Originally Posted by
ijgordon
I'd just add that CO has never taken lightly to competitors encroaching on its turf at EWR. They practically ran JetBlue out of town a few years ago, I think they only have a few flights now to Florida.
It wouldn't surprise me to see COUA add another flight EWR-HKG to try and prevent CX from gaining much share. They have more flexibility to do so as a combined carrier from a fleet perspective. Not sure about the regulatory/slot aspects though.
I'd be little surprised; the fuel alone would be approximately $250k per round trip and the fully allocated costs would exceed $500k per day (round trip). That would be one expensive flight to attempt to protect turf. And ya gotta think that with CX starting a flight, yields will come down. If CO also starts a new flight, they'd have lots and lots of seats to give away.
And that ignores the other issue: which (presumably) more profitable flight would UA/CO cancel to free up the pair of 777s necessary to operate a second daily flight to HKG?