an AA oasis 737 (oasis is 37”; as an example, the delta a319 first class is 35-37”). Nearly every delta plane has 30” legroom all across economy (even the brand new a220) the same as AA oasis or many United planes, less legroom than southwest. Delta.com lists all the legroom by aircraft and nearly all planes have less room than even aa oasis.
Delta has had years to upgrade their ground based WiFi product but still aren’t close to done whereas United, southwest, and aa all have high speed satellite standard across their entire mainline fleets. Delta is years behind others on this.
Delta promised free WiFi for years and is still nowhere close to providing it. It’s still nothing more than a long term marketing goal with not even a hint of when it will be provided, just a promise that’s been around for years now.
I guess if domestic seatback screens mean more to you than legroom and high speed WiFi, then delta wins… but the market has spoken and delta seems to be the only major airline that thinks passengers value seatback screens over all else. It’s not as though AA, UA, and WN lack huge amounts of customer survey data.
@Jake. Well said indeed. Seems like DL is over rated.
You’re ignoring DL’s superior OTP, better IT products, and friendlier service. When was the last time you saw an AA employee who looked like they wanted to be at work?
I fly them all the time and see professional and happy employees 99/100 times. Dogmatic all-encompassing statements are fun to make, but useless for anything more. Not sure what better IT delta has, but ok. They’re far behind all major carriers in their satellite WiFi plans.
Your chart is so 2019. AS has decent service with more being added this spring and summer. Not even a mention at the bottom under the ‘also rans’.
AS really is not relevant in the AUS market. But it is very relevant in how its network helps out out AA’s presence in AUS. That’s definitely mentioned there. Everyone has been scheduling more services months out. Let’s see what AS actually ends up flying.
Exactly what FC says. Alaska isn’t relevant on its own, but it sure is as a part of the American deal.
With so many “blue chip” companies relocating their headquarters, expanding significantly or in the case of Elon Musk, building a new Tesla factory, it’s easy to see why so many airlines are “focusing” their flight plans on Austin, too!
However, Delta, if it chooses, or perhaps when it’s ‘ready’ (nb: an homage to its long ago & memorable advertising tag line/jingle “Delta is ready…when you are” – which btw, might just be perfect for a throwback/comeback whenever the Covid19 pandemic truly begins its final descent towards its end…) has something most of its rivals, especially American, sorely lacks in its competitive tool box:
a large fleet of nice, new, roomier & comfier, seatback IFE/live satelllite TV equipped, narrowbody Airbus A220s with just five, 18.6” wide seats per row in Main Cabin (plus the added bonus of a spacious, full-sized, loo with a view, too) which puts the highly leveraged/debt addled, Eagle’s horrible & widely panned, butt numbing, super narrow (17 or so inches wide), no-legroom, teeny, tiny toilets for teeny, tiny people, no seatback IFE for you, super fugly, depressing & sad, greyhound bus liveried, narrowbody Main Cabins to shame!
I mean, seriously, THE Belles of the airline Ball narrowbody A220 that enjoys virtually universal rave reviews & most flyers love that Delta has a large fleet of already (with many more on the way) vs. AA’s densified & cramped, teeny-tiny bathroom, ugly duckling, joyless, narrowbodies misnamed an “Oasis” that’s loathed & despised by many?
Is THAT even a “choice”?!? ?
Your move Delta – when[ever] you’re ready!
Just sayin’ ?
I absolutely agree that the A-220 is a great plane from both a passenger and operator perspective. And Delta got a smoking deal. Most likely Airbus will lose money on every one of the 90 planes it builds for Delta. But those 90 planes will not even be on Delta’s property until the end of 2023. So, in almost 3 years, Delta’s fleet will be about 11% A-220, assuming an 800-ship fleet. Not exactly a “large fleet” by any means.
Airbus will come to a crossroads on the A-220 soon. Perhaps they will make some money on their sale to JetBlue, perhaps not. But sooner or later, the program will need more orders to become profitable and currently it is handcuffed on A-220 production. If Southwest goes with the 737-MAX7 instead of the A-220, where will Airbus find an order large enough to not only sustain the program, but also turn it into the black? Will they risk an A-220-500, which could cannibalize A-320NEO sales? They can produce more A-320s and sell them profitably than they can A-220s, so it seems doubtful they will cut off their nose to spite their face. It will be worth watching what they do. If they eventually terminate the A-220 program, Delta will be sitting on 90 beautiful white elephants. Interesting years ahead.
?Air France has 60 A220-300s on firm order, with the 1st unit arriving this summer (IIRC August), as does David Neeleman’s (founder of JetBlue, Azul and others) latest start up, Breeze, whose 1st of 60 A220-300s arrives this fall (IIRC November).
