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Delta Cancels DTW-HKG effective August 30th

Delta Cancels DTW-HKG effective August 30th

Old Jun 24, 2012, 11:35 pm
  #76  
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Originally Posted by 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.
There are also people who enjoy maximizing MQMs, and don't mind the longer flight time in a proper (lie-flat) BE cabin and then a domestic 757 with live TV in F... I'm not naming names...
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 1:28 am
  #77  
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Originally Posted by 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.
Actually, since the great circle path for DTW-HKG is just slightly westward of due north (heading of 342 degrees, just 18 degrees away from straight up), DTW is a logical on-line connection point for just about everything from MSP to STL to DFW to HOU and everything east of any of those cities. And that encompasses the vast majority of the US population.

DTW is one of the largest northern metro areas in the US, and the farther north you go, the closer you get to HKG. What wouldn't make much sense would be a nonstop from ATL or CLT or MIA or DFW or HOU or PHX or other southern cities. Those hubs would require signficant southerly backtracking for much of the US population.

California has six nonstops to HKG between UA and CX. CX has two more from YVR. The western part of the US appears to be pretty well covered.

DL has focused its Asian nonstops primarily from DTW, and for good reason. It's a good hub location with pretty good O&D and lots of DL connections. The HKG flight just didn't work, but I disagree that failure is due to the location of DTW.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 2:01 am
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Originally Posted by FWAAA
Actually, since the great circle path for DTW-HKG is just slightly westward of due north (heading of 342 degrees, just 18 degrees away from straight up), DTW is a logical on-line connection point for just about everything from MSP to STL to DFW to HOU and everything east of any of those cities. And that encompasses the vast majority of the US population.
80% of US population live in the Central and Eastern time zones.

Originally Posted by FWAAA
California has six nonstops to HKG between UA and CX. CX has two more from YVR. The western part of the US appears to be pretty well covered.

DL has focused its Asian nonstops primarily from DTW, and for good reason. It's a good hub location with pretty good O&D and lots of DL connections. The HKG flight just didn't work, but I disagree that failure is due to the location of DTW.
The USA is similar to China (or even Japan) in terms of immigration/customs. I-D connection simply hurts. Just as OZ/KE are taking a lot of business from CA/MU for 2nd tier Chinese cites' traffic (and also from JL/NH for FUK traffic), DTW has this disadvantage despite favorable distance/flying time. The I-D hassle makes it not competitive despite proximity of YYZ/ORD/NYC. (For NYC, one can even skip CBSA on AC.)
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 3:50 am
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Originally Posted by FWAAA
Actually, since the great circle path for DTW-HKG is just slightly westward of due north (heading of 342 degrees, just 18 degrees away from straight up), DTW is a logical on-line connection point for just about everything from MSP to STL to DFW to HOU and everything east of any of those cities. And that encompasses the vast majority of the US population.

DTW is one of the largest northern metro areas in the US, and the farther north you go, the closer you get to HKG. What wouldn't make much sense would be a nonstop from ATL or CLT or MIA or DFW or HOU or PHX or other southern cities. Those hubs would require signficant southerly backtracking for much of the US population.
Exactly. Which is why even CO's EWR-HKG was okay for connecting from almost everywhere east of the Rockies, including Houston. My family and I flew IAH-EWR-HKG tonnes of times before the UA merger. It's still as quick as connecting via the W. Coast for the outbound to Asia. Coming back is a different story, however.

Originally Posted by FWAAA
California has six nonstops to HKG between UA and CX. CX has two more from YVR. The western part of the US appears to be pretty well covered.
And of course SQ's daily from SFO and AC from YVR.

Originally Posted by FWAAA
DL has focused its Asian nonstops primarily from DTW, and for good reason. It's a good hub location with pretty good O&D and lots of DL connections. The HKG flight just didn't work, but I disagree that failure is due to the location of DTW.
I flew on NW's 741 or 742 on my first Transpac as a baby to Hong Kong via Haneda. Since then I've flown NW to/from HKG many other times, but ironic that after 40+ years, it's still be back to the future with again just one daily flight via NRT. And we can just hope it'll remain a 744.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 4:02 am
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DTW-NGO much better than DTW-HKG in terms of profit?

Is this flight full as many times as DTW-NGO? Looks like the occupancy isn't that high. I doubt the BE is even full at all.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 6:48 am
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I'm sad to see this go. I depend on this route at least four times a year for business.

Now, it seems my best options from NYC is to go to NRT then on to HKG, or fly a partner.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 8:19 am
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Originally Posted by Mega Boris
I'm sad to see this go. I depend on this route at least four times a year for business.

Now, it seems my best options from NYC is to go to NRT then on to HKG, or fly a partner.
If you are flying this route at least four times a year from NYC, check your MQM's. Shouldn't you be up to PM?

I have flown DTW-HKG and DTW-NRT-HKG. The first one is nice because it is direct, doesn't involve the long walk and NRT security, and arrives at an earlier hour in the evening. IMO, the only advantages to the NRT connection are breaking up the flt into two shorter segs for those who want that, more MQM's, and an awesome SC.

Sad to see DTW-HKG didn't work out for DL but flying this route a couple times/yr, I can think of worse things that will bother me.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 8:34 am
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Originally Posted by FWAAA
Actually, since the great circle path for DTW-HKG is just slightly westward of due north (heading of 342 degrees, just 18 degrees away from straight up), DTW is a logical on-line connection point for just about everything from MSP to STL to DFW to HOU and everything east of any of those cities. And that encompasses the vast majority of the US population.
Yes but strangely many times that I've been on this flight we went over mid-Alaska rather than over the pole.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 10:32 am
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I think the comments suggesting that DL is "losing" and UA and CX are "winning" in the US-HKG market are a bit overstated.

