An article in today's Houston Business Journal got my attention. Apparently, KE is planning to start non-stop service from Bush Intercontinental to Seoul. [
http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/n...ed=2014-02-03]. With KE, that will make 3 daily international SkyTeam flights from IAH (IAH-CDG and IAH-AMS are the others.) Frankly, there are DL hubs that don't have that sort of international SkyTeam traffic.
Obviously IAH is a United hub, and HOU is a Southwest hub, but it's still bizarre that Delta only runs flights to its hubs from Houston. (And from HOU, only to ATL.) What the SkyTeam traffic signifies is that Houston is a large, thriving city with a rapidly growing economy. If the SkyTeam partners can support daily international departures, despite the presence of United, one would think DL could support a more robust domestic presence. Houston is 2nd to NYC for Fortune 500 Companies, and DL is simply not competing for that business (even as it makes enormous investments in NYC). DL even maintains a pretty strong service into Chicago despite it being a hub for three airlines (AA, UA, and WN).
I've thought the thing that would make the most sense would be to try and increase flights into Hobby. Hobby is far closer to downtown (much like DCA is in DC). Business travelers prefer it, if possible. DL could make a killing if it ran HOU-LAX, HOU-NYC (HOU-SFO, since those are Chevron's big HQ cities!) and other targeted service, but it doesn't even try to do so. It just flies a bunch of flights into ATL.
I don't get it.
For me, the dearth of service means that after twelve years flying DL, I'm basically being forced to switch to WN and UA.