Jon of Brooklyn

I have no special insight here, and I'd love to have the JFK-HKG route for personal reasons (or, a second-best option, a JFK-XXX-HKG Delta metal route so that I can avoid the JFK-ICN-HKG KE route). I don't see it happening for the foreseeable future:

1. It's hard to imagine HKG opening up to non-resident travelers quarantine-free in the near future. (Non-residents aren't even allowed to go *with* a two-week quarantine at the moment.) I'd love to go to Hong Kong for the holidays (again, personal reasons), but think it unlikely to happen before Christmas 2022 or even 2023. Demand will remain low for a while, I'd expect.
2. I think there's a lot of uncertainty about the role of Hong Kong going forward. What set it apart from Shanghai / Beijing / Shenzhen is its robust common law court system as well as a relatively laissez faire regulatory regime. Given the way in which Beijing has cracked down on Hong Kong, those may no longer be selling points for Hong Kong. (If you're a company and you don't mind the oversight of the CCP, Shanghai or even Beijing probably offer better value propositions than Hong Kong at this point; if you're trying to avoid the CCP, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei or English-speaking Singapore may be more attractive.) Given the uncertainty of Hong Kong's future, it seems a risky endeavor to put capital into creating that route (especially compared to other TPAC routes for Delta--the aforementioned TPE or even SIN routes come to mind).
3. While I'd love to see the JFK-HKG flight come to fruition, I *think* there are really only a few production airplanes that can do the 12,990km distance: the 777-300ER, 787-8 & -9, the A330neo (but just barely--max range for the -900, the variant Delta has, is 13,334km), and the A350. (Delta operated the 767 between SEA and HKG, IIRC, but that doesn't have the range for JFK-HKG.) That really only leaves the A350, which Delta currently only operates out of DTW and ATL. Surely it *could* expand A350 operates to another hub, but I'd imagine that would require a not-insignificant investment; that sort of investment would seem to entail a commitment to do more than just JFK-HKG, but also JFK to other TPAC destinations. Given the focus of JFK on TATL (the only Asian city served by Delta out of JFK is TLV, assuming that the JFK-BOM route on the now-discontinued 777), I'd have to imagine a renewed focus on TPAC on Delta metal is going to come out of another hub--and it's just hard to see which one fits. (That said, one could imagine a JFK A350 presence--some combination of JFK-BOM, JFK-JNB, JFK-ICN [split with KE], which would open up the ability to add other routes, like a JFK-HKG, JFK-SIN, JFK-TPE, JFK-PEK, JFK-PVG, etc., if the economic circumstances allow it to be profitable.)
4. It's just hard for me to imagine which city would make sense for a nonstop to HKG. Delta struggled to make SEA-HKG profitable (as did CX), and I can't imagine one of the Midwestern hubs (MSP, DTW) that currently service the DL TPAC flights would fare better than SEA did. That leaves ATL, LAX, and JFK where Delta has a significant domestic route network for transiting passengers. LAX could work, though anyone coming from the east coast goes about 3,000 km (+layover time) out of the way to do that (I suppose that's why both UA and Singapore Airlines use SFO, not LAX, their connection point to HKG), making the value proposition for LAX as a feeder middling. ATL is even further than JFK, so even more costly than JFK-HKG. And of course, JFK is competing with EWR-HKG (UA) and JFK-HKG (CX) (not to mention the fact that CX did EWR-HKG in pre-Covid times, too).
5. Lastly, I think one thing that stands in the way of Delta HKG is that HKG is *only* O/D traffic for HKG, as Delta doesn't have a partner airline to route to the rest of Asia. (Compare with PVG [China Eastern], TPE [China Airlines], ICN [Korean Air], all of which have partner airlines that allow Delta passengers to transit to a final Asian destination.) If Hainan Airlines / Hong Kong Airlines were to enter into a partnership with Delta (unlikely, but perhaps not impossible), that could create an opportunity to make HKG work for Delta.

