kenn0223

Yup, there are dozens of strip club, gun range, massage parlor combos in Tumon (the tourist area) all fully targeted to at Asian tourists. On this particular corner there is an Outback, Westin, amusement park and no fewer than 2 gun ranges, 3 strip clubs, and 5 or 6 massage joints. If you are a traveler and haven't been to Guam you should add it to your list. It a fascinating part of the United States that most people don't see.

davetravels

If I had to guess approximately what year I was there, I'd say around 1985ish? I had a friend who was a civilian employee on the military base, so I got a tour of the base, and the AMAZING beach on the base with those breathtaking cliffs! I have no idea what the status of that area is these days!

hockeyinsider

Yes, some of the best stretches of beach on the island are found behind the fence of the Air Force base at the north end of Guam.

However, you can drive on the edge of the Air Force base to Ritidian Point, which is part of a wildlife refuge run by the feds. It is, by far, the most beautiful beautiful I have ever seen. Ever. Anywhere.

hockeyinsider

Just to be clear: There's a good chance they aren't actually in the business of giving massages. At least judging from the so-called therapists, who provide services until 1 or 2 a.m.

wolfpacktrojan

I grew up in Japan thanks to my father serving in the military and spent many summers in Guam. Definitely was a great alternative to the more crowded Oahu (not to mention a far shorter flight).

I’ve read that Hawaii is doing a great job marketing it’s non-Oahu islands in Japan lately, and tourists are starting to visit them over Guam and Bali, which were once flooded with Japanese tourists. HA has started HND - KOA service to add to JL’s service out of NRT, and both may add more routes in the future (perhaps OGG or LIH?). I think it’ll be big that NH is upgrading HND - HNL to A380s in the near future as well, as capacity will skyrocket, and they can move the 787-9s that are currently on the route to other islands.

kenn0223

Ya, if you have Anderson base access Tarague Beach is amazing, however Guam National Wildlife Refuge is pretty good too.

hockeyinsider

Yeah. Ritidian Point. As I said earlier, I think it is the best beach I have ever seen. Access is bad as it's closed on federal holidays, like Memorial Day or whatever, but it is worth visiting.

hockeyinsider

Paging Delta.

rylan

Pretty obvious that DL made a conscious decision to dump GUM and the southeast Asia beach market... note that they also killed off ROR and SPN during the reduction of flights from NRT. I'd be pretty surprised if they bring those back. They're pushing the traffic through ICN and codeshare with KE to get to GUM (or ROR).

Mountain Explorer

Agree of course. hockeyinsider has been in denial since page 1 of this thread, and clearly still is

CHOPCHOP767

Let me preface by saying that I've enjoyed many visits to Guam back in my Navy days, but I've heard Guam referred to within the islands of Japan as the "poor man's Hawaii". I suspect DL revenue management realized this and subsequently axed the flight.

kenn0223

I don't claim to be an expert on Japanese culture but I am on-island at least once a month and get the impression that Guam is on the cheaper end of beach destinations for the Japanese (and Korean) visitors. It also seems to skew younger, especially over the last few years.

PurdueFlyer

It is good to see Guam traffic rebounding, although since North Korea is decidedly less trigger-happy than they were 12 months ago, maybe this isn't surprising that Japanese and Korean vacationers are returning.

The difference is that Guam serves a different ROLE in United's network than it did for Delta, something certain posters have a hard time grasping. Per UA's website, they still serve 11 nonstop destinations from GUM, plus stations on the Milk Run that aren't mentioned, and its obviously a large transit point for them for folks coming from around Micronesia. Putting a 777 back on GUM-NRT may also serve a broader benefit in their network besides just taking more people to GUM.

Summer 2016 saw 5 dedicated 757s for Delta in Asia, running NRT-GUM / SPN / ROR / KIX, and KIX-GUM with a mix of turns and overnights. After that summer, only 2 757's were remaining, doing basically day-time turns to GUM and SPN, plus the ROR overnight. Except for ROR, those didn't even connect with Delta's NRT TPAC bank back to the states, so for awhile prior to the stations closing, DL wasn't even really chasing US passengers anymore (You can debate whether or not they should have been). Those 757s are all back state-side now. The beach markets may still have a place in Delta's revenue portfolio, but it's pretty clear they were unable to hold their useful purpose in the airline's NETWORK portfolio.

I'm nostalgic and would love to see the Widget flying Asia / interport markets again, but it would be unlikely to send a small sub-fleet of planes back over to Asia to run a limited GUM / SPN operation again- you would likely need 4-5 planes to do anything meaningful over there, and removing that number of planes from the current profitable domestic flying probably isn't going to happen, especially when you can have KE do it for you.

hockeyinsider

I'm not denying it. I think it's crap and I think it's been proven that Delta's reason for exiting Guam was a lie. It was obviously a strategic re-alignment of its markets, which was proved when they exited Saipan and Palau. Insteaf o being honest, they lied and claimed it was about a collapse in Japanese passengers. Delta should have been honest about the real reasons it was abandoning Americans on Guam, less than a year after promising it was committed to flying the beach routes from Tokyo–Narita.

There's no doubt that Guam is cheaper, although airfares were about the same when I used to fly there. Guam is also geographically closer to Japan, which means someone from Japan can visit Guam for a weekend as opposed to a longer stay as is common in Hawaii. Tokyo–Guam is about three hours whereas Tokyo–Hawaii is about eight hours. That's a huge difference. For example, the average Japanese visitor to Hawaii spends almost two weeks there. For Guam the average Japanese visitor stays 2–3 nights.

Of course. I don't think Delta will return, unless Guam's numbers go through the roof or there is a subsidy from either the federal government or the Guam government.

Often1

We're talking about the local tourism authority's puff piece.

The question is not traffic but rather PRASM. Nobody here has a clue what DL's PRASM was or what the PRASM is on the routes to which it repurposed its aircraft and crew. But, given that its downscale from HI and HI is not exactly upscale, the wisdom of DL's strategy is likely just fine.

Put another way, there are not likely any DL shareholders complaining about the strategy.