American Airlines Group Inc. operates more flights to Austin from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport than any other destination even though it may not be the most profitable route, according to flight data tracker Cirium.
According to Cirium, the Austin-DFW segment had one of the lowest load factors at 63% in the first quarter, meaning flights are almost two-thirds full. Yield for the segment is 37.6 cents, ranking No. 15 among 178 routes graded by Cirium. Yield is the amount an airline earns for each passenger mile flown., managing director of global network planning for American, said Austin is a"super important" city for the carrier.
"The community down there continues to grow with all of the tech companies that have been moving there and continue to expand," Reisinger said."We expanded our footprint and we added some nonstops from Austin to non-hubs, some point-to-point routes. We also beefed up some of the hub connectivity." Reisinger also disputed the finding by Cirium's Route Grader that the segment is not highly profitable. American has its own internal metrics to measure how valuable a route is to the network, he said.The Austin-DFW segment is 90%"flow," Reisinger said, meaning most of the passengers are flying to connect through DFW because the majority of people traveling only between Dallas and Austin will probably drive.