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People here are either willingly misunderstanding the places that IAH and DFW play in the Texas transportation system or are just misrepresenting the facts.
In terms of pure origin and destination traffic (that is, the number of people that want to travel to or from each airport, no connections included), the Houston area is generally a stronger market to most international destinations in the world. There are notable exceptions - the DFW area has higher demand to several African countries, South Korea, India and a few scattered European destinations. Houston is much stronger to Nigeria, most of Europe, the Middle East (by a pretty large margin), most of Asia, and most of Central and South America. DFW actually (surprisingly) is a slightly stronger market to Mexico. I'll see if I can find some good solid data to back what I'm saying up, but this is well known throughout the industry.
The DFW area has stronger domestic O/D demand, but not by the amount that's implied given the difference in total domestic passenger numbers between the two airports. The real story with DFW is that its location is key to these numbers. It is located in literally the perfect place to serve as an east-west intercontinental hub. It's far enough from ORD to not conflict with AA's hub there and it's far enough north to serve as a reasonable connection point for most east-west flights. Even an itinerary like SEA-DFW-DCA works much better than SEA-IAH-DCA. If the airport was located even 100 miles further south it's competitive position would be far worse and it's passenger totals would suffer.
Again, while there is a local component that contributes to the total advantage in passenger numbers that DFW has over IAH, it's not the primary driver. It is, however, primarily local demand that's the reason that IAH has the international flights it does. The reason DFW is getting all of these international flights now is due to the fact that the domestic hub has finally been built up to a point where it has a critical mass to be able to support the flights. Think about Atlanta. Busiest airport in the world, and has more international traffic than both DFW and IAH. Does anyone really think Atlanta has more O/D international demand than Houston? Absolutely not. They probably don't have more international demand than DFW either, but they can support more traffic because they are connecting people from all over the place. AA has built DFW into a mini-ATL at this point and believes they can support the new flights such as DFW-HKG and DFW-PVG. Time will tell on that.
DFW and IAH are not the same monster. IAH has shrunk in total flights in the last few years (nearly all domestic cuts) because United doesn't need to use it to connect everyone like Continental had to do. However, international traffic has STILL grown despite the lack of a critical amount of feed. The "international gap" shrunk last year but I predict it will grow or stabilize this year since IAH has gotten a lot of new international service this year as well (PEK, extra NRT flight, MUC, SVG, ICN). We'll see next year.
Oh come on.
Denver - due to the fact it is literally the only major air facility to serve a huge physical part of the country. A lot of those movements and passengers are due to frequent flights to commuter markets in the surrounding states that are served by no one else. Also has high tourist travel levels.
Charlotte - like DFW, this is primarily a location thing. CLT is the only airport that can reasonably serve the southeast market other than ATL and is perfectly positioned as a connecting airport. It also has the lowest per-passenger costs in the industry, which allowed US Airways to leverage that as a way to make money despite the small local market. I think in three years or so CLT will be a bit smaller though since the new AA can flow some CLT traffic over ORD, PHL, DFW, and MIA.
Las Vegas - tremendous tourist traffic. Before the recession LAS was in DFW's territory for total passengers served despite no real connection activity. Pretty much pure O/D. So who does that reflect poorly on?
Phoenix - this has only recently become the case and is moreso because United cut domestic capacity after the merger. Phoenix will be gone as a hub in three years in my opinion because it may be the weakest existing hub in the U.S. it has zero international demand and its domestic O/D demand is reliant on connections.
Miami - has about the same number of international passengers as an IAH + 2 DFWs. You're surprised that it's in front of Houston in total passengers given the number of people that also fly to Miami as a tourist or business destination domestically?
IAH is never going to be the domestic airport or able to connect as many people as DFW is due to the location. It is not located in a good place to handle domestic connections, and international connections are a pain in general at US airports.
DFW is never going to be the international airport IAH is due to the lack of O/D demand to many places. It's economy is less internationally based and much more reliant on domestic flying.
