Metro

Quite a difference 4 years makes. IAH is still larger than DFW in terms of international passengers, but fortunes have changed somewhat in that DFW seems to have been more successful recently at landing new international service (albeit mostly due to AA). Both airports also lost routes. AA just announced seasonal Auckland service yesterday, evening out each airport's service to the South Pacific. Tel Aviv was announced a few months ago, and AA also announced they were going twice daily to Rome for a few weeks in the summer. This is my attempt to update the current international long-haul tally from earlier posts. I'm not certain of the seasons or frequency of all of these. Europe DFW: Amsterdam (AA), Paris (AA 2x/day, AF), London (AA 3x, BA), Frankfurt (AA, LH), Munich (AA), Madrid (AA 2x), Dublin (AA), Rome (AA 2x) lost: Reykjavik IAH: Amsterdam (KL, UA), Paris (AF), London (UA 2x, BA 2x), Frankfurt (UA, LH), Munich (UA), Manchester (SQ) lost: Moscow, Stavanger Middle East/Africa DFW: Dubai (EK), Doha (QR), Tel Aviv (AA) lost: Abu Dhabi IAH: Dubai (EK), Doha (QR), Istanbul (UA), Lome/Addis Ababa (Ethiopian) lost: Lagos, Luanda Asia/South Pacific DFW: Tokyo (AA 2X, JL), Beijing (AA), Seoul (AA, KE), Shanghai (AA), Hong Kong (AA), Sydney (QF), Auckland (NZ) IAH: Tokyo (UA, NH), Beijing (CA), Singapore (SQ via Manchester), Taipei (EVA), Sydney (UA), Auckland (NZ) lost: Seoul South America: DFW: Lima, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago (all AA) lost: Rio IAH: Lima, Sao Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago (all UA)

Let's look at the current, or soon to be started international service at DFW vs. IAH: Europe DFW: Amsterdam (KL), Paris (AA), London (AA, BA), Frankfurt (AA, LH), Madrid (AA) IAH: Amsterdam (KL, UA), Paris (AF) London (UA, BA), Frankfurt (UA, LH), Moscow (SQ) Middle East/Africa DFW: Dubai (EK) IAH: Dubai (EK), Doha (QR), Istanbul (UA), Lagos (UA) Asia/South Pacific DFW: Tokyo (2X/day, AA), Seoul (AA, KE), Brisbane, Sydney (QF), new: Shanghai (AA), Hong Kong (AA) IAH: Tokyo (UA), Beijing (CA), Singapore (not a nonstop or that direct, but still same plane, SQ) Deep Latin America: DFW: Lima, Sao Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago (all AA) IAH: Lima, Sao Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires (all UA) Both hubs are still fairly well balanced in terms of intercontinental routes. DFW has a slight Pacific advantage, while IAH has an Atlantic advantage. With Qatar joining Oneworld, it wouldn't be surprising to see them also start DFW. The alliance relationships AA and UA have with oneworld and star alliance will likely drive much of the future international growth at each airport beyond any large local traffic opportunities outside of alliance partnerships. It will be more interesting to see what happens with CLT if the AA-US merger goes through. CLT has grown remarkably fast the past 10 years and is now even busier than IAH according to some stats. It would currently be the 2nd largest hub airport after DFW in a merged AA. CLT serves a smaller local market than DFW and IAH, but has the East Coast geographical advantage. It already serves more European destinations than either IAH or DFW, and US recently announced 4 new seasonal destinations. Per airliners.net, next summer the following cities will be served nonstop from CLT: Frankfurt, Munich, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Dublin, Brussels, Manchester, Lisbon, and Barcelona. That's a rather impressive list considering US also serves Europe from PHL. The geographical location is a good counter to DL in ATL, but like UA, AA has hubs in stronger local markets. So it will be interesting to see how this will fit in a larger combined AA+US network, and if it gets pulled back (or stops growing) in favor of ORD, DFW, etc. And of course, we will also have to see the impact of having Hobby open to international traffic. Will competition stimulate demand and increase traffic at both IAH and HOU, or will it cause a fragmentation of traffic that grows the overall Houston metro market, but weakens IAH's individual position?

