Utskicat

I made a quick trip last week from JFK-GRU. Flight down had 9 passengers, 4 of us in D1, the rest were somewhere in the back. We all boarded at pretty much the same time. The Captain came out and said that since there were only 9 passengers, the other 5 could sit up front in D1. I thought that was pretty classy (no issues at all on my end of paying for J). I was shocked that the flight was not cancelled. I talked to the Purser and asked him why the flight was cancelled and he had no idea and wondered himself. He said he had heard in late fall and winter months there is large fruit export northbound on the return, but its getting cold down there already, can't imagine that's still the case. He said he has been flying the GRU and EZE flight exclusively last 2 months and has not seen more than 20 passengers on the JFK flights. He said the ATL flights can have quite a few more, still very open but not crazy like JFK. He was super friendly. As we were chatting, he used his tablet to check the return flight our aircraft was flying back to JFK and said that there were only 17 seats sold.

What is Delta doing? Do they really have that much cargo business in Brazil to justify flying JFK-GRU empty? ATL-GRU flies everyday. You would think they would cancel JFK-GRU day before and just IROP JFK passengers through Atlanta. So weird....

flyerCO

Cargo can be much more profitable than passengers. Nothing new here.

Utskicat

Yeah, I get that, but what cargo is there? On the return, I was there 2 hours early and only saw a single LDL crate loaded (assumedly had passenger luggage). On take off from GRU, I swear we were wheels up in under 20 seconds, didn't feel like we had any weight at all. I wish I had asked the captain about TOW.

MSPeconomist

My guess for Argentina and Brazil would be cargo, but on some routes/airports, there could be concern with keeping slots/permissions.

_fx

South America isn't just a giant fruit farm. Brazil has the world's the 8th largest economy and Buenos Aires is one of the largest cities in the world with a population of almost 15 million people. The cargo could be literally anything.

It's like asking, "what cargo could possibly be going to NYC?"

Duke787

I have the same question about Seoul flights. I was at the airport standing near the ATL - ICN gate and out of curiosity looked at DL.com to see availability and it seems pretty empty as well (even more than it appears with all the blocked seats)