flyerCO

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krzysz

Today DL has changed the schedule of the ATL-LIM flight. In the past the flight departed ATL around 5pm and arrived in LIM before midnight, with a return to ATL around 1-2 am. Now the schedule is completely different (I checked August and September departures):
DL151 ATL 9:50am - LIM 3:30pm
DL150 LIM 9:45am - ATL 5:37pm

It wouldn't make much sense to have the aircraft parked in LIM for so many hours, so my guess is that DL will load another connection to LIM from ATL, with possibly a late evening departure from ATL to LIM, and then an evening departure from LIM to ATL - though that would mean a very late arrival in ATL. Alternatively, could it be that the aircraft will be used for a new connection to a different DL hub from LIM?

I took my first DL flight in February, flew to LIM and was impressed. I would be happy to repeat the experience, though who knows when it will be possible to fly again.

Weekend Away

LATAM (Latin America) flights tend to have this problem. There's no timezone that helps with turns like there is with NA-EU. If you're a random carrier you could do middle of the night turns and not really care, but most US airlines want/get the primetime slots. So it's actually cheaper to just leave these jets parked for several hours, or overnight. I know AA opened a maintenance facility at GRU not long ago, DL could be looking to do something similar, or could use an LA facility there?

krzysz

In that case it would be a strange choice to have a departure from ATL at 9:50am - it is hard to get any connecting traffic so early. I see no benefit of having such an early departure and then parking the aircraft till 9:45am the following day.
A lot of EU airlines park their aircraft at GRU or EZE from morning till evening, but that's not very common in LIM.

MfromL

This is good for at least two motives:
First: it is the end of those awful red-eyes (sorry, not a big fan).
Second: it will potentiate even more ATL as a connecting hub to Europe (for flights from South America). Those of us that already use it to connect between LIM and Europe don't have to arrive at 9 am to ATL and wait until 4-6 pm to catch the second flight (also a freaking red-eye) and arrive to Europe feeling like crap after around 24 hours without proper sleep (usually more like 40 hours, because the flight that leaves LIM does it at midnight, so you have to take into account the whole day not sleeping). I'm guessing the same applies for the return leg, it will allow to get passengers arriving from Europe to connect in ATL and arrive to LIM in the afternoon. (And I'm also guessing that this will also be applied to other South-American routes, like SCL, GRU, EZE, etc.)
Third: even though there is no way of uncrowning the popularity of MIA between Peruvians (a city and an airport that I personally hate), this should make ATL a more visible airport for us (Peruvians) and how much better organized is (and for connections!) in relation to the Florida-one.

gerardfarrell

I'm dubious that that this would be a good connecting flight to Europe. Arriving in ATL at 5:37pm means a 1.5 to 2hr queue through immigration so unless your connecting flight is after 8pm you'd be taking a huge risk of a missed connection. I typically see a lot of Euro flights departing at between 5pm and 7pm. If you're flying from LIM into Europe you're better off taking the KLM or AF options.

For the AT-LIM route, it'll be next next to impossible to get a same day connection at 9:50 am, and if you're connecting from Europe you're typically arriving mid-afternoon so you're now over-nighting in ATL.

Plus a 5:37pm arrival in ATL from LIM leaves very few US connections available. The current early arrival was pretty much perfect as it allowed an easy 2-3 hour connection through a typically empty immigration hall which made it easy to get breakfast, catch up on messages and then take the next flight. Reverse trip also easy from within the USA, with a morning flight into ATL, late lunch and then flight down to LIM arriving same day, albeit typically close to midnight.

Let's hope this is just an IT error, or they're mixing some LATAM flights in with better timing options.

MfromL

I have to disagree with you on this, I've taken three of those flights, RT, this year, and they were all awful. Waiting for 6 to 8 hours in ATL is not fun after a rough night of sleep (or no sleep in my case). It is true what you say of customs, but some European flights have late departures (like the 8 pm AF to CDG or the 10 pm KL to AMS), so it is not completely impossible to connect at night.

ethernal

No idea whether this will stick, but both of your points are just.. wrong. Most cities where Atlanta would be a logical connecting point (i.e. everything East of Texas) can make a 9:50 AM flight connecting in Atlanta. Similarly, there is a 7:30 PM flight or later to pretty much everywhere in the CST/EST time zones as well.

