Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
Pretty simple. UA has NH, OZ and TG in NRT/ICN/HKG to hand off to, CA in PEK, SQ in SIN (I guess, though I would suspect NH wins given the TPAC JV).
Dl has CI in TPE, and CZ/MU in China, plus KE in ICN, who they treat like a redheaded stepchild.
UA has better codeshare partners, in very good hubs. UA has service to NRT from ALL their hubs (even DEN), so handing off to NH is easy. Which SkyTeam Asia hub does DL serve from ALL their hubs comparable to NRT, pray tell?
As I said, both UA and DL are getting rid of their NRT hubs, the evidence is clear (and we can't use the "$mi$ek is an idiot" excuse for DL, given their performance, now, can we?). The reason why DL kept NRT-BKK instead of NRT-HKG is they can't efficiently flow customers to BKK using a partner or their own metal, but they CAN to HKG (using SEA-HKG), so HKG gets the axe, BKK stays. UA can flow traffic to NH or, as a backup, to another *A partner. This isn't rocket science.
The reason a very large number of airlines--in fact virtually every major airline on the planet--serves Bangkok couldn't possibly be because it is a money maker ???
AA never had a Bangkok presence, or much of a presence in Asia at all, although I expect we will see that presence increase under Parker.
So essentially the only major carrier that dropped Bangkok was UA, and even UA didn't say it was because it was a money loser. UA just saw an opportunity to dump it on NH, without giving thought to the residual effects of flyers who will now avoid Asia on UA and fly another alliance to BKK.
You also make the mistake of assuming that DL can only code-share with a Skyteam partner. It simply isn't so. There are many examples of cross-alliance code-shares.
Service for BKK from Asia, Africa, India and Europe to BKK is fundamentally different from service from North America. Look at a map if you're wondering why that is, and look at where Hawaii and the Caribbean is in comparison to Thailand as well- people based in the USA don't need to fly to BKK to go to a tropical paradise, so outside of FT, where you would think everyone in the universe takes every vacation in Phuket and the Maldives flying first class, the vacation traffic is smaller- if it wasn't TG could fly an A380 nonstop LAX-BKK.
Funny how many Americans fly to Thailand then, isn't it?
Europeans could also fly to Bermuda or the Caribbean instead of Thailand if they chose. It is a shorter flight.
The distances between the U.S. and Thailand make non-stop flights cost prohibitive. There is a substantial amount of business traffic to SIN, but because of the distance, it is done as a connecting flight.
Also, the trade relationships between Europe and SE Asia (or Australia and SE Asia) are stronger than those of North America and SE Asia, for much the same reasons of geography (plus history).
Let's ignore that the U.S. is part of Asean and Europe is not.
The fact is no airline in the Americas flies to BKK nonstop. The airline hubbed in BKK doesn't even fly those routes nonstop. If UA is going to a strategy of "we're ditching the NRT hub" (and it's clear they are), flights to BKK have to stand and fall based on their potential as nonstops. And thanks to it being ULH, and BKK not being a top-tier market like HKG or SIN... they lose.
I'm sure you'll be able to explain why UA is not flying a 787 non-stop to SIN from the U.S. either . . .
And what about SGN?
UA wants to get rid of the NRT hub, so does DL. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Nice thinking that DL would like to drop BKK. Too bad there is no support for that belief.
United just seems to want to downsize itself out of existence.