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Delta has a list of focus cities, and some are surprising

Delta has a list of focus cities, and some are surprising

Old Jun 3, 2019, 6:31 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by kjnangre
DL doesn't have any 787s
Oh, I was thinking of AF or KE running those flights, not DL.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 6:43 pm
  #32  
 
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Originally Posted by lonelygod
Enjoy flying SJC, much better on-time performance. When SFO has low cloud, SJC is fine. Wish there will be a second SJC-DTW, maybe red-eye? SJC-BOS will also make sense. Even SJC-RDU because of tech traffic?
Yes, please. I fly between those two cities 8-12 times a year and would love a non-stop.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 6:44 pm
  #33  
 
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Focus City is marketing lingo for book with us, we love your city. It smart. Delta has some great marketing people.
Pat people on the back, tell them their airport is important and see if they can fill more planes. If it doesn’t work, they slowly decrease seats.

DL serves several airports that it doesn’t call focus cities with far more flights than SJC and BNA.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 6:45 pm
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by SJC ORD LDR
No way. With the way traffic is in the Bay Area, there is no way I will fly to SFO anymore. I'll take an extra connection to fly out of SJC. What used to be a 45 minute drive can take 1:45 on a bad day.

SJC is in Silicon Valley. SFO is not.
In fact, I do that most of the time. Last year I flew RDU-Bay Area fourteen times, with two of them being non-stop to SFO on AS. The rest of the time, RDU-XXX-SJC.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 6:59 pm
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by kjnangre
There may be no dumber post on FT then that one. SJC has been the fastest growing airport in the US for at least the last 2 years
It's good they're growing fast and hopefully it sticks, but the test will be in the next downturn. Maybe this time is different but you'd be a fool to bet on it.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 7:10 pm
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by DCAproducer
Focus City is marketing lingo for book with us, we love your city. It smart. Delta has some great marketing people.
Pat people on the back, tell them their airport is important and see if they can fill more planes. If it doesnt work, they slowly decrease seats.

DL serves several airports that it doesnt call focus cities with far more flights than SJC and BNA.
I agree marketing is part of it, but I think there is more to it than just a marketing gimmick. Flights from focus cities to non hubs (other focus cities), SkyClubs, more mainline less regionals, socks..... ok the last one is just marketing.

Either way though glad BNA is one of Delta's focus cities. With the expansion Southwest is doing here, glad Delta isn't giving up.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 7:14 pm
  #37  
 
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Once the terminal B-C connection is finished at Boston Logan, WN will move out of terminal A and DL will have all of terminal A to themselves (save Westjet). It is hard to say that the 20 something gates in terminal A could be hub sized... If Boston is really going to be a transatlantic hub, DL better get some flights beyond the three Europe partner hubs and a handful of leisure destinations aimed at Boston’s ethnic demographic (looking at you DUB and LIS).
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 7:18 pm
  #38  
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Originally Posted by fliesdelta
In fact, I do that most of the time. Last year I flew RDU-Bay Area fourteen times, with two of them being non-stop to SFO on AS. The rest of the time, RDU-XXX-SJC.
Would also love to see RDU - SJC.

It's the perfect type of route for the A220 if DL ever uses/is allowed to use the listed range of the A220 (especially with additional range coming from 2H 2020). Essentially a long, thin domestic route using the A220 the way UA has used the 787 for long, thin international routes.

In fact the A220 would be a perfect plane to try and make a go of SJC as a focus city -- it has the range to try and add some longer routes but still keeps capacity fairly low. As least as far as I can tell you could easily use the A220 (assuming you can use full range) on routes like SJC - BOS, SJC - JFK, SJC - ATL, SJC - AUS, etc and add the frequency benefits that SFO has without killing capacity
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 7:58 pm
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by exwannabe
Can we look at gross margin on those seats?

I suspect DL runs MCO flights as a loss leader to keep otherwise valued customers from flying other airlines. Otherwise they would be happy to see it sink into the ocean.
Go ahead and take a look. Btw, Orlando is landlocked. A better analogy would have been sinkhole.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 8:13 pm
  #40  
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Originally Posted by exwannabe
Can we look at gross margin on those seats?