Even for cities further east in central time, there are options to get you to ATL in time. For example, the 6 AM flight from ORD gets to Atlanta at 8:51 AM - more than enough time to make it (minimum D-I connection time is 40 minutes in Atlanta so anything that arrives before 9:10 AM can "make" the connection according to Delta). There are a few edge cases but most major Midwest cities would have eligible flights.

Now, as to how many people actually want to take a 6 AM flight connecting in Atlanta to get to Lima I can't say.

gerardfarrell

I wouldn't be overly comfortable taking a 6am flight from any Midwest city in Winter to connect onto the one and only LIM flight of the day on a 1-hour connect. Sure it's possible, and ATL is easy to transit through on a return trip, but even with Delta's padding I'd rather avoid the risk and stay in ATL overnight.

But as it happens, I checked some dates in October and the ATL-LIM flight was still showing as late afternoon/early evening. I wonder if the 9.45 LIM-ATL is related to the current curfew/airport closure in Peru and they just picked a random time. Can't see any benefit to Delta in having to have staff receive the incoming flight at 11pm/midnight and then have to be back the next morning to check-in a new flight, then return again in the evening. I guess they maybe work multiple desks, but all the KL/AF flights are generally later afternoon/early evening then Delta starts check-in once those depart.

The ATL-Euro flights I looked at all seemed to end up going through AMS or CDG, so personally I'd still take the evening flight on KL/AF out of LIM if I wanted to get to Europe, and cut out 1 connection. I've done the long layover in ATL a few times and it gets old quick.

MfromL

Here here. However, sometimes the routing is part of a wider itinerary (my next programmed flight is MAD-MSP-ATL-LIM-ATL-MAD), and also, economy. Direct you can pay on average $1000 without bags (thanks to LA and IB new policies), but if you take the ATL detour, you can manage to find $600~700 flights with bags.

njf1003

Nah, they'd send you on to ORD or MIA or somewhere with an evening flight and you'd only be like 8 hours late so not the worst risk.

MfromL

Good luck in ORD. There is no direct flight from there However, I agree, they can reroute you to, say, MCO which has several LA flights to LIM, or MIA, or even (hopefully) make you wait for another direct flight (I'm think they will eventually introduce a second direct flight, either their own, or LA's).

kyushuman

I for one would actually love that new ATL-LIM schedule (despite having to take the horrific 05:20AM flight MSP-ATL), because then at least one way you could connect to another Peruvian city without having to do an overnight both ways in LIM. I do love Lima, so I never minded too much, but if you were going to Macchu PIcchu (CUZ=Cusco Airport), for example, and skipping LIM, you currently have to arrive at midnight and leave at 5-7AM from LIM to CUZ.
Also, this DL flight is short enough that the 6 hour redeye is pretty brutal; the return with the daytime flight sounds much better to me.
That said, yes it could just be due to curfews!

MfromL

Well you can always take the 6 am flights from MSP. The only good thing there is that the TSA security is a breeze and on average MSP is really well organized.

I've done the MSP-LIM a few times and while that was nice on the way out because you can take even the 2 pm flight to ATL to connect and arrive at midnight, I agree about that awful redeye return, which turns even worst with the new food service giving you only 3 hours of darkness to try to sleep. Who knows, this might be a re-schedule or just a temporary thing due to the large numbers of planes they will have iddle due to the decrease in demand for the next year.

What I wonder is what is going to happen with the LA/DL JV? I've read contradictory opinions in airline forums, some say it has doomed LA because it lacks the connecting support and passengers that AA/IB would have given them in their hubs and focus cities like MAD, MIA or JFK; others say that its an opportunity for DL to use LA against a very weakened AA.

krzysz

I don't think there are curfews in Lima, AA kept the schedules of their MIA-LIM flights the same, just replacing B763 and 757 with A321, and the 757 arriving from DFW with 787 (here the schedule is a bit different because the aircraft returns to DFW, whereas earlier the 757 coming from DFW flew onward to MIA).

I didn't mind the red-eye fron LIM to ATL that much, it was my first DL flight and the service was way better than on AA. ATL also seems like a more convenient airport for onward connections to Europe than MIA.