If you want to be technical fine, then that is true, but I was implying SEA was the smallest served US market from North America, even without saying it. GUM and SPN aren’t served from US mainland and the only domestic way to GUM/SPN is via HNL so I think most people could figure out what I was implying.


SFO is nearly 25% larger than SEA already generating a larger population from which to draw traffic (again, as I posted, local population is not the only factor but it is a factor) and is also a major financial center. SFO is also a very large and well-established hub for UA.

Between this and your contradictions in the same post on DL having spare capacity versus not having spare capacity in the fleet, I'm beginning to think you don't understand the subject you're trying to talk about.


While there's some cross-flow between the two areas, and probably even decent local traffic between the two areas, they are two different markets in different countries. YVR is also a hub for a *A airline (AC). I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not saying the SEA hub will pan out. Only time and the market will tell that.

For all intents and purposes, the geographical of the U.S. does include both territories of Guam and CNMI.

The problem her is over-thinking.

I pointed out SFO because you claim SEA is a technology hub, which is not really the case. Among the largest tech. companies, only Amazon and Microsoft (I can throw in Nintendo as well) are located near Seattle. On the other hand, the famous Silicone Valley is near SFO, where tons of tech. companies house their HQs or campuses.

Although Canada has not become the 51th state yet (), YVR's setup in fact attracts transit traffic. Specifically, YVR allows transit passengers to bypass CBSA inspections. Also - Canada allows more passengers to travel to Canada visa-free. So you can't really say YVR can't make a dent on SEA.

You make the SEA claim as the smallest market, not me. Beside, even Greater Vancouver area has less population than Seattle area, the minorities population of Greater Vancouver, especially Asian, is close to 50% of the area, while Seattle has 30% of minorities population at best. So one could argue that YVR has a better potential as a TPAC hub than SEA, or at the minimum, a larger market.

Now back to the regular schedule.

And I guess you forgot or didn’t notice in the posts you quoted where I previously mentioned about YVR being a smaller market when looked at as total MSA (metro population), but that this was only a factor in a market and not the only factor in a a market. I’m well aware other market factors come into play - that’s how this whole discussion started until you decided to derail it with poor attempts at geography lessons - by me posting that SEA and HKG are different markets with different primary industries, hence a possibly explanation as part of why SEA-HKG didn’t perform as well as hoped and is being cut.

And you still haven’t explained your contradiction in the “spare aircraft” remarks and how in the same posts, in one part you say “Delta now has two spare aircraft” due to SEA-HKG being cut then in another part of that same post say Delta has “no spare aircraft”.

I mentioned and admitted at least twice upthread - that although YVR was a smaller market in terms of total MSA, that total MSA was only a factor and not the only factor. Then garykung decided it was more important to derail the discussion and play geography games. But I’m well aware that other factors besides just total population play a role, hence why a cities like HNL, MCO, and LAS have a ton of service relative to their MSA populations. Because of other market factors.

In addition to the absurdity of the claim that SEA doesn’t qualify as a tech hub, it isn’t even true to say that the major Bay Area companies don’t have a presence. Google, Facebook, and Adobe all have large operations in Seattle, and the size is growing rapidly, not shrinking (Google is constructing a new campus on several city blocks across the street from Amazon right now, for example).

The presence of the majors also supports a healthy ecosystem of very successful second tier tech companies - Tableau, Expedia, Zillow, Valve and Redfin are some good examples.

Where Seattle falls down is the startup scene - there are a few of us, but by and large the capital investment is in the Bay Area, and most funds like to have their companies close to offer adult supervision for their money.

Exactly. YVR is a special case because of the colossal overseas HKG population who chose to settle en masse there during the 1997 handover. If there were a practical way to link Richmond to the MTR, it would have already happened.

While the geographic proximity is interesting - it allowed Delta to siphon off the occasional connecting passenger in the YVR-HKG market, and sometimes creates an incentive for Seatteites to drive north or fly AC - the markets are effectively separate.

AC may get some connecting corporate traffic for their YVR flights, but CX doesn’t really have any feed from Seattle right now (the AS relationship is relatively new and they haven’t been aggressive about filing codeshares).

The biggest reason YVR is a factor is simply that Hong Kongers who wanted to live in the Pacific NW mostly chose BC and not Washington as their base to be near the rest of the community. That ethnic distribution - giving Seattle a much healthier minority population of Korean and Japanese immigrants - directly affects O&D numbers.

This thread has turned hilarious.