anc305

I was having a conversation with a Delta rep. I told him I had a flight on a 727 from FRA-ATH in the late 90's and that DL had a mini hub there. He said I was mistaken. Have the years and whiskey killed to many of my brain cells?

FlyerWx

I am fairly certain DL did operate a hub out of FRA from 1991-97, which was acquired from Pan Am.

jamiestr

You are correct.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...furt-hub-1906/

KDCAflyer

Sounds very similar to what is happening to NRT.

GagaPilot

Very interesting! I never knew Delta did intra-Europe flights from FRA. It does sound very similar to present day NRT. My grandmother used to talk about flying Delta to Warsaw and how she preferred LOT instead. I always thought she was mistaken.

anc305

Thanks for the link. I knew I wasn't crazy. The article helped me remember that I connected from the LAX-FRA flight. The 727 to ATH had less than 10 folks on it if I recall correctly !

readywhenyouare

Yes I believe they used the Boeing 727 for most of the intra-Europe flying from FRA.

MSPeconomist

DL might not have had the right to carry local (not connecting from a TATL flight) traffic, so they were running FRA-ATH in order to say to USA passengers that they served ATH. I know this was the case a bit earlier for some USA legacy carriers that operated intraEuropean flights from CDG. The one flight to ATH probably was also at an inconvenient time compared to the multiple LH flights every day.

readywhenyouare

Delta did have fifth freedom rights to carry local traffic from FRA and they probably still do. It would likely be highly unprofitable to do it now with so much competition.

spudley007

Thanks for posting...awesome article. Amazing how many routes were started as a result of this. And an alliance with Austrian? Very interesting.

pvn

Well this pretty well explains it:

BER Flyer

You have to keep in mind that Delta did not set up this network ( which also included intra-Germany flights like TXL-HAM ) but were getting these flights and the Frankfurt hub when they took over Pan Am's TATL/european operations. This way they also inherited the 5th freemdom rights the Pan Am had for decades. And yes, no way to make any money and most of these routes in today highly competitive environment.

AANYC1981

Yep I did IAD-FRA-LGW back in the day.

Silver Meteor

Boys and girls.

Delta bought the Pan Am European Routes (minus LHR) on November 1, 1991. I still have that timetable from 11/1/91. And as the above posters said, they inherited the Frankfort hub and 5th freedom rights with that purchase.

In the summer of 1992 (first summer after the purchase), Delta had 11 flights from the US non-stop to the Frankfort hub. They were as follows:

JFK x2, EWR, ATL x2, CVG, DFW, LAX, IAD, MCO, MIA

In the summer of 1993, they had 10 flights to the Frankfort hub. (They took away EWR).
In the summer of 1994, they had 9 flights to the Frankfort hub. (They now took away MIA).
In the summer of 1995, they still had the same 9 flights to the Frankfort hub.
In the summer of 1996, they had 8 flights to the Frankfort hub. (They took away DFW).
In the summer of 1997, with the hub being gone, they had 5 flights to Frankfort, (JFK, ATL x2, CVG x 2).

Yep, being that purchase was 25 years ago, it is no wonder that some, (if not a lot), of the current Delta personal would not know that Delta at one time had a hub in Frankfort.

AND as a point of reference, this coming summer, (2017), Delta will have 3 flights to Frankfort, JFK, ATL, DTW. Times change.

Ber2dca

It's intriguing to recall a world in which airports and countries aren't "glued" to certain airlines and alliances. If you read that 97 article you basically just see a snapshot of the time when the current aviation industry setup was created. It links the DL de-hubbing of Frankfurt with the LH-UA partnership and Delta's shift to CDG with the DL-AF partnership.