U.S. airline competition is heating up in spots, and not only between the big legacy carriers and the discounters, as several airlines add bunches of routes and add more flights to contested hubs.
Just as the past two years have seen Delta and Alaska ‘Battle for Seattle,’ with both airlines adding flights and destinations as well as holding competing fare sales, American now appears to be taking on United at Chicago O’Hare. It’s one of United’s most important bases.
American has announced seven new domestic routes, mostly to smaller and midsized cities such as Birmingham, Boise, Colorado Springs and both Greenville and Greensboro, as well as to Guatemala City. That’s on top of recent announcements including Hattiesburg, MS and Barcelona, Spain.
Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines, which began adding more California-based flights as the Seattle battle heated up, is now increasing its operations there, with new cross-country flights and to Mexico City. It’s recently acquired Virgin America, and between planes on delivery order for both airlines, it is able to add routes without cutting into existing schedules. Among East Coast cities to be added are Nashville, New Orelans and Philadelphia.
Southwest is also making moves at Phoenix, already an important hub. New flights will be added, but the airline is also increasing ground capacity by taking over 8 new gates to add to its current 24, and will be doubling the size of its ground maintenance facility. Some of the expansion is needed for Southwest’s new, larger 737s, which don’t fit at some of the existing gates. Southwest is an all-737 airline.
And the discounters are busy, too; they’ve been adding routes and flights all year. One of the biggest recent announcements is from Frontier, which is adding 7 routes to Colorado Springs (pushing the total to 10) and 4 to Las Vegas (up to 20).
