Houston vs Dallas - Infrastructure

[Carlito Brigante]

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Houston also now has TWO international airports, Dallas has one.

LOL, so what?!? NYC and LA only have one ONE international airport respectively. Does that make Houston better than NYC and LA? Besides, how many international airports does one city need anyway? That's a really weak thing to brag/argue about.

[R1070]

Doesn't Houston have 2 international airports because a Dallas based airline decided to use Hobby airport?
There would be more of a market at Hobby than Love Field due to the fact that Hobby can pick up slack that Bush doesn't handle as it's not as busy of an airport as DFW.

[Metro Matt]

Originally Posted by R1070

Doesn't Houston have 2 international airports because a Dallas based airline decided to use Hobby airport?
There would be more of a market at Hobby than Love Field due to the fact that Hobby can pick up slack that Bush doesn't handle as it's not as busy of an airport as DFW.

Houston has 2 international airports because the city & metro is so spread apart. From Galveston to IAH is a good 1-1 1/2 hours away. Galveston to Hobby is 30-45 minutes.

[stoneclaw]

Originally Posted by R1070

Doesn't Houston have 2 international airports because a Dallas based airline decided to use Hobby airport?
There would be more of a market at Hobby than Love Field due to the fact that Hobby can pick up slack that Bush doesn't handle as it's not as busy of an airport as DFW.

So you said this to say what? That Houston owes this little success to Dallas?

[diablo234]

Originally Posted by Carlito Brigante

LOL, so what?!? NYC and LA only have one ONE international airport respectively. Does that make Houston better than NYC and LA? Besides, how many international airports does one city need anyway? That's a really weak thing to brag/argue about.

Actually both NYC and LA have more than one international airport as well if you include Newark (also LaGuardia has flights to Canada and Bermuda) and John Wayne in both New Jersey and Orange County.

[Carlito Brigante]

Originally Posted by diablo234

Actually both NYC and LA have more than one international airport as well if you include Newark (also LaGuardia has flights to Canada and Bermuda) and John Wayne in both New Jersey and Orange County.

IF is the keyword, which means if you wanna get super technical about it.

[casimpso]

Originally Posted by justme02

Ill take it piece by piece. Ill start by saying you dont seem to understand why airlines add service to new markets.

First off, IAH will never get Philippine Airlines. Go ahead and let that dream die. The market simply isnt there. Houston-Manilia is a 52 passenger a day market and the yields are garbage. To compare, Los Angeles-Manila is a 550 passenger a day market and Toronto-Manila (the second largest from North America) is a 450 passenger a day market. PR can only make markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver work because of the sheer volume of the market. The yields from anywhere to Manila are garbage.

Second, Air China is in Houston for the same reason most other foreign flags are: oil. Sure you can put fill about 1/2 of the economy cabin with VFR (visiting family and relatives), but you wont make a dime doing that. The real market is the American/Chinese oilmen traveling to Shanghai, Beijing, and Harbin for oil related work. Those are the guys that fly business and first class. Houston-China will work because of the business traffic related to the oil industry. Houston-Beijing is 50 passengers a day, Houston-Shanghai is 48 passengers a day, and at maturation I expect both to increase by about 30% when the flights get going.

To compare to DFW-Asia, DFW-Seoul is the single largest Texas-Asia market at 105 passengers a day per direction. Once American and Korean Air start sharing the market, I expect that number to increase by about 25-30%. DFW-Japan and DFW-Taiwan are also larger than Houston-Japan and Houston-Taiwan. Houston-Vietnam/Philippines/China is larger than DFW to the same. Overall, Houston-Asia is a 850 passenger a day market while DFW-Asia is about 790 passengers a day.

Houston is a good gateway for Central America 3rd to only Miami and New York. Houston is the 4th largest gateway to South America after Miami, New York, and Atlanta. By comparison, DFW is the 4th largest gateway to Central America and the 5th largest to South America. As for Europe, Houston is no more a gateway than DFW is and both pale compared to Atlanta. I would not consider Houston nor DFW major gateways to Europe. Neither are in the top 10 nationwide (the top 10 being New York-JFK, Newark, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Washington-Dulles, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, and Philadelphia). Both Houston and DFW have nonstop flights to the major business centers in Europe (London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam) and Houston has service to Moscow while Dallas has service to Madrid.

You need to understand why airlines add service before you make assumptions. Air China doesnt give a flying flip that Houston has the largest Chinese population in the South nor does United care much about the Nigerians in Houston. What they care about is oil traffic which is super high yielding.

Dallas' international travel market is much more related to the tech industry which is why DFW-India is the 6th largest India market in the US (per preliminary 2012 numbers) and the largest in the South. DFW-India is also an example of market maturation. Before Emirates showed up at DFW and provided the market with a nonstop flight to a Gulf hub, Houston-India was slightly larger than DFW-India. Now that Emirates is here, DFW-India is larger. The reason? DFW was bleeding traffic to Houston because Houston already had Emirates and Qatar Airways. Why were they in Houston first? Because of the oil traffic which is higher yielding by a good margin than is tech traffic to India.

There is a cycle to it all.

It's very refreshing and educational to hear from someone who obviously knows that he's talking about.

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