It is what it is.
With all of this said....whats makes a little more international destinations push IAH to be Better than DFW?....IT DOESNT!!!!....
With all of this said....whats makes a little more international destinations push IAH to be Better than DFW?....IT DOESNT!!!!....
I don't understand what you mean by "better". DFW offers more domestic destinations and fewer international ones. Whether that's better or worse depends on the needs of the individual traveler.
The main advantage that DFW has over IAH in my opinion (other than location) is the fact that AA is the hub carrier as opposed to UA. UA has downsized the airport, and while some of it was necessary to rationalize passenger flows network-wide, some of it was purely political.
UA also has a lot of other issues right now completely unrelated to Houston and IAH, but its position as the primary carrier has been the main reason the airport's seen negative domestic growth over the last three years or so.
What's sad for Houston is that metros smaller than Houston have higher passenger counts than IAH.
Denver, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami all move more people than IAH. Heck, Las Vegas, Charlotte, and Denver even beat IAH in terms of total aircraft movements. What is Houston doing wrong? It has huge skyscrapers AND the only two supertalls in the state of Texas!
Not sure why you keep posting false data, Texas Tallest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by majicdonjuan
Oh come on.
Denver - due to the fact it is literally the only major air facility to serve a huge physical part of the country. A lot of those movements and passengers are due to frequent flights to commuter markets in the surrounding states that are served by no one else. Also has high tourist travel levels.
Charlotte - like DFW, this is primarily a location thing. CLT is the only airport that can reasonably serve the southeast market other than ATL and is perfectly positioned as a connecting airport. It also has the lowest per-passenger costs in the industry, which allowed US Airways to leverage that as a way to make money despite the small local market. I think in three years or so CLT will be a bit smaller though since the new AA can flow some CLT traffic over ORD, PHL, DFW, and MIA.
Las Vegas - tremendous tourist traffic. Before the recession LAS was in DFW's territory for total passengers served despite no real connection activity. Pretty much pure O/D. So who does that reflect poorly on?
Phoenix - this has only recently become the case and is moreso because United cut domestic capacity after the merger. Phoenix will be gone as a hub in three years in my opinion because it may be the weakest existing hub in the U.S. it has zero international demand and its domestic O/D demand is reliant on connections.
Miami - has about the same number of international passengers as an IAH + 2 DFWs. You're surprised that it's in front of Houston in total passengers given the number of people that also fly to Miami as a tourist or business destination domestically?
IAH is never going to be the domestic airport or able to connect as many people as DFW is due to the location. It is not located in a good place to handle domestic connections, and international connections are a pain in general at US airports.
All I'm hearing are excuses as to why Houston's numbers aren't higher.
All I'm hearing are excuses as to why Houston's numbers aren't higher.
That's primarily because you're choosing to view them as excuses rather than legitimate reasons for the disparities in passenger numbers. It's so much more that makes a market than just passenger numbers.
I'll play this game though. What are your reasons that DFW international numbers are not higher? Do you truly expect all three of the ME3 carriers (Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar) to survive in DFW long term? Do you expect the DFW-PVG flight to survive? If so, why?
In other words, do you have any actual opinions to rebut what I've said previously? For the record, I don't expect (long-term) DFW-AUH and DFW-PVG to survive. I think DFW-HKG will, however.
For arguments sake I also don't expect the new IAH-ICN weekly service to survive either (maybe 4-5x weekly), but I think that in 2-3 years the gap will have widened again because markets like PVG are very, very marginal from the Metroplex and I don't see all three of the Middle East airlines surviving at all, much less in DFW. I think Etihad will likely be the odd man out in general, but Emirates actually has the most difficult path in DFW as both Qatar and Etihad codeshare with AA. That will be very interesting to see how that all shakes out.