Also, Airbus announced a 200nm increase in range (to 3,600nm from 3,400) for the -300 model earlier today (Tuesday, March 23, 2021) arising from a 1t increase in the aircraft’s maximum takeoff weight to 70.9t from 69.9t
If anything, the A220 has weathered the pandemic better than all others, narrow- or wide- body, with one of the highest percentage rates of units currently in service, and throughout most of the Covid19 pandemic over the past 12 months.
Sure, many more orders are needed to ensure long-term success and profitability of the A220.
However, notwithstanding Southwest’s widely anticipated order to replace its huge fleet of aging 737-700 NG’s with -7 MAX’s instead of breaking its addiction to Boeing’s 737s, which yet still retain its vintage 1950s and ‘60s designs, or even some of its mechanical concepts of pulleys and cables instead of digital, fly by wire controls featured on more modern aircraft such as the A220, most industry experts expect the A220 to substantially increase its order backlog once traffic begins a sustained recovery post-Covid19 pandemic (2023/2024).
For example, Delta has already eliminated its small fleet of ten 737-700 NGs, plus its entire fleet of MD-88s and MD-90s (which at their peak numbered 120 and 65, respectively, totaling 195 aircraft per Delta’s fleet facts on its web site), many of which will eventually need to be replaced by decade’s end as the airline rebuilds post-pandemic; as will its 91 fleet of ex-AirTran Boeing 717s – all of which are leased, 46 of which are already grounded, with the remaining in-service 45, scheduled for phasing out by 2025, also needing replacements assuming Delta does not reverse course on its previously announced accelerated retirement schedule for the 717 after the onset of Covid19 pandemic last year.
If anything, Delta’s fleet of A220s is likely to increase well beyond the current 95 ordered given the model’s favorable operating economics and popularity among flyers vs other mainline narrowbodies (especially Boeing’s cramped 737 cabins and including Airbus’s larger A319/320/321s for comfort/popularity) – unless Boeing does as it did with United in early 2016 for an initial order of 40 -700s (that were increased to 65 before being “modified” as Cranky put it when reporting United’s switcheroo to other unidentified, as in larger, 737 models in November the same year) to prevent United from ordering the then named Bombardier C-Series (now Airbus A220) and makes Delta the type of crazy, stupid cheap, low ball, practically a fire sale offer it can’t refuse for MAXes (white tails from canceled orders were reportedly offered to Delta already) – like some industry experts suspect it’s doing to keep Southwest from jumping ship.
Yes, it’s good that Delta is cleaning up its hodge-podge fleet. It’s unfortunate that it took Covid to do it. But, better late than never. Given your logic, Delta absolutely should not take those white-tailed MAXes that Boeing is sitting on. After all, the MAX is inferior to the A-220 in your argument. Why would Delta want an inferior aircraft when it can order A-220s all day? Of course, Delta is still flying the 737NG and will be for many years to come. In fact, Delta loves the 737NG so much that it will be the ONLY Boeing product on Delta’s property after 2025. Also, you might want to research the 737MAX flight control system. It is a fly-by-wire aircraft. The tone, content, and veracity of your post reminds me of someone who previously posted here. Welcome aboard, Mr. Miller.
The 737 is my second least favorite aircraft after the CRJ. They are miserable planes to be on. I really hope Delta never orders another one again. Boeing needs to make a new narrowbody that isn’t based on a 1950’s and 1960’s design.
Please forgive, Cranky!
Forgot the word “seats” where red arrow as indicated in the screenshot is:
The corrected copy in full, is:
With so many “blue chip” companies relocating their headquarters, expanding significantly or in the case of Elon Musk, building a new Tesla factory, it’s easy to see why so many airlines are “focusing” their flight plans on Austin, too!
However, Delta, if it chooses, or perhaps when it’s ‘ready’ (nb: an homage to its long ago & memorable advertising tag line/jingle “Delta is ready…when you are” – which btw, might just be perfect for a throwback/comeback whenever the Covid19 pandemic truly begins its final descent towards its end…) has something most of its rivals, especially American, sorely lacks in its competitive tool box:
a large fleet of nice, new, roomier & comfier, seatback IFE/live satelllite TV equipped, narrowbody Airbus A220s with just five, 18.6” wide seats per row in Main Cabin (plus the added bonus of a spacious, full-sized, loo with a view, too) which puts the highly leveraged/debt addled, Eagle’s horrible & widely panned, butt numbing, super narrow (17 or so inches wide), no-legroom seats, teeny, tiny toilets for teeny, tiny people, no seatback IFE for you, super fugly, depressing & sad, greyhound bus liveried, narrowbody Main Cabins to shame!
