Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
More to the point; Why would a passenger need DAL if they could fly out of HND on ANA or JAL to most major gateways in the US? Why would a US customer choose DAL in to NRT when HND is downtown and saves them two hrs each way from city center to the airport?
What would DAL do if all of its US O&D traffic, as well as some of its connecting traffic choose a Japanese carrier? How much traffic is O&D out of NRT? How much is connecting? This is a HUGE issue for DAL and for DAL pilots. We would need effectively to move our 355 weekly slots back to HND to compete effectively.
Currently DAL could go a Code Share or a JV that is revenue sharing only and not profit sharing like the AF deal and there is not one thing in our PWA to prevent it. Talk about WB lift, seat progression et al.
For me these two issues in Section 1 (CS and JV protection on all deals) are a must to get my yes vote. (not to mention SJS, holding companies and some way to bound a international corporation in the event of a transnational merger.
Bingo, +1, the "open Skies" with Japan is really not, unless there are unlimited slots for HND. UAL and AA have JV partners there so they aren't affected by the this lopsided bilateral arrangement...Politically Delta has no pull on this and gets to "pound sand."
The RJ issue is more of a distraction. This next contract needs big improvements in CS and JV language...
Three Virgin Australia 777-300 vs one Delta 777-200 is the current status quo for the JV covering US and Australia flights.
Imagine what that ratio would look like to all of Asia...
All we get under the current contract is 4 flights a week to them and they get unlimited flights to the US...unlimited!
Cheers
George