New Hub suggestion

Back in the day we used to operate four hubs in the US; Minneapolis, Denver, Dallas and Washington D.C. The problem we ran into was that there just weren't enough pilots to make any of the hubs "productive." Having a handful of pilots at each of the hubs just wasn't feasible, so all of the hubs were consolidated.

Right now we have 24 active pilots and three hubs. That means an average of 8 pilots per hub. Adding another hub would just put us back to where we were post merger. Its super easy to remedy though. Once you make it to fleet captain, you can fly any flight you want, on the schedule or not. You can simply base yourself out of Los Angeles. Those that haven't made it to fleet captain can simply ask their hub manager to add more flights into and out of Los Angeles. I'm happy to do this for anyone that asks.

Hope this helps. And for the record, if our roster numbers were to increase and maintain a higher level of active pilots, I'd be all for adding another hub.

Just my two cents...

I was hoping that Mike might weigh in on this request before I did, but Eric's historical input was what I was looking for (thanks Eric).  

I appreciate the suggestion James, as we're always trying to make our airline more fun and interesting for our pilots.  Unfortunately, in addition to Eric's points, there's also additional administrative overhead for adding a new hub.  We would need a hub manager for that and we still haven't been able to fill the MSP Hub Mgr. position for I think over the past year now.  There would also be initial coding and database additions necessary to implement the new hub and likely periodic code and database updates thereafter.

As Eric indicated, none of these issues are insurmountable, but it often comes down to balancing the benefit to our pilots with the required resources (a limited quantity here at SPA).

Again, thank you for your interest in making SPA the best that it can be.

Happy flying,

John

Sorry not to have been able to weigh in on this discussion when it was active. My wife and I just got back from two weeks on a rail/bus trip through the Canadian Rockies. It was a really great trip (great scenery, great food, etc.), but we were largely out of radio contact, so to speak. On top of that, we all came down with what seemed to be a pretty bad cold, but tested out as Covid 19, probably the new BA5 variant. We've been home for about a week and I haven't had the energy to do much and just got back into the cockpit for the first time this afternoon.

Anyhow Eric described the situation well, too many Hubs, too few pilots. Actually, before the "merger" (many years ago now), I was the Washington (KIAD) Hub manager before I moved to Minneapolis. The current situation is pretty much optimal: Minneapolis because that's where the VA was founded (i.e. Minneapolis/St. Paul), London to attract our European pilots and Miami for those who prefer the tropics to Minneapolis in the winter. If we had another 10-15 pilots we might want to consider another Hub and I'd be for LA, as that's my "home" airport. Although, these days I hate to go into LA and I don't care for the airport, so I try to fly in and out of Palm Springs - walk from the parking lot to the terminal, and, if you get there early there might be nobody in the security line. On the other hand, if we did want another Hub, we probably should consider Tokyo, or maybe Sydney or Honolulu.

Mike