Again, pure speculation on my part here, so happy to be shown that I'm wrong or incorrect here!

hi55us

I think the decision to leave the US-HKG market also has to do with throwing a bone to KE on the ICN-HKG market. Even right now, during the pandemic, there are 5 airlines operating ICN-HKG, each operating 1x daily frequency. I would expect this to increase substantially once the pandemic is over in Asia. This is a very competitive market and I'm sure KE would love to fill a lot of their seats with connecting long haul passengers vs. O&D passengers. Although the connection is lousy for US based passengers, it adds no distance to the flight time from SEA-HKG (as compared to SEA-ICN-HKG). Same goes for SEA-SIN vs. SEA-ICN-SIN and SEA-BKK vs. SEA-ICN-BKK.

yupenn

before the pandemic, i got MU flight: JFK-PVG-HKG for around $600 RT. transit in PVG is even more convenient now in the new satellite terminal

Jon of Brooklyn

That makes a lot of sense, though I do wonder how much of those seats are filled on HKG-ICN. Selfishly, I would like that connection to be a bit easier for JFK-ICN-HKG passengers, and I'd much prefer Delta metal to KE metal (I'm stuck in Y, and have found the DL experience to be better than the KE experience; also, JFK T4>>T1).

Detroiter

Seems to me there was a DTW-HKG flight not that long ago, but word here was the load factors were great but the yields were beyond awful. So yeah, I can't imagine DTW/MSP-HKG happening anytime soon.

garykung

It is unfair to put this on HKG. Specifically, many countries are still imposing some sort of travel ban. As one of the impacted area during SARS, HKG is entitled to close its borders for its own protection.

While the concern from CCP is real, the impact is not as major as you think. Remember, HKG does not only serve Hong Kong, but also a major airport in the Pearl Delta region. And it is obvious that the entire region is within CCP's ruling.

The uncertainties are there. But like many countries, they are from COVID more than CCP.

FWIW - while I am not a friend of the CCP, you don't get to tag every problem against CCP. Keep in mind - CCP does help Hong Kong economically in a big way.

LAX and JFK. Why? Because either cities has a sizeable Chinese population.

While you may be surprised, for HKG routes, local sourcing is more than connecting passengers. For example, CX has been operating LAX-HKG for decades. Yet, AA still decides to operate same route against its own partners. Still it is a success.

Seattle was a failure because its Chinese population is small. And neither DL or CX was able to secure significant load from the companies in the area.

This is not relevant. FWIW - 1) UA stopped all its 5th freedom flights from HKG, and still flied a significant frequency; 2) If networking is that important to DL, why not TPE?

MSPeconomist

PreCOVID-19, when I flew ICN-HKG, the KE flights appeared to be full and business class fares seemed expensive. Most of the frequencies were operated with regional aircraft. When a good plane was assigned, KE staff resisted giving this DM/2MM with a paid business class ticket seat assignments in the FC cabin (sold as business class with business class service) even though my reserved seat had been switched to a middle seat in a 2-3-2 business class configuration for no apparent reason when better seats were available. YMMV.

garykung

PreCOVID-19, Korea was one of the most popular tourist destination from Hong Kong. So I am not surprise that ICN-HKG was full.

MSPeconomist

What about vv? Do South Koreans like to come to Hong Kong for leisure (in normal non-pandemic times)?

flyerCO

How does CCP help in a major way? I think At least for flights, the CCP does nothing to help. I'd say HKG might have more flights if CCP wasn't doing everything they can to ruin HKG, while acting like they're not.

ab2013

Yup! They even operated NRT-KIX on a 752 for connections because they had so much feed at NRT. Really crazy. NRT-NGO might have also been a thing but can't remember.

garykung

#3 top most visiting nationalities (Mainland China and Taiwan top the list).

Airports within the Pearl Delta region are not competitive to each others. And HKG is designed to accommodate transfer from Mainland, but not the other way around.

flyerCO

Ok, I get that. However has nothing to do with how the CCP is helping HKG.

RobertS975

I flew the DTW-HKG route and was under the impression that it was doing quite well with connecting traffic. Not sure how long the route was flown. It was obviously a different political climate.
The CCP is getting more scary with each month.

One investor type person I know is genuinely concerned that after the 2022 Bejing winter Olympics, Taiwan will be overrun.

garykung

How about limiting its airlines from expanding?