I suspect DL runs MCO flights as a loss leader to keep otherwise valued customers from flying other airlines. Otherwise they would be happy to see it sink into the ocean.
No, in fact, we can't.

The days of sub-$200 airfares from my market to MCO are long over. And there are still some sub-$200 markets from my home area.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 10:08 pm
  #41  
 
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From Austin, I can see their reasoning. There are lots of young professionals here with no real allegiance yet. Growing extremely quickly. Plus they just put in a really nice lounge at AUS.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 10:22 pm
  #42  
 
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Originally Posted by quitecryptic
From Austin, I can see their reasoning. There are lots of young professionals here with no real allegiance yet. Growing extremely quickly. Plus they just put in a really nice lounge at AUS.
Their big shiny new lounges drew me in. I saw a review of the new (at the time) SEA club in 2016 and I thought to myself perhaps I should give delta a try as it looks far better than ua/aa. 3 years later and I am platinum for a third year in a row (SFO based).
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 10:58 pm
  #43  
 
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Apparently Delta doesn't know where its own focus cities are. Sorry, "flies to hubs and actual focus cities plus Cancun/Orlando/Las Vegas" does not make a market a focus city. If it did, MCO and LAS would be focus cities.

Now, they may *want* to make BNA/SJC/AUS focus cities, and RDU absolutely already is one.

But for SJC, unless United spilling the beans about their contract with Apple costs them their contract with Apple, saying SJC will get Apple traffic on DL is a stretch. That said, if DL *can* run SJV-PVG with a 339, they'll have a superior product vs. the current 788 setup from UA. Add in a Nerd Bird a few times per day to AUS, starting on an E75 if they have to (then upgauging to a 221/223 later) and you have a base to build on.

From the noise they're making about AUS, I'd say that (my) city falls squarely in "not a focus cities but will be within a year". The aforementioned SJC flights, plus 1-2x daily to DEN and BNA would probably be where they'd start (despite DEN already being a very competitive route). Maybe IND. All current hubs and (real) focus cities are already covered (and hubs are rapidly swapping 717s or E75s for 319s or bigger) and E75/717/A220 should be about the right size to start the point to point traffic off at. My bet is DL could command a slight price premium on DEN is they ran it with A220s, which would probably make the route work well enough to compete with other airlines' mainline (and United's regionals...it says something that UA can't keep mainline to their hub there).

Yes, DL is 4th place at AUS right now, but they were only 18k passengers behind United in April. That's 300 per day per direction, so adding the aforementioned routes would likely put them over the edge into 3rd place (in part because some of that traffic would be pulled from UA). Throw in an international flight on Delta metal and you're comfortably in third place. Hitting second place (currently held by American) would be a good bit more difficult, but their operation at RDU would put them in a comfortable second place here, so maybe they'll go for that.

As for BNA, DL is already the largest legacy (though not by much). Southwest has much more of a lock on the market there than here, but that's probably more of an opportunity for Delta. Will be interesting to see what routes they decide to start there. Because, sorry, MCO and CUN seasonally does not a focus city make.
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Old Jun 3, 2019, 11:07 pm
  #44  
 
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Originally Posted by iansltx
But for SJC, unless United spilling the beans about their contract with Apple costs them their contract with Apple, saying SJC will get Apple traffic on DL is a stretch. That said, if DL *can* run SJV-PVG with a 339, they'll have a superior product vs. the current 788 setup from UA. Add in a Nerd Bird a few times per day to AUS, starting on an E75 if they have to (then upgauging to a 221/223 later) and you have a base to build on.
UA doesn't operate SJC-PVG and I can't see DL trying it either. Air China tried it very briefly.

ICN is the only Asian city I can see DL trying.
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Old Jun 4, 2019, 2:12 am
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by kjnangre
UA doesn't operate SJC-PVG and I can't see DL trying it either. Air China tried it very briefly.

ICN is the only Asian city I can see DL trying.
I remembered air Chinas SJC-PVG. No more than two years.

Though not related, UA tried SJC-EWR, then discontinued in a year. Both DL and AS add SJC-JFK.
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