American adjusts schedules at DFW to shorten layovers, boost revenue

Travelers connecting on flights at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport will have to move a little faster to make sure they get to their next flight on time.

On Sunday, American Airlines is altering its flight schedule at DFW, placing more arrivals and departures in compressed time periods known as banks. By “rebanking” its hub, American will have shorter connection times between flights, which should improve travel times for passengers and increase revenue for the airline.

“The hub at DFW is a connection factory,” said Robert Isom, American’s chief operating officer. “That is how you enable flights to take off with full loads.”

About 65 percent of passengers moving through DFW are connecting to other flights. Now, American operates a rolling schedule, in which flights are spread out throughout the day.

To handle the higher number of planes at gates at one time, the Fort Worth-based carrier has added 450 employees at DFW, including baggage handlers, ground crew workers and gate agents.

And since American executives began planning the rebanking in July, everyone from airport concessionaires to customs staffers to air traffic controllers has had to prepare for the schedule shift.

“It will probably be a bit of a learning curve, but we want the airplanes in and out of here on time,” airport CEO Sean Donohue said.

American has already rebanked its Miami hub and is rebanking its hub at Chicago O’Hare on Sunday as well. All former US Airways hubs already operate banked schedules. US Airways and American merged in 2013.

Isom said the rebanking of legacy American hubs will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

“We’ve always viewed this as one of the great opportunities for the new American, which is ensuring we’ve peaked our banks and created the most connections possible,” Isom said.

What is rebanking?

More than a decade ago, American operated a banked schedule at DFW. But after 9-11, air travel demand dropped dramatically and several airlines, including American, moved to rolling schedules.

Those schedules required fewer employees and helped airlines cut costs, but they made connection times longer for customers. Airlines also lost some revenue when business travelers paid higher fares to a competitor with a shorter connection time.

By moving back to a banked schedule, American hopes to attract more business travelers who are willing to pay more to spend less time waiting for a connection. When a consumer searches for fares on travel websites, the shortest connection time often appears first, making it more likely the customer will choose that flight, American said.

United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have already rebanked their hubs. By following suit, American can use its aircraft more effectively, industry analyst Mike Boyd said.

“It’s a decision on what is the most efficient use of their resources,” Boyd said. “It will depend on how well they can make it work, and I would suspect — knowing this management team — that they can make it work.”

DFW will have 10 banks throughout the day, and an 11th will be added during the busy summer travel season, said Chuck Schubert, American’s vice president of network and schedule planning. Three banks will connect customers coming from the East Coast and heading to other destinations, and three will have flights that connect customers from the West Coast.

“Its location naturally sets up for an east-west type of flow given that it is in a central part of the United States,” Schubert said, adding that the other four will be “omni banks” with flights arriving and departing from all directions.

What it means for customers

American does not plan to add or drop a significant number of destinations and will continue to operate about 800 flights a day at DFW. But it is squeezing a large number of flights into each bank.

In its two busiest banks, around 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., American will have about 100 arrivals and 100 departures in an hour, said Ilhan Ince, managing director of operations planning and performance at American.

“We’re scheduling 12 arrivals and 12 departures per five-minute period,” Ince said. “This is the peak period, and the schedule we built does not exceed that.”

It is also bringing flights from South America into DFW around 5 a.m., about an hour earlier, so passengers can connect to flights early in the morning.

“You decrease the connection time or the wait time they would otherwise have to spend at the airport to make that next flight,” Schubert said.

Now, most connection times top 70 minutes. With the switch, most will be 40 to 70 minutes.

With shorter connection times, passengers may have a harder time making their next flight.

But Jeff Plant, American’s vice president for DFW Airport, said the airline will be able to hold more aircraft with a banked schedule to limit missed connections.

“We can make more educated decisions on, say, holding airplanes for connections in a banked situation,” Plant said. “It is a little more systematic and organized than what we have today.”

To help international passengers get through customs faster, American has worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection on staffing.

It has also had planning exercises with its in-flight caterers, cabin cleaners and vendors who push wheelchair passengers through terminals to help them adjust to the crowds expected during peaks, said Kerry Philipovitch, American’s senior vice president of customer experience.

Customers may also find their flight times more convenient.

“You want to have a LaGuardia flight in each bank because business travelers will value the frequency,” Philipovitch said. “But if you have a leisure market, you want to put that during the time of day those travelers want to fly.”

Operational challenges

Passengers won’t have as much time to linger at a sit-down restaurant in Terminal D or shop at the new TUMI store in Terminal A.

Donohue said airport staffers have helped concessionaires come up with more grab-and-go options and easier-to-read menus for passengers with quick connections.

And to help the staff know what to expect, airport executives visited Miami Airport, which was rebanked last fall.

“What Miami shared with us was initially there was a bit of a drop in concessions revenue but then it stabilized,” Donohue said. “If we do a really good job of partnering with concessionaires and they’re ready, and we’re ready, and the grab-and-go works, then I think the impact to our concessions revenue will be minimal.”

American has also run computer simulations to help air traffic controllers balance the use of runways without pushing them to capacity.

“They can plan how they’re going to flow the aircraft in and out in a balanced fashion,” Ince said, noting that the controllers haven’t had to do that since American last ran a banked schedule at DFW more than a decade ago.

If mechanical issues delay a flight or thunderstorms move through the area, American will still face challenges in getting passengers to their destinations on time. But Isom said the impact of one delayed flight may be minimal because more planes will be used on “out-and-back” routes, such as DFW to Chicago and then back to DFW.

“At the end of the day, there is a lot of this schedule you’ll recognize,” Isom said. “It’s the way we move flights around the edges that ultimately create the greater connecting opportunities for our passengers.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2015 at 11:27 AM with the headline "American adjusts schedules at DFW to shorten layovers, boost revenue."