I mean, seriously, THE Belles of the airline Ball narrowbody A220 that enjoys virtually universal rave reviews & most flyers love that Delta has a large fleet of already (with many more on the way) vs. AA’s densified & cramped, teeny-tiny bathroom, ugly duckling, joyless, narrowbodies misnamed an “Oasis” that’s loathed & despised by many?
Is THAT even a “choice”?!? ?
Your move Delta – when[ever] you’re ready!
Just sayin’ ?
You realize delta has the same legroom as oasis on the a220? 37” in first class. 30” in economy.
The bathroom window in the a220 is a nice touch but a Bombardier touch, not a delta one. But I agree the bathroom window is a nice touch and a better bathroom than oasis or the entire delta airbus fleet bathrooms.
https://www.delta.com/us/en/aircraft/overview
Take a look through there: the lowest planned legroom for aa or UA first class is 37” and 30” in economy. You’ll find consistent 30” on delta and the same 37” in first class or less than 37”.
Delta was the first carrier to put those teeny/tiny “oasis bathrooms” on their entire fleet of airbus retrotfit narrow body aircraft.
What do Spirit, Frontier, and delta have in common? The only US carriers to have all airbus narrow bodies with two lavs shoved in the back wall + the galley, all in the back wall. AA and Ua never copied Spirit in that regard, only Delta. In case you haven’t been in one recently, it’s tinier than an oasis bathroom.
Your story of the teeny tiny cramped oasis is cute, but has no basis in reality relative to aa or UA.
You sure do sound like someone who hasn’t posted on this website in a month+
Austin, the one city that pseudo-intellectual hipsters and self-righteous tech millennials with an obsession for sriracha and succulents can agree on.
You win the internet with that one!
Great BBQ though
The formatting on your emails keeps changing!
I am using MS OUTLOOK 2016 and most days the “Preview” on the right side of the screen has a lot of the text and pictures on the right off of the window. I either have to go full screen or use the “View” slider at the bottom of the screen to see all of the text.
Today, it looked great in the preview, so whatever you changed, keep using those settings!
Really enjoy your emails!
Meanwhile….. Down the road at the Alamo, SAT officials are pushing for a grandious terminal .reconfig (very necessary) and expansion (questionable at best). They’re firmly convinced that SAT will be connected to Asia and Europe sooner rather than later.
The only reason I can summon for such an expensive project is the belief that AUS will eventually “tap out” as a victim of its own success. Firms fleeing the Valley are bringing the Valleys problems with them like traffic congestion, long commute times and skyrocketing housing costs.
That should work
I am not aware of WN nonstop AUS SLC. I checked weekly schedules thru early summer and don’t see it. Was the service discontinued, or perhaps SLC is a typo for SJC.
I’d be curious to see if airlines are running more premium-heavy planes in the Austin market now… I know that there aren’t necessarily a ton of different configurations of planes sitting around, but with the focus on leisure travel and the wealth in AUS, I’d love to know how much well planes with a bit more premium economy or better seats could do on longer haul domestic flights (e.g., to leisure destinations in the Northeast or Pac Northwest).
I think maybe the answer to this is it’s a block.
As one responder noted, there is a large hole in Delta’s network in the South Central US. They really need a hub in this area. But where? Dallas and Houston make no sense as both are fortress hubs for legacies, and both have secondary airports with midsize hubs for Southwest.
So where else in the area could you consider? Memphis was too close to Atlanta and didn’t have enough of its own O&C. New Orleans is also close to Atlanta plus a lot it’s own traffic is leisure based. Kansas City is too far north and too close to MSP.
Austin would fit at least as a midsized hub, on the level of a Salt Lake. San Antonio is close by, but Austin has far more local business traffic to start a hub with.
What American is doing is taking steps to block such a move. Think about it. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
IMO DL is not in the position to create a new hub. In fact, given that they slashed focus cities from 5 to 2, I don’t think they’re looking beyond what’s already on their plate for quite some time.
They still have to rebuild BOS, they have ongoing wars at LAX and SEA, their plans for NY dominance are threatened by the AA B6 partnership and who knows what they’re going to do with MIA amidst the LATAM partnership they likely paid way too much for (can anybody say white elephant?)
The only thing that matters is access to gates. AUS doesn’t have near enough of them. Whoever has access to them will grow.
CF, looks like WN looked thru your analysis and upped their Austin game a bit.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/book-today-southwest-airlines-takes-150000915.html
PF, SLC non-stop returns/starts on June 6th.