It remains to be seen which nonstop routes, if any, get pulled by UA. We can only speculate on the impact on planned routes, although one of the graphics in UA's report did show a few unidentified intercontinental routes (trans-Pacific and Atlantic) as future possibilities that could be at risk. The problem comparing the Houston situation with Miami is on a couple of levels. Primarily, MIA has MUCH larger demand to/from Latin America - no other US city is close. So even though FLL competes with Miami, Miami's Latin dominance is large enough to more than offset the competition. And the connecting AA hub at MIA is just an extra benefit, since Miami can support most of its Latin destinations on local traffic alone. This is why even though Houston is arguably the #2 hub city for Latin America, it doesn't have nearly the same capacity or extent of destinations (outside of small RJ destinations in Mexico) that Miami does. Where it gets very risky for Houston is that Houston's O&D (Origin and Destination) traffic numbers are relatively small for a city of its size, and the array of nonstop destinations served from IAH are largely a result of the artificial connecting hub Continental built here. This is similar to ATL and DFW, which are also overserved in nonstop destinations for their city cizes due to large connecting complexes. However, even Atlanta and Dallas have more O&D traffic than Houston - and all of Atlanta's traffic and DFW's international traffic is constrained to one airport. So if United does decide it needs to pull back routes, Houston could very well find the loss of nonstop options that are not supported by O&D numbers alone. Another carrier is not likely to serve a low O&D destination nonstop unless it feeds a connecting hub for them, so nonstop destinations that currently only exist due to connecting possibilities could certainly be at risk of being lost and not replaced. This same situation doesn't exist in other multi-hub cities like NY, LA, the Bay Area, Miami, Chicago, or DC since the O&D traffic is so much greater in those cities that massive connecting fotress hubs aren't as necessary to support their various non-stop destinations.

While IAH does have more international destinations than DFW, a good portion of the total are regional jets to smaller secondary Mexico markets. These do count toward international, but they don't have the same economic impact or profile as intercontinental routes. Continental was certainly successful exploiting IAH's proximity to Mexico in developing these routes.

It seems like Dallas has tended to do better with trans-Pacific flying. In addition to the Korean Air flight, and new Qantas flt, AA has double daily service to Tokyo. Both airports are served by Air Canada, BA, KLM, Lufthansa, and Emirates. IAH has more frequency to AMS, CDG, and GIG. DFW has more to GRU, NRT, and LHR. I think the major international markets and/or passenger carriers that are unique to each airport are like this: DFW Brisbane/Sydney (Qantas) Madrid (AA) Santiago (AA) Seoul (Korean) IAH Doha (Qatar) Lagos (United) Lima (United) Moscow/Singapore (Singapore) Paris (AF) not unique, but on AF, which is

The Terminal B expansion is/was(?) to include a new FIS facility to accommodate future international growth by Continental, then United. United is saying that since the plans and funding were based on the understanding that IAH would be the only international facility, they will have to scale back the expansion in light of the new reality. Hard to argue with this particular point... Would you still contribute the same $700M+ to a project when the landscape/original assumptions have changed? At the very least, they will probably delay that part of the expansion until they have a better idea how their hub dynamics are affected by a new intl facility across town. It remains to be seen what, if any, service United cuts at IAH when the Hobby expansion is inevitably approved. The timing of the Denver-Tokyo annoucement was very interesting. Is this now the first 787 route? It's not scheduled until next March, but it's already showing in their schedule and out for sale, while Houston-Auckland still hasn't been loaded.

The study United commissioned is finally available. Some of the main points not already hashed by the media - United has added more flts to IAH than any of its other hubs since the merger and IAH has grown more since 1996 alone than Hobby has in total current flying. The comparison to the MIA/FLL situation is invalid because it neglects the fact that AA dismantled its San Juan hub during the same period to increase MIA, and that AA Latin traffic is actually down overall from where it was. The comparison to ORD/MDW is also invalid since it ignores that Mexicana ceased operation in this period, that carriers were only backfilling, and total Latin traffic is actually down. Comparison of multi-international airport cities in both Europe and the US show that multi-international airport cities have seen no growth or actually shrunk, while single international airport cities have seen growth. United would pull 6% of current capacity and 4% of planned capacity as a result of loss of connecting traffic to support routes that Houston O&D doesn't warrant and/or are already unprofitable but supported by overall network. Future planned routes that would not be flown include Asia/Pacific, Transatlantic, and South America. Auckland and China are specifically cited as examples of routes that cannot be supported by Houston O&D alone, and would be harmed by shifting connecitng traffic on network supporting flights. Other details include refutations of fare assumptions and traffic stimulation. link: http://keepiahstrong.com/docs/UnitedStudyMay3.pdf

DFW's terminal D is indeed very impressive, but as alluded to above, IAH currently receives more international traffic, as well as foreign flag carriers than DFW. Compare major foreign flag carriers: DFW British Airways 7X weekly B777-200 Lufthansa 7X weekly A340-300 Korean Airlines 4X weekly B777-200 KLM 7X weekly A330 IAH British Airways 14X weekly B777-200 (moving to 747-400s in fall) Lufthansa 7X weekly B747-400 KLM 13X weekly (B747 / BBJ 737) Air France ~12X weekly (777-200 / A330) Emirates 7X weekly 777-200 Singapore 4X weekly 777-300 Qatar (starts in fall) 3X -> 7X weekly 777-200 IAH Terminal D may not be as pretty as DFW's, but she's winning the popularity contest right now.

Paid $300 for center floor seats (face value) to her last tour in NY - it was WELL worth it. Whatever you may think of this woman she is the consummate entertainer and definitely knows how to put on a show. Lucked out with the presale and got $180 floor seats for the Houston show. Looking forward to it! And yes, I'm over 30. (Just barely, though. )