flyerCO

PEK just isn't the market. PVG is the market. JFK-PVG happens before JFK-PEK. Regardless there's limited slots between US and China major cities and China isn't going to be changing that anytime soon..

DLASflyer

It opened in April.

lsquare

Guess we need China and Japan to open up now.

moondog

1. During the past 2 years, MU has been flying NYC-SHA uncontested and has picked up a lot of former UA corporate contracts as a result; presumably UA will get some of its previous "Buy American First" accounts back, but any new entrants will face an uphill battle
2. NYC-BJS hasn't been served by any airline during the past 2 years. Obviously, both CA and UA will resume their routes when possible, but this could present a "first to the punchbowl" opportunity for AA or DL
3. AA, DL, and UA have rights to a fixed number of slots (e.g. 21+ each) post COVID
-specific routes require approval from both CAAC and US DOT
-this means that low performers such as DFW-PVG and SFO-CTU are more difficult to swap out than high performers like SFO-PVG, but AA has nothing to lose by attempting to replace DFW with JFK and PVG with BJS

It will be interesting to see what happens, but my predictions are:
-UA attempts to move some of its CTU and HGH slots to PVG or BJS
-UA and/or AA scale down ORD-China, if necessary
-AA and UA fly LAX-PVG 3x per week, at most (MU can always undercut them, and now has a much better product IMO)
-AA reduces DFW frequencies if it can replace them with better O&D routes
-DL will stick with ATL, DTW, and SEA

As I've intimated, desired route plans are only part of the battle; e.g. Chengdu doesn't want to lose its flight and CA would object to AA flying JFK-BJS.

jlemon

Delta and United actually got together back in the late 1990's. I remember reading about it in the "Airline Outlook" section of Aviation Week & Space Technology and thinking, "Well, this will be interesting...."

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it with this information being taken from their Delta Air Lines article...

"In 1998, Delta and United Airlines introduced a marketing partnership that included a reciprocal redemption agreement between SkyMiles and Mileage Plus programs and shared lounges. This scheme allowed members of either frequent flier program to earn miles on both carriers and utilize both carriers' lounges. Delta and United attempted to introduce an even closer codeshare agreement, but this deal was effectively killed by ALPA."

Note the reference to ALPA. I'm not sure what the pilots objected to.....

NYC Flyer

Demand to TLV on an entirely different scale today, plus much of the connecting traffic that could have used AA via DFW will now naturally flow to DL without AA competition.

I don't understand the foundation for this statement. Perhaps in secondary, tertiary west coast markets this has some basis. But for 50+ years DL's transcon prescence via DFW and ATL has has been a major, if not dominant competitor between major western cities and large, medium and tiny markets in the southeastern US.

Not sure I'd count on AA returning to LAX-China before DL.

jlemon

Ah, I just re-read the initial statement you are referring to and I interpreted it wrong when I first read it.

I thought the statement concerned Delta being the other way around with DL being strong in east-west markets. And so I agree with you. I also remember flying with Delta on board a 747 from LAX to ATL via a stop at DFW as well as a whole bunch of nonstop trips between LAX and ATL on board L-1011 and 767-300 equipment . And in later years I flew with Delta several times nonstop between LAX and EWR on the 767-300 in addition to nonstop between LAX and MCO on the MD-11.

N830MH

Yes, they do! They still have more demand. I knows the flight are always full everyday. Lot of Jewish people who are going to Israel. Everyday!

NYC Flyer

IMHO, Faith-based tourism (both Jewish and Christian) and VFR traffic had been adequately served prior to the additional routes added in the past few years.

Recent UA, DL and AA adds will certainly draw on some of that, but would not have materialized without significant growth in business travel and secular tourism demand.

Dawgfan6291

You've got some of this right.

First, United will be fine on EWR-PEK/PVG and I suspect HKG whenever China actually opens. Right now they can't fly EWR-China due to frequency/capacity restrictions from the Chinese government.
second, You've got how the route switching stuff works wrong.
Beijing and Shanghai are separated in the USA/China Bilateral so CTU is meaningless as far as that go. (secondary China excluding CAN are open skies between the US/China. CAN is limited to either 14 or 21 frequencies on each side, IIRC) More importantly, American could probably move around any China frequency they want right now because Delta and United wouldn't object. Just an example, American moving LAX-PEK to SEA-PVG was met with zero objections from the other two US airlines. Finally, while China does technically have to approve any changes/new flying from the US airlines, they tend to stay out of any proceedings, leaving that to the DOT. The same can be said on the other side. AFAIK no US airline has ever been able to comment on a Chinese airline adding a route and the same for Chinese airlines if US airlines add a route.

As for you predictions.
DFW-China isn't going anywhere. It was the only place American could actually make money flying to China.
Delta and United will be back on LAX-China long before American is, unless American is forced to come back.
United change "exchange" CTU/HGH for more PVG/PEK. Again, CTU/HGH are open skies. PVG/PEK are not and technically all of the US's side of PEK/PVG frequencies are allocated, though i suspect American will end up dumping its 7x SEA-PVG and probably its 7x LAX-PVG slots back into the pool.
Delta will be adding ATL-PVG, DTW-PVG, DTW-PKX, SEA-PVG, SEA-PXK, LAX-PVG back. After that I suspect they will try LAX-PKX and/or MSP-PVG next.
I suspect United will go double daily on SFO-PEK next then look toward IAH-PVG.

*of course some of those predictions will require bilateral expansion.*
Thats because they almost certainly wont. Its a huge question mark if American will return to LAX-China at all. They have already given up on LAX-PEK (it officially moved to SEA-PVG, another route i find incredibly unlikely to ever happen) and LAX-PVG was horrible for them.
I expect Delta and United to be back on LAX-PVG at some point. If someone is going to give LAX-PEK/PKX a go, I expect it to be Delta. With that said the many focus for Delta and United will first be to get its former routes to China back operating before adding new routes.
Even though the IAF is open, Delta at SEA still has a huge probably with gates.

moondog

Thank you for your detailed reply, but I will reply to the above in isolation in this post. UA could presumably move two of its four weekly SFO frequencies to EWR. This is how DL plays under the current rules (DTW and SEA 2x each). That having been said, 857 is UA's most profitable flight and Apple (its largest corporate account) revenue alone ensures this.

lsquare

Why would UA screw the West coast for the east coast?

turkeyRIOO

It looks like LAX-PPT is a direct to D1 flight when using a GUC from Y at the first schedule posting

Dawgfan6291

and that's why United can't fly EWR China right now.
screw?
its not personal. If it made more business sense to move some frequency around then United should do so.

moondog

It's not about west v east. They have no reason to kill their golden goose, which also happens to be the only US-China flight that is 4x/per week, though it did get another 14-day time out starting next week.