Originally Posted by
GYEWorldTraveler
I heard that this route will go seasonal and the 777 will likely fly somewhere with high offseason demand (like south america since its the peak season down there). Ultra long haul flights are hard to make money on, I can't even imagine how bad they must be in sept/oct
That would make sense. When I flew this route in July and August of last year, peak season for Asia, it was very full. November, not so much. In August things were actually so packed that I scored the op-up of legend: upgraded to 777 BE for the 14-hour flight. And my co-worker, on a separate ticket but the same flight, got the op-up too! And the most surprising part: we were both FOs at the time!
That op-up seems to have used up most of my upgrade karma but I don't care... it was worth it.
Either way this is going to be a huge inconvenience for a lot of people. This route was the only reason I chose DL over UA. Now with UA having ORD-HKG direct, I may be forced to move to UA for most of my travel. 11 PM arrival on the connection from NRT just does not cut it
That, or I can find a new job that doesn't require me flying to HKG multiple times per year. Already working on that, but it may be too late....