Originally Posted by
orbitmic
1) From Latin America (For instance DL's GRU-JFK arrives at 5.24am, although admittedly, DL has a much weaker Latin American network at JFK compared to AA)
But who would fly Brazil-Europe via New York? Very very very very few people. Huge detour, plus the time it takes to go through US immigration... not really.
2) To Asia (AF has many late evening flights to Asia, such as CDG-HKG at 23.30, CDG-HND at 23.25, CDG-CPT at 23.35, CDG-JNB at 23.30, etc).
But who would fly New York-Haneda or New York-Hong Kong via Paris? Very very very very few people. Huge detour. The only meaningful transer opportunities are to JNB, CPT, SVO and TLV. Probably that's not enough to move the needle. The flight would depend almost exclusively on O&D traffic.
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In terms of connections at ORY, there are only these destinations that do not also have service to CDG: Agen, Ajaccio, Aurillac, Bastia, Brive-la-Gaillarde, Calvi, Castres, Lannion, Tarbes/Lourdes, Lorient, Mulhouse, Perpignan, Rodez, Toulon, Quimper. Most of them do have an arrival into ORY before 08h30, so with an MCT of 45 minutes the flight to JFK could be out by 09h15 and still capture most/all of the regional French flights. But then, most of these are very thin routes operated with regional aircraft, so not many pax that can be fed on to an ORY-JFK. Maybe I underestimate the thriving traffic between Brive-la-Gaillarde and the Upper West Side of Manhattan but I believe that these flights do not move the needle and would justify making departure times less attractive for those that will constitute the bulk of passengers, i.e. those leaving from Paris.
For Paris-based people, a departure by 8h30-9h00 would be convenient. And it still would allow connections from other places that have much more NYC demand: MRS, NCE, TLS, BOD. All of them have flights coming into ORY until 07h40, so that would make an 08h30 departure possible. Pax might like to go through ORY instead of JFK because it's just a walk from Hall 2 to Hall 3 rather than from 2F to 2E.
As for business customers attractiveness, it is interesting that others have different experience but this is now my most frequent JFK-LHR flight (the BA one) and it is always packed in both J and F (in fact I find it the hardest JFK flight to find upgrades on!) and clearly many of the people in the cabin appear to be business people. I totally see your point that somehow it shouldn't as people "waste" the day, but in my last 10 trips on this service the pattern has been very consistent. Maybe as you say this is just related to the sheer potential of JFK-LHR as a route and the generally more effective marketing of AA-BA compared to AF-DL.
It doesn't have to be wasted time. Many people's jobs are such that they can perfectly be without phone connection or talking to someone for seven hours or so. Writing memos, reading through material to prepare a conference or a speech or a board meeting, etc. So many things which can be done very well seated in a comfortable seat at 35,000 ft above the Atlantic. And any Europe-based stuff can be done over the phone before leaving JFK, and US-based stuff can be done over the phone after arrival in CDG. If they finally introduced onboard WiFi then the time could be very useful even for those that require an internet connection.