davidlhanson

Most desired ATL-SIN, ATL-BKK, ATL-KUL
But these would be fine also: DTW-SIN, MSP-SIN
The point is we would like a NonStop to Southeast Asia on Delta. Singapore airlines has EWR-SIN and SFO-SIN. United has SFO-SIN (which is not bad out of TPA since TPA has nonstop to SFO which connects to SFO-SIN with a short layover).

We want a one short layover connection from TPA to southeast Asia on DL - not connecting again in Seoul on KE. We fly to Southeast Asia twice a year for pleasure.

ethernal

This truly is a wish-list... Evening ignoring the economics of it, the only flight Delta might be able to operate is MSP-SIN on one of its 772LR - although these flights would often have to fly payload restricted if winds were not favorable. ATL and DTW are both out of the range of any of Delta's fleet (assuming Delta wanted to fly the plane more than half full anyways). The only plane in the world capable of operating non-ferry service ATL-SIN would be an A350-900ULR - and even that would have to have a very premium cabin heavy configuration (Airbus's published 9,700 nmi range is very, very optimistic and ATL-SIN is 8700 nmi).

For comparison, the world's longest route is SIN-EWR on Singapore Airlines's A350-900ULR at 9,521 statute miles. SIN-ATL is 9,963 statute miles. The flight from SIN would be just shy of 20 hours long nonstop.

ethernal

Yes, I know it's a wishlist.. sorry for being a bit of a wet blanket. That said, a relatively large city to LAX is normally within the realm of consideration (obviously CLT-SNA, LGB, or any other LA secondary airport will never happen) - but with CLT being an AA fortress hub (90%+ of flights) it just isn't going to happen.

Regarding the population - I'm not sure what you're talking about... firstly, it doesn't matter what the population of Delta's hubs are (other than that it may drive greater O&D traffic). Further, out of the cities you listed, only SLC (primarily a Delta regional connecting hub) and CVG (barely even a focus city) are smaller than Charlotte. Unless you mean city proper.. which doesn't really matter (e.g., Atlanta city proper is less than 500K but the metro region is about 6 million).

soliloquy

You said..."Delta is never big on doing a lot of routes out of competitor hubs, especially when said hubs are smaller cities like Charlotte." I was telling you that Charlotte isn't a "smaller" city compared to their other hubs. Charlotte is the 17th largest city in the United States with a population of 859,035 in 2017. While the city proper has 810,000 residents, the larger urban area has 1.25 million people. The Charlotte metropolitan area has almost 2.4 million people, which makes it the 22nd largest in the U.S. I'm just not understanding what your point was with that sentence.

ryw

I believe ATL-OAK is still a summer seasonal flight (evening flight westbound; red eye flight eastbound).
I'd love more OAK connectivity to the DL network. I'd take a short OAK-LAX or OAK-SEA flight first though, to give more 1-stop connectivity to transcon and international flights.

3Cforme

You can tell how big Charlotte is all day long. In terms of U.S. airports in domestic Origin and Destination traffic it doesn't even make the top 30. In that metric it's smaller than PDX, SLC or AUS.

From the MCO airport authority:

ethernal

When you say "other" hubs.. do you mean Delta hubs or American Airline hubs? I was saying that Delta does not like to do routes to competitor hubs unless they have to - and this was doubly so when the cities are smaller cities (anything outside of the top 10-15 would be a "smaller city" - and CLT doesn't have an O&D draw like a Las Vegas or Orlando would so it even punches below its weight class as is). As an extreme example of this, Delta does not fly LAX-ORD - despite this connecting the #2 and #3 largest metro areas in the United States.

By hub standards, Charlotte is small. The only smaller hub in the United States is Salt Lake City. After Charlotte, the "next smallest" hub is United out of Denver. Delta does fly CLT-SLC but that is because there are a lot of regional cities served by SLC that are not competitively serviced out of Charlotte (it would require a connection, and for many of the destinations SLC is a superior connecting point). Compare this to LAX - on O&D Delta will lose to AA given the hub on both ends and Delta is at a huge disadvantage connecting. Virtually every connecting destination past LAX is better served (in terms of great circle distance, connection time/frequency, and likelihood of delay) by AA hubs at PHX, DFW, or MIA.

Delta is not likely going to try to start transcon service (which, due to distance, is very yield sensitive) to a smaller city that is a very large hub for a competitor airline that also has a hub at the other end where it has no competitive advantage on connecting traffic.

HDQDD

Seriously?! What are they putting in the CLT water?

Cledaybuck

Except, it is. CLT is 20th in CSA size at 2.68M. The only DL hub smaller is SLC (assuming we aren't calling CVG a hub) at 2.56M. MSP is 3.95M, SEA 4.76M, DTW 5.34M, ATL 6.56, BOS 8.23M, LAX 18.79M, and NYC 23.88M.

soliloquy

I wasn't exactly sure what "smaller city" meant in that initial post. It didn't say "smaller hub." Now that I go back and read it, you are talking about the size of the hub and not the size of the population. But, that was not clear to me when I first read your comment. I guess I could respond with some sarcasm (not to ethernal because that is just an explanation) like I see so many people do, but I don't see the point in that. I don't mind learning from others and I don't see the need to be rude whether I'm right or wrong.

CLTRob

ethernal

I could see some BOS connectivity in CLT's future although I am not sure what the O&D is between those two city pairs.

I would love to see A220 do long-and-thin, but not sure if that is how Delta plans to use it (can Delta's derated A221s even do something like CLT/LAX? Does anyone even know the official de-rate they took)?

SoroSuub1

Wish there was a direct YYZ-SEA on Delta to compete with Air Canada, and open up more good connections/timings to Asia via SEA.

I heard through the grapevine that AC paid Delta to not do that route. I have no idea how much truth there is to that.

USCTrojan83

LAX-ORD would be a lifesaver.

beachmouse

Since different states set different annexation and municipal consolidation rules for urban core city populations, it's best to use metro area size estimates 2018:

Atlanta 5.8 million
Boston 4.6 million
Detroit 4.2 million (add in adjacent areas like Ann Arbor and Windsor and you go over 5 million)
Seattle 3.7 million
MSP- 3.2 million
Charlotte 2.4 million
Cincinnati- 2.1 million
Salt Lake City- 1,2 million