If you listened to DL's and UA's Q1 earnings calls and some of the recent investor presentations (there was one in Boston in the end of May), you'd hear both airlines discuss significant weakness they're seeing in China, compared to a much stronger demand environment in Japan. United has said one of the reasons DL posted stronger Q1 results than UA is that UA is over-exposed in China compared to Delta. Delta, which is much bigger in Japan than United, benefitted from strong Japan performance, while UA suffered due to lagging demand in China.

Delta is very aggressive about managing capacity and will try to turn on a needle to respond to the demand environment. That's what we're seeing here - it couldn't keep DTW-HKG at profitable fare levels, so it'll pull back the flight and continue to serve the HKG market through NRT.

CX has also indicated weakness in US-HKG and is looking to draw back some capacity.

I'll grant that DTW is probably a weaker gateway than SFO/ORD/EWR, but I think what we're seeing here is simply good business by Delta: a low tolerance for loss-making routes; not necessarily that UA and CX are profitable and Delta wasn't.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 10:32 am
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Originally Posted by zsmith2
PVG didn't work....twice!
Can you provide any insight into why ATL-PVG doesn't work? Is it because PVG is not a hub (as someone else posted)?

For my business travel pattern, this was a rather important flight, although it got too pricey toward the end...
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 11:01 am
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Originally Posted by Tom Williams
Can you provide any insight into why ATL-PVG doesn't work? Is it because PVG is not a hub (as someone else posted)?
Perhaps it does not work for the reasons that UA, CO, NW and AA advanced in their filings with the DoT (opposing DL's applications to fly to PVG and PEK from ATL): the average number of daily O&D passengers between ATL and China could fit on a small regional plane. Ultra-longhaul flights work best when there's a strong local market at the gateway, and you're apparently one of the few from Atlanta heading to China regularly. Daily China O&D is stronger in Detroit, so it makes sense to originate more Asian flights there than in Atlanta.

Same reason AA flies to China (PVG and PEK) from CHI and not DFW. ORD has lots more O&D traffic to China, even though AA shares the market with UA (it's a huge O&D market compared to either ATL or DFW).
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 11:49 am
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Originally Posted by FWAAA
Perhaps it does not work for the reasons that UA, CO, NW and AA advanced in their filings with the DoT (opposing DL's applications to fly to PVG and PEK from ATL): the average number of daily O&D passengers between ATL and China could fit on a small regional plane.
There was a thread on airliners.net a year or two ago (unfortunately I can't find it now) that said Atlanta-Shanghai O&D was 55 PDEW. So while it is still a rather small market, it's a far cry from the 23 PDEW to all of China back in 2007, as stated earlier in this thread. I suspect that in a few years a 3-4 weekly 787 might be viable, should someone choose to fly it.

Anyway, to get back on topic, most of the a.net chatter seems to indicate that DTW-HKG is moving to JFK.
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 12:18 pm
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Originally Posted by reluctanttraveler
That would make sense. When I flew this route in July and August of last year, peak season for Asia, it was very full. November, not so much. In August things were actually so packed that I scored the op-up of legend: upgraded to 777 BE for the 14-hour flight. And my co-worker, on a separate ticket but the same flight, got the op-up too! And the most surprising part: we were both FOs at the time! That op-up seems to have used up most of my upgrade karma but I don't care... it was worth it.
I too will miss this route offering. I'm flying it next week and with regard to seat availability, the seat map (yes, I know not a good judge of # of sold seats but for some reason I can't get on EF from this client site) shows about 50% of the seats available, mostly in the back where whole rows are open right now. So, perhaps DL is having issues will lots of unsold seats on this route...
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 12:30 pm
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Originally Posted by BizJet
I think the comments suggesting that DL is "losing" and UA and CX are "winning" in the US-HKG market are a bit overstated.

If you listened to DL's and UA's Q1 earnings calls and some of the recent investor presentations (there was one in Boston in the end of May), you'd hear both airlines discuss significant weakness they're seeing in China, compared to a much stronger demand environment in Japan. United has said one of the reasons DL posted stronger Q1 results than UA is that UA is over-exposed in China compared to Delta. Delta, which is much bigger in Japan than United, benefitted from strong Japan performance, while UA suffered due to lagging demand in China.

Delta is very aggressive about managing capacity and will try to turn on a needle to respond to the demand environment. That's what we're seeing here - it couldn't keep DTW-HKG at profitable fare levels, so it'll pull back the flight and continue to serve the HKG market through NRT.

CX has also indicated weakness in US-HKG and is looking to draw back some capacity.

I'll grant that DTW is probably a weaker gateway than SFO/ORD/EWR, but I think what we're seeing here is simply good business by Delta: a low tolerance for loss-making routes; not necessarily that UA and CX are profitable and Delta wasn't.
CX seems to have higher loads.
I flew AC and CX last year HKG-YVR in Oct and CX had higher loads (more pax in J, although I received an op up from V on 889)
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Old Jun 25, 2012, 1:19 pm
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Originally Posted by 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.
You forget that "transpacific" is actually "transpolar". DTW's flights to Asia go North, not West.
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