re: What are BTR’s (Baton Rouge airport) long-term plans to remain competitive and viable

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United might make sense for ORD, they are trying to build their network out and recently signed with another regional carrier to add 50-seat RJs that might work on the route with enough connecting flow

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For the petrochemical industry UA to ORD would be useful. More directs to Asia from ORD than IAH and the end result is more complete 1-stop coverage to Europe as well. Right now AA is more useful for Asia and Delta more convenient for Europe.

The other major BR industries,

Government - Probably best served by adding DCA?
Health Care - Don't know
Academia - Don't know

For leisure/infrequent travelers, I don't know if the slightly less convenient trek to MSY really bothers people that fly once every 2 years, so don't know if it's worth BTR chasing after that demand.

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I know Fed Ex is thriving in Memphis. On my most recent trip up there right around horn lake and Southaven you start seeing one after an other on dual runways

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Fed Ex had about 175 daily departures 25 years ago from MEM. I'm not sure what the current tally is.

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For the petrochemical industry UA to ORD would be useful.

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ORD is one of the new destinations they are working on.

Those are some good points. As for the UA flight, that would make sense, but I wonder how much of the petrochemical demand UA takes is in the front cabin. Right now there are a lot of flights to IAH with a first class, to do that to ORD would require a bigger RJ. May or may not be feasible depending on the corporate contracts.

DCA is an interesting one because AA currently serves similar markets from DCA (JAN, MGM come to mind). The biggest issue is slots at DCA, and how much CLT relies on DC bound service (DCA, IAD, BWI). As long as it doesn't cannibalize CLT service it could be logical.

Delta served the route post-Katrina before and during the Northwest merger but cut it due to profitability issues (albeit during the height of fuel prices).

This is about to happen at msy with southwest and spirit.

Southwest announced they are flying out of Everett Washington.... close to Seattle. Take everything southwest says publicly with a grain of salt.

I’ve never in my life waited in line at BTR. I have precheck and don’t even have to use it there.

Believe me, your experience is not normal.

Perhaps it was just one of those times based on flights and # of people going out at about same time.

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but I wonder how much of the petrochemical demand UA takes is in the front cabin. Right now there are a lot of flights to IAH with a first class, to do that to ORD would require a bigger RJ

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I think most (if not all) have provisions for business class travel on long-haul flights. But I think that just puts more money on the table for UA. So yeah, I think an E-175 or CRJ-700 should be used on that route. Maybe 1x/day with a larger jets (depart in the AM, return in the PM) to be able to capture the connecting planes in/out of ORD would work well.

For reference, my travel spend last year out of BTR (of mostly not my money) was about $40k, 90% to AA and 10% to DL. One of the primary reasons was that AA could one-stop every where I needed to go in Asia (in addition to other reasons discussed earlier), so I tried to consolidate there (which meant forcing some Europe flights to AA where DL would have actually been more convenient). UA really never offered anything worthwhile on those routes with everything going through IAH.

As a result, on domestic/personal travel (where UA would have been just fine), I still tried to keep with AA (primary) or DL (backup) where my miles are and where my best chance of upgrades are.

I think a UA flight from BTR to ORD changes that dynamic dramatically, since UA from ORD can do almost everything AA from DFW can. So, UA would stand not only to gain the revenue from the short flights, it would pick up revenue on the long haul flights, where right now it's not a valid competitor. Most people I know in BTR flying UA reliably are doing so because they are Houston transplants and still consider themselves hub-locked due to IAH.

This would pull (somewhat) from AA and DL, but if it pulls enough traffic from MSY or creates new travelers it will balance that to some degree.

Of course, if UA tries that route on a CRJ-200 or E-135/E-145, I'm going to stick with AA unless they really start dropping prices and I run out of every possible justifiable business excuse not to hop on the thing.

That all makes perfect sense. From an international standpoint getting UA to ORD and all of the connections to Asia and Europe on UA and the many Star Alliance airlines at ORD would be a boon. That would be a huge benefit to international travelers.

Just for fun I pulled the latest O&D data.

I would like to point out I just went to the Airport's website to get their annual traffic numbers and they haven't been updated since August. But its Baton Rouge, why should I be surprised that they approach this type of thing half-assedly.

Of BTRs 375K annual revenue passengers, 8.4% are on international itineraries. Canada and Mexico lead the way with 12 pax per day each. Third and fourth are Japan and the UK with 4 passengers per day. The list drops from there. I can pull the individual destinations if anyone cares.

What I left out is the passenger revenue component. These could be some high yield passengers or they could be tourists paying bottom dollar. The volumes are pretty low and I'm not sure the revenue premium is there to entice an airline to offer better connectivity to get it. If a few passengers want to pay top dollar, the airline is content sending them on a double connection, or forcing them to go to MSY for a single connecting.