Guys, I was looking at the AUS timetable when I realized, there are no Int’l Flights from AUS save for Air Canada. I find this interesting because AUS is a fairly large market with many immigrants and businesses. Just a question.
I thought there was a scheduled charter carrier that had service to at least one Mexican city from AUS.
I think the AUS market is covered (like SAT) by nearby IAH and DFW, hubs for Continental and Dallas, respectively.
What operator would be offering other international service? It’d have to be a foreign carrier operating service between AUS and their foreign hub.
AA has a decent sized operation in AUS and with their Latin American strenth… AUS could support a daily to MEX, CUN, maybe MTY and Guadalajara
And, if some carrier were to hub there, akin to CO in CLE, then it probably could support a lot more. I know this is almost wistful but, could AUS in the future maybe support LHR with a 757 sized aircraft??
From a technical perspective, yes, it can and Continental has landed their B772s at AUS when diverting en route to Houston. However, the B752 cannot make it nonstop from AUS to LHR. They could use a B764 or B772.
That said, I think you may be over-estimating the amount of demand out of Austin, specifically for business class seats and cargo.
A Mexican LCC (low cost carrier) named VivaAerobus offered scheduled (not charter) services to Austin. The service started 1 May 08 and were discontinued on 1 Jun 09.
They did to Cancun, Monterrey etc… I’m saying if some airline tries to make AUS into sort of an east west connecting hub… Or if in the future CO uses it as a reliever for IAH, or maybe even US for PHX. Also, it has a large tech company presence. I know for a fact that more than 120+ Dell employees on average travel daily to like Europe, many of them in Business class… also other tech companies send people abroad and other businesses. And how about say 4 weekly 762/763 on AA or CO to LHR.
I’m not sure the hub approach is going to be attractive given how much infrastructure and flights AAL and COA have at DFW and IAH, respectively.
The ~120 or so Dell employees would probably be better served by the >200 daily flights to 90 international destinations (some with 4x daily frequency per city) from Houston/Dallas daily than a few times a week to the UK nonstop.
AUS is not a terribly big market and is too close to IAH and DFW.
Very few cities that are not hubs have international service.
If it was out in the middle of nowhere, 5x weekly BAW B763 (100 biz and 650 peon to hit 80% LF) to EGLL for a 1.5MM metro? Maybe.
But with 8x daily at airports within 200 mi? No way.
It’s that Texas law thing from when DFW was built. Air carrier flights entering/leaving Texas must go though DFW or IAH (where the state put all the money). I know there are a few exceptions but very few.
Southwest fought the law big time and that how they use Dallas Love.
No. The law, actually a federal law said that all flights to Dallas/Fort Worth, needed to use the DFW airport. They were no longer allowed to use DAL (Love Field). Southwest fought it, saying they were an intrastate carrier and were not regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Boad.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_amendment
It would be very illegal for the state of Texas to say airlines could only enter the state at selected airports. That would be regulating interstate commerce and interstate commerce is one of the very few acts the US Constitution permits the federal government to regulate.
The reason there is not that much international service from Austin has been mentioned by others in this forum. One thing not mentioned is that the airlines do not feel there is enough traffic, Intel notwithstanding, to support international travel, especially when they have hubs within an hour’s fling time of Austin.