First, I would like to congratulate Delta Air Lines for its quick response to my letter to their customer service department. I sent the letter on November 8, 1999 (with two days mailing time to Atlanta) and received a response on November 10, 1999 (the letter was dated November 8th). Very quick turnaround--good job Delta!

Second, I am a little confused with the response I got. My letter asked them when Delta, or one of its Worldwide Partners, was to begin service to Australia because my wife and I want to travel there in 2001. Here is an excerpt from the repsonse I received:

We constantly review new route opportunities and appreciate your taking the time to let us know of your interest in Delta serving Australia. Although we are interested, the current selection of domestic and international carriers serving Australia satisfy the demand for service to this destination, making it difficult for new entrants to profitably enter the market. However, we will continue to take a serious look at serving Australia should conditions change.

Is the Australia market that tough--is competition that rough in that market? My uncle and aunt went on a trip to Australia this summer and said that they had a hard time getting flights (on US Airways to L.A. and QF to New Zealand and Austrailia). I am sure that if Delta offered two or three flights a week to Australia or New Zealand, that they would be full or near capacity. Does anyone know the "real" reason? Is Delta waiting on entering into new codeshare partnership agreements or alliances? Do they think that their BusinessElite product would not fare very well in the Asia market?

MLB

Welcome to the boards! Australia is a very competative market -- consider:

*Travel and Leasure (or one of the big travel magazines) named Sydney as the best international city. (It could be a post on one of these boards.)
*Australia's hosting the 2000 Summer Olympics.
*United, Ansett, Quantas and Air NewZ already serve the market, as well as several other carriers (I think British and Japan.) So the market's tight.

SO Australia's a hot travel destination. That could be why its tough for other carriers like Delta to get in.

FYI: if you want to do Australia on an award ticket PLAN EARLY. I started my planning at least 9 months in advance because award seats dry up fast.

Thanks for the response. I called Delta and the representative informed me that it will cost 180,000 SkyMiles to redeem an award seat on Korean Air and 125,000 SkyMiles for an economy seat. Now that is very steep!

MLB

The Australian government is also highly protective of how many international carriers and the frequencies of their service whom they allow to fly there. You would think that due to the amount of traffic they have to the US, they would allow a second US carrier to enter their market.

They have also refused United's request many times to allow NRT-SYD flights, so that United could do thier "Circle Pacific" routes.

Instead, Qantas seems to have been adding more and more US-Australia routes. (They are up to at least two daily, and sometimes three SYD-LAX nonstops each week, as well as 5 MEL-LAX nonstops each week, plus all sorts of connection options through AKL and HNL).

As far as Delta goes though, they don't own equipment that could make a nonstop US-Australia flight at this time, which I feel would be another factor in their decision. And they lost Air NZ as a partner.

Mbuckner - my father is in the same boat as you, his miles are all with Delta, and with Air NZ's withdrawl from Delta, you don't really have an option (the other one was with SQ, but that's gone too, and would have been a mileage costly flight).

[This message has been edited by SNA_Flyer (edited 11-16-1999).]

[This message has been edited by SNA_Flyer (edited 11-16-1999).]

This thread is going on in parallel under Delta. SNA-flyer and I posted very similar thoughts under the different threads. Great minds and all that

[This message has been edited by james (edited 11-16-1999).]

I posted twice so that I could get Delta flyers and other flyer from other airlines.

MLB

sure, but it can be easier and work better if you make the post here and post a link to it under (e.g.) Delta. That avoids parallel/duplicated discussions

Thanks, I forgot about the link option.

MLB