Makes sense. Just as long as it's not before Feb 1. I may upgrade on a TPAC and would route it through MSP if the lie-flats are available but not for those "sleepers!"

I like the pods. *shrugs*

If they change the equipment on me can I change without a fee? I forget.

It now looks like it is a permanent switch.. Most days show B77L or B772,,, with only around Thanksgiving or around Christmas time 2012 switching to B744 for a week or two.. looks like the B744 at MSP is forever dead now :(

DL is doing its best to turn its 2nd most profitable hub into it's 3rd, 4th, or 5th most profitable hub.

For such a profitable hub, MSP has seen nothing but downgrades (in terms of routes & capacity) since the merger.

To anyone who thought the initial switch to the 777 was really because they wanted to give MSP customers a better premium class experience, I have a few bridges I'd like to sell you.

where do I begin? If DL, on a consistent basis, can't sell enough seats to fill a 747 on MSP - NRT, then as a prudent and wise business decision, they rightfully should change planes to something smaller. In this case, they switched it to a 777 which, is no slouch in terms of planes.... Newer, more modern, with lie-flats available right now. No waiting for the 747 mods to get done.

That's right. The Delta executives sit around all day scheming up ideas on how they can make less money. You've single handily blew the lid off this one.

As a fan of watching the 744 I'm sad to see it go :(, but as a many time Y flyer on the msp-nrt route I'm happy to see it go :). In fact, Sunday will be my 1st trip to nrt since the swap so looking forward to the 777.

Regular flier on this route (connecting to China), and enjoy the nostalgia and novelty of the 747, particularly upper deck J... but I had pretty much abandoned it for more comfortable (and substantially cheaper) J seats on SQ and KE. Plus if you work your route right, you can get the A380 upper deck novelty on either airline.

With the better sleeper seats on the 777, DL has been back in play for me... and with an updated 747, that'll be the best of both worlds. With that said, the fare differences for J have been pretty tough to swallow. $4,500 RT on KE or SQ vs $12,000 on DL????

$4500 on KE in paid J? The cheapest I see is coming up in the high 6's and 7's.

OK, maybe $4500 is the extreme cheapest I've gotten... but for LAX-ICN have been able to get in the low to mid $5K regularly, even only a couple weeks out.

Add on a connection into China and a MSP-LAX RT on DL and you're still looking at half of the MSP-NRT-PVG J fare. If your destination in China is anywhere other than PVG or PEK, you can actually save time by going this route too... but we're digressing.

The real truth is the Delta executives sit around all day scheming up ideas on how we can spend more money.

You know, because the cuts have been SO extreme.

Let's look at July 2012 schedules vs July 2007 (last year before the merger) schedules for MSP. There are 98 less departures a week (14/day, -2.9%). There are 24,522 less seats a week (3503/day, -6.7%). ASMs are down 5.5%.

Destinations cut are: BTV, CMX, EAU, GSO, HNL, HPN, IDA, LGW*, MHT, MQT, PLN, RHI, STC, YQT.

CDG and LHR* have been added.

Of the cut destinations, the ones in the network still have plenty of flows to go over - MHT/BTV/HPN have ATL/DTW, HNL has SEA/SFO/LAX/SLC/ATL, GSO has ATL/DTW. The rest are pretty much all EAS cities.

And FWIW, here are some other airline/hub combinations in the same timeframe.

DL/ATL: -4.2% flights, +5.9% seats
DL/DTW: +3.8% flights, -6.7% seats
DL/SLC: -26.1% flights, -16.8% seats (wonder where that flow went...MSP?)
UA/ORD: -3.3% flights, -18.2% seats
UA/DEN: -13.4% flights, -26.0% seats
UA/SFO: +3.6% flights, -4.4% seats
UA/IAD: +0.9% flights, -4.3% seats
AA/DFW: -5.4% flights, -4.1% seats
AA/ORD: -4.4% flights, -12.2% seats
AA/MIA: +17.5% flights, +11.1% seats
CO/EWR: -6.8% flights, -9.3% seats
CO/IAH: -9.4% flights, -5.9% seats
US/PHL: +0.9% flights, +3.7% seats
US/CLT: +18.2% flights, +21.9% seats
US/PHX: -3.8% flights, +2.7% seats

As you can see in this sample, MSP fits right in the middle of the pack. US is a bit of an anomoly, but they have two things happening there: (1) is that per the pilots agreement, they have to maintain I believe 379 mainline (non-E190) planes and they're pretty much right at that number right now, so mainline capacity can't be shed. (2) is that for these schedules, they've pulled a lot of seats out of LAS, BOS, LGA and to a lesser extent, PIT and putting those seats into the core hubs.

Delta doesn't have some devious plot against MSP - it's rationally reducing capacity throughout it's system. As for it's importance, just look at the hit SLC has taken - I bet you a lot of those SLC flow pax are now going over MSP.

As for downgrades, when you park 100 DC-9s, of course there are going to be downgrades. Either frequencies get increased on smaller planes to make up the difference, or they get cut on larger planes to do so when you don't have a 1:1 replacement type. Given that the CR9s and E175s did a lot of this replacing, it's not a shocker...it's simply business.

Oh, dear, mersk862 has brought facts to the party again. Why would anyone want that? ;)

You've just witnessed the end of a thread. nicely done. Now, can you do that for CVG?