Originally Posted by
Upgraded!
Oh, I agree with you on that point. However, ICN is hardly a DL hub any more than HKG is an AA hub. The disjointedness I was referring to was the fact that DL's major Asia hub, NRT, doesn't really serve as an access point to the entire continent making it worth significantly less than it was in the pre-ST days when NW dominated on US-Asia via NRT.
I think it's more accurate to say that the JAL and ANA hubs simply serve more destinations, whereas Delta only covers a handful of huge ones and overlooks the rest. It's not as if the DL hub itself got weaker since the NW merger; if anything it has gotten slightly stronger, but competitors have outpaced it.
DL does have an advantage in its labor cost structure, which is significantly lower than the Japanese airlines. This is one reason why DL and UA undercut the local carriers so well on intra-Asia flights (besides to compensate for their comparatively crap fleet and service).