pseudoswede

Avianca flies MIA-Colombia. TACA flies to SAL & SJO. Copa flies to PTY. If you want to get to, say, GIG, would you rather fly OSL/CPH-MIA-BOG-GIG (Avianca), -MIA-SAL-LIM-GIG (TACA), -MIA-PTY-GIG (Copa), or OSL/CPH-FRA-GIG (LH)?

GUWonder

MIA-Colombia on AV means Miami-Barranquilla, Miami-Bogota, Miami-Cali, Miami-Cartagena, and Miami-Medellin.

This may be great for my Argentine-Colombian and Peruvian friends in Scandinavia and for my Argentine-Colombian and Peruvian friends interested in visiting Scandinavia from Colombia. If the scheduling is well-coordinated with Avianca/AviancaPeru.

That said, when it comes to transiting in the US when going between Europe and Latin America, that is not my idea of a good time -- especially when MIA is involved. But CBP Preclearance sort of changes that game in one direction.

Milkman

If I'm not mistaken, Taca also serve MIA from MGA, SAP and GUA.

Avianca have direct flights to a handful of cities in Colombia.

Before I moved overseas, I would have loved the option of flying CPH-MIA-GUA or CPH-MIA-SAP instead of reaching these destinations through a CPH-AMS-PTY-SAP/GUA.
If logic wins, SK will fly to the South Terminal in MIA, the same that hosts AV and CM.

pseudoswede

I, for one, am not convinced there is truly enough demand for year-round flights to MIA--nor enough connecting traffic to Central America/Colombia. Obviously someone at SK crunched the numbers enough to justify it, so I wish them the best of luck.

Milkman

I'm not saying that transfer traffic to Colombia and Central America can carry this route alone, cause that is obviously not the case (if it was, PTY, BOG or even SAL would likely have been a more obvious destination for SK), but the transfer traffic through MIA does give SK some kind of differentiation compared to DY/DU at FLL, which is what Ultrarant initially didn't see.

GUWonder

The September and October part of the hurricane season aren't going to be high demand periods for back of the flying bus seats.

MAH4546

Before Norwegian came along, Miami-Copenhagen was the second largest local market pair between all of Europe and the U.S. without a non-stop. The largest being San Francisco-Rome.

There is definitely some seasonality to the traffic, but the market is very large. That doesn't speak to yields, which are likely so-so.

Miami is the second largest trans-Atlantic local market from each of CPH, ARN and OSL, not to mention GOT.

GUWonder

And yet AA -- with a large hub at MIA, a cost-structure improved by U.S. bankruptcy protection, and as a beneficiary of the USG waivers and favors granted the US3 airlines -- seems to have (so far) stayed out of the MIA-CPH/ARN/OSL/GOT own-metal game while high-cost SAS has jumped into the picture.

CPH-Flyer

It would be far more important for Miami than for Los Angeles. Morning arrivals on JAL in LAX I have my luggage 15 to 20 minutes after touchdown. LAX is a very efficient entry point to the US, whereas MIA is more than terrible.

MAH4546

There are multiple reasons for that. The two most obvious are that it is of little benefit to concentrate AA's assets to non-OW hubs in such a way and that it doesn't have the advantage of being a European carrier, which is crucial in this market where European point of sale is do dominant. AA has historically avoided a lot of Miami-Europe, even Zurich where the average fares are $1,300+ OW and the market is 175+ PDEW.

AA and AY operate Miami-Helsinki with AY metal under a JBA. It isn't entirely ignoring that region from Miami.

oliver2002

MIA has it all: plenty of leisure traffic to FL and Caribe, a lot of business travel, either terminating in the MIA area or continuing on to Central America and Andino Norte. LH fills an A380 to FRA, a MUC flight and a LX flight, and had seasonal DUS service. In June when I returned from MIA 30% of C in the FRA flight was Scandic (including some very loud Danes )

GUWonder

The AY service to Florida was first launched with AA not even an afterthought for AY at the time; and it was primarily leisure-market oriented. Even the AY HEL-MIA (under the AY-AA JBA) earlier this year was launched as a seasonal for just mid-December to just short of the end of March of this year. Another sign of the leisure orientation of the service.

Miami is certainly a logistics and a LatAm finance hub, and a lot of the Scandinavian Maersk employees go to/via MIA to serve Maersk's Latin American-related business.

German-speakers and Florida sort of go hand in hand. A very high proportion of the high-end Florida house rentals are booked from Germany. And the German chartered tour buses are a plenty in Florida when it comes to at least Miami-Key West runs. But for German flights into Florida, the proportion of the business class cabin that are leisure passengers seems to be much higher on my flights than it is on my routes from Germany to Asia or the rest of North America (ie, excluding Florida). Does Lufthansa still sell business class via charter tour package companies?

dabee69

SAS in Spring 2016 is returning to Los Angeles market, as the Star Alliance member plans to introduce Stockholm – Los Angeles route, from 14MAR16. Initially this route will be served by Airbus A330-300 and A340-300 on alternating days until 06MAY16, and A330-300 will operate this route on daily basis from 07MAY16.
Reservation for this route will open on Thursday 20AUG15, mentioned in the airline’s press release.

SK933 ARN0950 – 1315LAX 333 D
SK934 LAX1415 – 1000+1ARN 333 D

http://airlineroute.net/2015/08/19/sk-lax-s16/

FlyingMoose

If you only travel with cabin luggage, MIA is fairly ok. I haven't traveled with checked in luggage for many years so I might find it hard to relate to such complaints.

I personally find IAD a terrible airport to enter the US.

Confirmed this works, just booked my first ticket. According to the booking this route will earn 30.000EB points in C.

nacho

Extreme turnaround - wonder how clean the plane is going to be