Quote:
Originally Posted by jimworcs
The smaller regional airports flying into hubs and feeding the monsters pay over the odds. The hubs simply would not exist without being fed in this way, and they exploit their positions to gouge those passengers for who little or no choice exists.
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But it has nothing to do with weather the flight is to a hub or not. One example is right here at home for me - Tampa. There is a small airline called Gulfstream. They fly 19 seat Beachcraft 1900's. They serve several cities in Florida and throughout the Bahamas. I think they have also opened service around Ohio as well. Anyway, in Florida they fly flights as a Continental connection carrier, and one such route is Tallahassee to Tampa. Neither city is a hub, and TLH is dinky. 10 gates or so in the whole airport. Only one x-ray machine and one metal detector at the security checkpoint. And they charge a nice high fare.
Delta used to fly TLH to Miami and did the same thing. Miami is not a hub for Delta. And there are plenty of such examples all over the US.
Also your AA/BA example is flawed as well. Until recently with the introduction of the new Open Skies agreements, it was very limited who could fly between the us and LHR (2 US airlines and 2 British airlines as I recall.) There is no such restriction on domestic flights in Atlanta.