FWAAA

You may be right. In addition, CX has nine daily nonstops between LAX (3), SFO (2), ORD (1) and JFK (3) plus four more daily nonstops between YYZ and YVR. CX is a fairly civilized way to fly and little wonder that DL is having trouble breaking into the nonstop HKG market.

There are currently lots of China nonstop frequencies available to US carriers that nobody has requested, including a bunch more that just became available. The novelty has worn off and the reality of actually making money between the USA and China has set in. Any airline that wants frequencies to China merely has to request them from DoT (and meet the suitable carrier requirements, of course).

MAH4546

I'm not basing it just on whats GDS. The route isn't coming back.

HkCaGu

UA has SFO.

HKG-LAX has a much larger O&D market than HKG-SEA.

I did a count of LAX N/S markets not already served by NRT (what HKG-LAX would open, one-stop): Florida: MIA, MCO, TPA. Rest of Eastern US: CVG, IND, MCI, MEM, MSY. West: LAS, SLC, PHX, SAN, SMF, SFO, OAK. Mexico: GDL.

Plus AS: MFR, SJC, DCA, YVR, other Mexican destinations.

LAX is certainly more DL potential vs. SEA, but a lot less AS connectability. (Note: AS LAX is now in T6, accessible from DL.)

Deadtail

The aircraft upgrades will come. In the meantime you should remember that PDX and SEA are PDX and SEA.

Doesn't Portland pay Delta to continue to operate the PDX-NRT route?

TheMoose

I will eat my hat if SLC-HKG is the replacement route.

Here's how I see it:

If Delta returns to the U.S. - HKG market at all, and DTW isn't profitable enough, I see 5* options at best, ranked in order of likelihood

1) JFK-HKG: this makes obvious sense from the aspect of connecting the lucrative NYC/N.E. US market with HKG. Perhaps a signature route launch to go along with the shiny new terminal. Big competition from CX, but maybe DL feels there's still enough profit to be gained. Given the increased connections in building up the LGA hub, maybe DL assumes the connections thru LGA/JFK would be better than connections thru DTW. But the potential profits would have to be that much greater than DTW-HKG given it'd be an even longer flight with more fuel burn and crew time required.

2) LAX-HKG: DL seems strongly committed to this market and there is ample connection opportunities to the largest U.S. markets via LAX, and connections could grow with the renovations being done to T5/T6. Also, it's 600 miles shorter than DTW-HKG; less fuel needed, less crew time required.

3) ATL-HKG: If only because it's Delta's HQ and largest hub. But the flight would be 500 miles longer than DTW-HKG and would provided limited connection opportunities from other domestic markets due to the early departure time from ATL that would likely be needed. Same issues with fuel and crew duty time would be present. But there are now more international gates than ever, and ATL is still a huge connecting hub that seems able to support other ultra long hauls to JNB and DXB. But the ghost of ATL-PVG still looms overhead.

4) SEA-HKG: If the route would be flown on a different aircraft (332 perhaps), they might make a go of it since the 777s would be more valuable on other ultra long hauls from other hubs. DTW-HND is currently a 332 and it's about the same distance as SEA-HKG would be. So, if they're willing to use a different aircraft on the route, that's a possibility. But, shifting the route to SEA would likely lose much of the East Coast traffic that DTW-HKG might have attracted. People would likely stick with JFK-HKG on CX or the CX/UA offerings from ORD. Would there be enough remaining connecting traffic via SEA plus any local demand to support the route? Who knows.

5) MSP-HKG (*very long shot): DL doesn't seem keen on adding any new routes to MSP, but the theory here would be that MSP is currently DL's 2nd most profitable hub (behind ATL), and MSP is actually a larger domestic hub operation than DTW, which may provide more 1-stop connection options to a larger portion of passengers across the U.S. Those are about the only things I see that even warrant discussion, because the other factors are still in play (fuel/distance not much better than DTW, not a lot of local traffic as far as I know, most East Coast travelers would opt for JFK on CX unless they are die-hard DL customers).

bsagator

I would eat your hat as well if MSP is chosen over SLC. They might have more domestic flights than DTW, but it will still encounter the same problems as DTW. How do you connect all of the SW/California passengers, and the O&D isn't there. My opinion is that SLC is a distant third behind JFK and SEA.

