Originally Posted by
davidchui
I wonder if they decided that they had too much F capacity into LAX and that was driving down yields. I have less experience with F but in general for other cabins, I've found LAX way cheaper (as much as 50%) than SFO because every carrier feels like they need to serve LAX and there's no dominant US carrier that drives loyalty to any alliance. JL/AA together have 3 daily frequencies with F to LAX with a total of 24 F seats, all to HND (vs ANA currently with one frequency to each of HND and NRT). SQ11 also adds another 4 F seats. In the current winter season, that's 44 daily F seats between LAX and TYO. I can't think of any other market from either TYO or LAX that has that many daily F seats on the route.
Conversely, from SFO, JL has one frequency with F (JL001) and it's not even a daily right now, so there's not even 8 daily F seats from SFO right now. Between the lower competitiveness of SFO vs LAX and the fact that it's their TPAC JV partner UA's hub, I wonder if they just decided that if there's not enough 777s to service all routes, SFO might be the better option for them.
Just wait, be patient, F will return to LAX on NH
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I think there may have been a miscalculation about 24 F seats on LAX-TYO between JL/AA. Of those 3 flights, Only JL 15/16 LAX-HND is a 77W with 8F seats. JL 61/62 LAX-NRT is operating on a high density 787-9 with only 28J and no F. AA 169/170 is a 788, with only 20J and no F.
So in fact, there are only 28 total F seats on the LAX-TYO market this winter, and would shrink to a measly 12 if NH pulled all 77Ws from the route. Yes, paid transpacific F demand is far greater from LAX than SFO. I don't think any Asian airline has operated more premium seats to SFO than LAX in the past. The 60+ J cabin on both NH LAX 77W flights appear quite full on close in bookings, so I can't imagine why they would shrink down to 48 x 3. Also, 77W gives a nice boost to belly cargo.