The economic case for USA3000 simply doesn't exist anymore, nor does it for MOST of the charter carriers now, and that is what we are seeing in the market place.
In 2000 When USA3000 was dreamed up, Apple had a lot of trouble getting its pax to places like La Romana and Punta Cana and various places in Mexico.
They used to hire a lot of contract carriers to do that flying for them (think Ryan and Transmeridian) The large network carriers basically shunned that sort of flying.
When I was based in NY for USA3000 I thought we were losing the flying to North American, but I was quite wrong. The flying out of Kennedy was lost to American Airlines, and Newark was lost to continental airlines.
American sends 267 seat A300s to punta Cana and cancun at 900 am on Sat and Sun (switiching to 757s and 737s for the summer when the demand slows down). Everyone was getting off the plane with Apple bag tags. (I just flew that trip 2 weeks ago)
Continental does similar things out of Newark now.
Those services did not exist before about 2004 when the domestic carriers started redeploying their fleets into the carribean.
And I hate to admit it, but the passengers prefer flying on American. 3 simple reasons. first it leaves at a more "civilized" time of day (later show on first day of vacation, leave hotel at more reasonable hour on last day). 2nd (and this is actually much more important thanf anyone realizes) frequent flyer miles. It doesn't matter if the actual service on the aircraft is crap, that is actually the least important part of the travel experience. 3rd And Last, Apple has a wide range of resorts including "Upscale". If you can afford to stay at the Riu Palace at retail prices you would probably be able to afford first class and would infact WANT to pay for it. AA has first class, USA3000 doesn't.
Back in my Ryan days one contract we had went from Cincinati to Brussles with an A320 with 56 seats in it for proctor and gamble and GE. You know what? We lost that service back to delta. The execs would rather fly coach with a "chance" of upgrade from Cincinati to Atlanta to Amsterdamn to brussles at inconvienient times so that they could collect the frequent flier miles than have a personally scheduled private jet with all first class service that had no frequent flier miles. It boggled the mind.
And Apple has the same problem when they charter pax aircraft. Instead they can just block buy seats on AA, UA, CO, NW etc, at what is now a competitive rate AND the pax get frequent flier miles (or in somecases use credit card miles to partially offset the price of the vacation).
BTW I was saying this all the way back in 2004 as soon as I saw how the majors were realigning their fleets. The age of the charter carrier was now in decline. Sadly I was right.
USA3000 could never afford to fly their aircraft in a pax friendly scheduling manner. They HAVE to get 2 turns a day out of them to pay the mortgage which runs whether the plane flies or not. So the early trip will be too early and the late trip will be 2 late.
The Majors on the other hand fly their fleets hard on the weekdays and not so much on the weekend and can use their spare aircraft for 1 turn on Sat and 1 turn on Sunday that will leave at a better hour.
USA3000 Might do better with OLDER less fuel efficient aircraft that had no mortgage, because then you could afford to fly them each only a couple of turns per week, and they wouldn't cost you any money while they are sitting on the ground (think allegiant)
Cheers
Wino
PS my prediction for the next base to close is Philly as more flying is shifted to USAir. Angus built that airline on the basis that USAir was going out of business and that aint happening anytime soon