Another part of the international equation that's very important to the airlines is not only demand, but demand for premium seats. Again, here, the markets are different. DFW actually tends to have higher average load factors on international flights than does IAH by a percentage point or two, and this is due to the fact that Houston has higher premium demand than Dallas, primarily to points in the Middle East and Africa, as well as oil markets around the globe. Lower yielding international traffic has slightly higher demand in DFW than it does in Houston and that affects raw passenger numbers as well. A passenger is a passenger, whether he's paying $5,000 for an international business ticket or $1,000 for an international coach ticket.
This is all to say that I wouldn't be surprised if the recent, 2-3 year trend in DFW catching up to IAH in terms of international passengers reverses itself as early as this year. At the very least that trend will slow just due to the new routes IAH has received in 2014 as opposed to the single new route in 2013 IIRC (IAH-PEK). DFW eventually passing IAH in international traffic just ain't happening folks, absent a major change in the economics associated with one of the metros.
Of course on the domestic side there is no argument - DFW will always have more domestic traffic as long as it is located in North Texas and Houston is located in Southeast Texas on top of the higher domestic market demand out of the Metroplex.
Last edited by majicdonjuan; 06-11-2014 at 12:40 PM..
Aircraft Movements
Landing and take-off of an aircraft
Total %Chg
1 ATLANTA GA, US (ATL) 61 854 (8.1)
2 CHICAGO IL, US (ORD) 61 059 (0.3)
3 DALLAS/FORT WORTH TX, US (DFW) 49 325 (3.3)
4 LOS ANGELES CA, US (LAX) 45 923 5.3
5 BEIJING, CN (PEK) 43 576 3.2
6 DENVER CO, US (DEN) 41 164 (3.5)
7 CHARLOTTE NC, US (CLT) 38 550 (8.3)
8 HOUSTON TX, US (IAH) 37 812 0.1
Beijing was up 3.2% while Charlotte fell behind 8.3%... im sure when that news article was announced over a year ago that Charlotte was in fact ahead of Beijing (and thus, every airport in Europe and Asia)
It is not debatable at all. Its the flat out truth. Only recently have the Rangers even gained a bandwagon. The first time the Rangers ever won a playoff series was in 2010. The Astros had won many before that, but just had never reached the WS yet until 2004. Hell, I remember going to an Astros game in Arlington back in 2008, and it was 60/40 Astros fans. Bagwell and Biggio were beloved all across the state and before them was Nolan Ryan while with the Astros in the rainbow stripes. Come on now.
He is saying the Astros are not as comparable to the Cowboys in terms of history, success, or popularity in Texas and he is right. You overrate the Astros in popularity in Texas. The Rangers has had a large following in Texas for decades and North Texas has always been behind the Rangers. Much more than the Astros. There are probably more Cowboy fans in Houston than they are Astro fans in North Texas. It also doesn't help that last year, a Rangers/Astros game in Houston was 80/20 Ranger fans. Probably even more than that. Both teams will have their up and down. But the Astros will never dominate Texas like the Cowboys do.
. Both teams will have their up and down. But the Astros will never dominate Texas like the Cowboys do.
I agree but only because of the protectionist attitudes of North Texas sports fans. If the Astros, Texans, Rockets ect ever become dynastic, why wouldn't they enjoy the same kind of broadbased fan base the Cowboys have had? You know why...
Jun 11, 2014, 4:08pm CDT UPDATED: Jun 11, 2014, 4:23pm CDT
Jordan Blum
Reporter-
Houston Business Journal
Quote:
The world's largest ethane export terminal is coming to the Houston Ship Channel.
Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP (NYSE: EPD) announced that it will construct a refrigerated ethane export facility in Houston to build off of the ongoing domestic shale boom.
Enterprise had previously narrowed down the location to the Texas Gulf Coast before deciding on the Houston Ship Channel.
Jun 11, 2014, 4:08pm CDT UPDATED: Jun 11, 2014, 4:23pm CDT
Jordan Blum
Reporter-
Houston Business Journal
Great news for Houston!
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if there is anything false about that article, take it up with the news site.
