Originally Posted by
williambruno1975
maybe im too millennial to grasp ... WHAT competition ?
There is a lot of capacity to HKG from multiple cities throughout the US.
Originally Posted by
The Situation
Sure they don't have any direct flights competing against them, but they have a lot of connecting flights competing at half the cost. You will have some business travelers that don't care and will just book the direct, but most people, whether its their money or someone else's can't justify and won't justify paying 2X, even if it means a connection in TPE, ICN, etc. Sure DL could lower their price to sell more seats, but it is beyond stupid for DL to chase competitors' pricing when DL knows competitors have lower costs - its a battle DL can't win, because competitors will drop their price and DL will still sell the same number of seats, but at a lower price. Competitors are still profitable (albeit less profitable) and DL becomes unprofitable. Play up the competitive advantage of the direct flight and hope some business travelers bite to make the flight work.
Never really thought of it. But, between CX and HX, there is a lot of capacity to HKG. IIRC, CX isn't doing all that well financially these days.
Originally Posted by
ATOBTTR
CX, AA, and UA, off the top of my head. While DL had SEA-HKG nonstop to itself, what were the O&D numbers? My guess is much of SEA-HKG was being filled by a lot of connections and DL does compete in that regard, including trying to compete against the nonstops on CX, UA, and AA from many of the largest markets in the US, including NYC, LAX, ORD, SFO, Washington, D.C., and BOS. So your largest markets can already get there direct, meaning DL has to attract passengers with lower fares (thus lower yields), and DL has to compete on product and schedule against these other carriers as well for connecting passengers.
True. Also, SQ has flights from SFO and LAX to HKG that continue on to SIN. I would take CX or SQ before any of the US3 even it costs a little more.