BEFORE THE 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Essential Air Service at 

WATERTOWN, NEW YORK 

Under 49 U.S.C §41731 et seq. 

DOT -OST -1997-2842 

! b ,'.\ !:}: ll 

AMERICAN AIRLINES PROPOSAL TO PROVIDE ESSENTIAL AIR SERVICE AT 

Watertown, New York 

American Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of AMR Corporation, respectfully submits its 

proposal to continue subsidized Essential Air Service to Watertown, NY~ American Airlines 

seeks to continue service from American's hub, Chicago O'Hare to the Watertown International 

Airport with two daily roundtrips with the exception of Saturday for a total of thirteen weekly 

roundtrips. The service would be conducted by American Airlines regional brand, American 

Eagle using 44 seat jet aircraft. 

American Airlines regional feed is operated under the American Eagle and American Connection 

brands. Flying for American Eagle is conducted by American Eagle Airlines, SkyWest Airlines, 

and ExpressJet. American Connection flying is operated solely by Chautauqua Airlines. 

American Airlines customers currently have access to more than 260 cities, 50 countries and 

more than 3400 daily departures. Through our oneworld alliance, customers have access to more 

than 700 destinations and 140 countries. These flights will continue to be operated with the AA 

code, pursuant to a code sharing agreement with American Airlines. Additional codes of the 

oneworld carriers are also applied to this route, and would continue to be. 

The service proposed by American Airlines continues existing service to American's hub, 

Chicago O'Hare ("ORD"). At ORD, American, American Connection, and American Eagle 

offer more than 460 daily departures to 120 destinations, making it one of the largest hubs in the 

country. This direct access on such a large scale has helped stimulate traffic from Watertown 

with significantly easier connecting options than what had been offered to travelers to and from 

the region prior to our award of the current Essential Air Service bid. 

Watertown has performed well under subsidized Essential Air Service since American's EAS 

subsidy award in November 2011, despite regional tendencies to favor SYR and its presence of 

low-cost carrier and network carriers. Passenger numbers have increased steadily over the course 

of our nearly two years operating in the market. We have made progress in developing airservice in Watertown, and see the influence of the current service geographically redefining the 
local catchment area. The proposed EAS subsidy is higher than our previous agreement primarily 

due to the proposed additional departure. The proposed subsidy also reflects the costs associated 

with the unique operational challenges that exist in Watertown which were unforeseen in our 

first two years of operation. Our current bid should reflect our belief that the Essential Air 

Service subsidy is vital, and on this trajectory the service may one day be able to exist profitably 

without Federal subsidy. 

American would like to also request that the DOT and Watertown allow us flexibility in 

substituting an Embraer EMB 140 ( 44 seats), operated by Chautauqua under the American· 

Connection brand, when needed for the same rates. This will allow us to provide an additional. 

layer of schedule protection. American also requests that the DOT and Watertown waive the 

right to hold-in American Eagle service upon issuance of a 120 days-notice to terminate service. 

Although we do not foresee this to be an issue and plan to continue developing the Watertown 

market, we cannot be operationally constrained and kept in a market indefinitely, without ability 

to adapt to changing circumstances. 

We believe that our to-date success in Watertown is demonstrative of the American Airlines 

network and marketing programs. American Airlines is the only airline with a dedicated 

Regional Market Development team that will continue its promotion of the brand and service in 

the communities. This is a testament of American's support and ability to provide air service to 

small communities unlike low cost carriers in the industry today. 

We look forward to serving the Watertown area for many years to come and appreciate the 

communities and the Department of Transportation consideration of continued American 

Airlines service. 

Sincerely, 

Charles Schubert 

Vice President 

American Airlines Network Planning 
Market: 

Aircraft 

Mileage 

Annual Deps (Factored) 

Block per Dep 

Watertown. NY to Chicago O'Hare 

EMB140 

~nnual Block Hours (Factored) 

Completion Percentage 

617 

1,329 

2.12 

2,823 

98.0% 

Number of Seats per Dep 

Annual ASMs (Factored) 

Annual RPMs (Factored) 

Annual LF 

Revenues 

Annual Passengers 

Avg Fare - Onboard 

Total Revenues 

Expenses 

Flight Operations (incl Fuel) 

Aircraft Ownership 

Pax Variable 

Other 

Total Expenses 

Profit I (Loss) 

Profit Element(@ 5%) 

Subsidy Required 

Subsidy I Departure 

Subsidy I Pax 

Segment 

ART-ORO 

ART-ORO 

40,228 

$132 

$5,328,809 

$6,975,187 

$233,733 

$830,340 

$498,696 

$8,537,956 

($3,209, 148) 

$426,898 

$3,636,045 

$2,736 

$90.39 

Proposed Schedule 

Depart 

7:20AM 

5:35PM 

Arrive 

9:00AM 

6:55PM 

Freguency 

Daily 

Daily* (Except Sat.) 

ORO-ART 2:15PM 5:00PM Daily* (Except Sat.) 

ORO-ART 3:15PM 6:00PM Saturday only 

ORO-ART 6:40PM 9:25PM Daily* (Except Sat.) 

44 

36,076,434 

24,820,587 

68.8% 

** Schedule is shown for illustrative purposes only and American Airlines reserves the right to change without notice. 

All times are local.