Originally Posted by
Dawgfan6291
It would give WAS based travelers one stop flights to SYD,NRT,HND,ICN,PVG,CAN. Plus it would give Delta a link in one of the top O/D places from LAX. It would also give LA based travelers non-stop flights to one of the largest O/D places from LA.
Don't just look at Domestic side, the feed from that flight, well timed, could feed international citys along with feed to Hawaii.
Aside from CAN and SYD, DCA-based flyers already have one-stop access to all of these cities through an existing DL gateway (DTW, MSP or ATL). They wouldn't be able to solve connecting flights with one slot as the departures and arrivals from LAX to those destinations are spread over a 12-hour period. They could time a DCA flight so that it connects very nicely to their SYD and NRT flights on the LAX-DCA segment but the other direction involves a 12-hour spread too.
I believe they look at this as a lack of connecting traffic situation. Better to route DCA-bound travelers through ATL, MSP, SLC, DTW or (for now) MEM/CVG rather than have them backtrack west to LAX. For the SYD pax, yea that's going to require a 2-stop flight on DL metal or a connection to AS (at least in one direction). But SLC solves more of their connecting feed needs than LAX would.