Stolen from airliners.net:

Airport-Airline---Seats---Seats/Flt

ATL-DL---130200---125.4
DFW-AA---87700---112.5
CLT-US---63200---98.9
IAH-UA---62400---95.0
ORD-UA---57800---89.5
DTW-DL---49700---90.1
MSP-DL---48800---103.0
EWR-UA---46900---105.7
MIA-AA---45600---151.6
ORD-AA---42900---85.7
PHL-US---39700---85.1
DEN-UA---38600---87.8
SFO-UA---36800---111.3
PHX-US---35800---120.2
MDW-WN---33800---139.2
LAS-WN---32000---139.9
SEA-AS---29800---116.3
BWI-WN---27400---138.9
IAD-UA---26900---92.1
SLC-DL---26300---94.8
PHX-WN---25100---137.7
LGA-DL---23700---88.4
LAX-UA---23600---106.5
JFK-DL---23600---130.3
DEN-WN---22600---137.8
ATL-FL---22500---120.9
JFK-B6---22100---136.1
DEN-F9---20500---131.7
HOU-WN---19900---138.0
LAX-AA---19700---123.1
DCA-US---18200---76.7
DAL-WN---17600---136.7
HNL-HA---15700---153.6
LAX-WN---15700---138.6
LAX-DL---15200---142.3
OAK-WN---14700---137.1
MCO-WN---13900---137.4
JFK-AA---13900---152.4
CLE-UA---12900---64.3
SAN-WN---12900---137.5
BOS-B6---12500---123.3
STL-WN---12200---136.1
MEM-DL---11400---77.4
BNA-WN---11000---137.5
LGA-AA---10500---92.5
TPA-WN---10200---137.2
CVG-DL---10000---79.7


SLC would have good/great one stop options to HKG from over 50 domestic/mexican secondary cities plus the hubs:

Albuquerque, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Billing, Boise, Bozeman, Boston, Burbank, Cancun, Cedar City, ORD, Charlotte, Cincinnati/Northern, Colorado Springs, Kentucky, Dallas, Denver,Detroit, Fresno, Indianapolis, Jackson Hole, Kansas City, Houston, Las Vegas, Long Beach, LAX, Memphis, Mexico City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York-JFK, Nashville, New Orleans Newark, Oakland, Oklahoma CIty, Omaha, Ontario, Orange County, Orlando, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Reno/Tahoe, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose (CA), St, George, St. Louis, Tucson, Tulsa, Washington-National

LAX only has connections to around 15 non-hub domestic/mexican cities without significant backtracking.

N830MH

That will be a logical choice. Perhaps, DL will have considered it. If they ever start a direct flight from JFK or SLC-HKG nonstop. It would be put on weight restrictions. Due to strong high headwinds gusts.

FWAAA

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that SLC-HKG has a zero percent probability of ever existing. The O&D must be what - one or two per day? If DTW isn't economically viable, with a lot more O&D, SLC has no shot. Successful long-haul routes need both O&D (to capture those high nonstop premium cabin fares) plus good connectivity to fill up the plane.

ATL? Not enough O&D. I recall when DL was petitioning for ATL-PVG and the other airlines jokingly said that the entire ATL O&D to China could fit on a small regional jet each day. At the time (prior to the purchase of NW), DL's entire Asian presence consisted of one daily flight to Tokyo from ATL.

LAX? Lots of O&D and decent connectivity but lots of competition.

SEA? Maybe.

Denolloyd

Odd... I had quite an enjoyable flight on DL91 (ATL-ICN) on 5/15/08 I would venture to guess NRT, ICN, and BOM were being operated.

91 OK O LV ATLANTA 1120A L B Elite
AR INCHEON KORE 310P#
A SO

FWAAA

I wasn't talking about 2008.

In November, 2004, CO argued against DL receving any China frequencies from ATL, and told the DoT in its brief that DL had gone from being a strong Asian airline to one with "one Asian route." The one Asian route at the time was ATL-NRT.

At that time, the data showed nine daily O&D passengers to China from ATL. A couple years later, the data showed growth - a total of 23 daily passengers, which UA derisively said would fit in a "small turboprop."

Denolloyd

Well then, I stand corrected. Cheers

AA_EXP09

SEA-HKG could work because there is a sizable E Asian population up north.
They would, again, be competing with CX/AC though.

SJC ORD LDR

DTW seems really far to the east to have an operation to Asia. Most of the country is closer to Asia than DTW is. For me, it would be a long flight east to go back west. I never understood the attraction of DTW for going to Asia. For Europe it makes much more sense.

cmn.jcs

Well, there is that small group of places called the East Coast and however many millions of people who live there, who might have preferred to take a short domestic hop and then a longer international one as opposed to a longer domestic and slightly shorter international flight.

SJC ORD LDR

Maybe so, but most of the country is still west of DTW including 8 of the 10 largest cities by population. It would make sense for DL to connect an Asian city from a more western location IMO since there is a larger catchment of potential customers.