Originally Posted by
Longboater
Lastly regarding LAX. For those who remember, Ed Bastian was the proponent of Delta establishing their Trans-Pac operations, replacing NRT, at LAX, instead of SEA as Richard Andersen wanted as Delta could use the 767s several Asian destinations, while Delta post-merger would have been confined to operating only their small 77E/77L fleet, plus some 744s, ex-LAX. Delta has been well established at LAX since the Western acquisition, although they retreated somewhat in the 1990s and then in the 2000s before the NW merger, and then built LAX back up, relocated terminals, and how have T2/T3 to themselves plus TBIT access. INTL traffic ex-LAX is still not close to being all the way back pre-pandemic and this allowed UA to overtake AA as the second largest carrier at LAX plus become far and away the largest INTL carrier at the airport. Part of this is due to Russian Airspace being closed to US carriers and LAX functioning as a much needed secondary, reliever Trans-Pac hub for UA. Now Delta wants to cement their presence as the largest LAX carrier and will attempt to overtake UA in the coming years as the largest INTL carrier.
I don't get running all these new Asian routes via LAX. SEA is better geographically (less back tracking for most) and has less competition than LAX unless they think the O/D numbers are going to be really good. LAX is a competitive bloodbath. I would think that unless you are a SkyPesos junkie, you'd fly SQ to SIN and PR to MNL from LAX. UA usually runs their primary Asian routes form SFO and the LAX once they get a foothold in the market.
I think Richard Anderson was right to make SEA the Asian hub and not LAX. I also think that Richard was better at running an airline than Ed.
Maybe one day, they'll announce SEA/LAX - SGN and we can call SkyPesos SkyDong instead.