Detroit Airport Boasts New Service, Shanghai Flight Filled by Auto People
 

DETROIT (TheStreet) -- Sometimes in all the chatter about the decline of the city of Detroit and the decline of commercial aviation's Midwest hubs, the story of Detroit Metro Airport gets lost.

The announcement on Thursday that Spirit (SAVE_) will add Minneapolis service is a sign that the airport is flourishing. But it is just one of many good signs at Delta's (DAL_) second-largest hub. At Detroit Metro, Delta operates 450 peak daily operations to 132 destinations.

Alaska (ALK_) announced Tuesday it will fly Seattle-Detroit. In December, Detroit Metro traffic grew 7.4%. Other recently announced new service includes Delta's second daily London Heathrow flight, starting this summer; the start of JetBlue (JBLU_) Boston-Detroit service in March; and a Frontier flight to Wilmington, Del., service in April.

Perhaps the most striking fact about Detroit Metro is that its No. 1 international destination, in terms of revenue, is Shanghai. Delta flies daily to Shanghai with a 269-seat Boeing 777LR. According to airport stats, the Shanghai market produces about $71 million in annual revenue, counting tickets sold at both ends. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestreet.com/story/12362...to-people.html

Nice to see someone pointing out that just because the City of Detroit(municipality) is bankrupt does not mean the Detroit business economy is on the same boat and actually is quite in contrast to what is happening with the city.

Actually southeastern Michigan as a whole is far better off than the city itself; Metro has a large population base on which to draw. The economy in Ann Arbor is thriving, for instance and part of that is the fact that Metro is but a 20 minute drive up 94.

Always great to hear that DTW is doing well. It was a visionary achievement and remains an absolute joy to use.

Now if only the rental car area and transportation between terminals could be upgraded to meet the standards set by the terminals, it would be truly wonderful.

What the story points out is a lot of folks outside MI don't know squat about why Detroit has been decaying. What's happening in Detroit has more to do with racial tensions, suburban sprawl (aka white flight), and old factories on confined lots that didn't work with post 70s manufacturing methods.

I think the reasons for Detroit's decay can and will be debated for many years. But I do think that Detroit's bankruptcy will not be unique. I believe several large cities are watching the bankruptcy process and will probably follow Detroit's lead in the next few years.

While there is some truth to the notion that greater Detroit is more than Detroit, it is still a relatively low income area compared to ATL or MSP, not to mention places like SF or NYC. And Michigan, as a whole, is among the slowest growing states, hampering economic growth. None of that means that DTW is a bad hub, but it does speak to the practical limits for growth there.

Assuming two flights a day (one each way) with $71M in revenue that means each flight earns on average just under $100K. I don't follow prices in that market but if you say $1500 for a non-stop RT that means 130 or so Y tickets makes up the $100K. Since I'm guessing that BE earns a bunch so that is fewer Y seats sold. Anybody fly this regularly enough to give an idea of loads?

I've been on the flight a number of times, although I wouldn't say regularly. I'm surprised if not very surprised that it's the highest yielding route at DTW as I would have guessed that NRT or maybe even LHR would be on top. Sometimes the flight is full in BE but not always IME, although coach has looked pretty full in general. I haven't had the impression that there are a lot of full C/J tickets in BE on the days I've flown this route, but this comment is just a very subjective impression. At time, coach seems to be filled with Chinese graduate students studying in American universities and BE with faculty and postdocs, sometimes including families, and Chinese nationals working in high tech/science/engineering/computer science jobs in the USA. Some of the latter would be auto industry folks, but not overwhelmingly so I would say.

Only if DTW would get more direct flights from foreign airlines, the only major airline that flies non-stop to DTW is Lufthansa I think, the rest are all skyteam partners.

DTW
 

I only fly DL and partners and love DTW. Great SkyClubs. Very bright and clean.

The success or failure of an airport, especially a hub, says very little about its city. ATL is the world's busiest airport but Atlanta is far from being the biggest city.

My usual itinerary is TLV-JFK-LAS-ATL-JFK-TLV yet I don't live in any of those cities. I am about 200 kilometers from TLV and fly out of it because it is Israel's only airport. I fly into JFK in order to connect and go to ATL to visit some friends.

It would be interesting to see how many people flying into/out of DTW actually live in Detroit. I would imagine that a large number are from affluent suburbs and an even greater number are only connecting.

Depending on what you include as "major," AC and RJ also fly to DTW.

Not too many postdocs I know can afford J tickets. Relatively few faculty, too.

There's no granularity in your broad-based assertions and quite to the contrary, the U.S. Census figures show that in terms of metropolitan statistical areas median incomes, Minneapolis is #4 at $54,304, Atlanta is #8 at $51,948, and Detroit is #17 at $49,160.

While not equally wealthy, all of the above are in the top 20th wealthiest metropolitan areas and therefore quite wealthy. Detroit and Atlanta (the cities) both are marked by pronounced inequality and wealthy and higher income flight to the suburbs. The effect is much less pronounced in Minneapolis IMO.