Originally Posted by
iaflyer
I had forgotten about the AMM flight. One possible problem was the DTW-JFK was RJ central after the merger. There was an occasional DC9 or 320, but not very often.
If you compare DTW-Montreal (YUL)-AMM on a A340 (with an hour ground time in YUL, most likely stay in your seats while new pax/crew get on) to DTW-JFK (on a 50-76 seat RJ) walk off the RJ, up the stairs, walk from T2 to T3 in a third-world terminal, with a probably 2 hour ground time. (not including ATC delays) Then JFK-AMM on a B767 - the premium traffic most likely would take Royal Jordanian than DL.
So we could probably fill the 767 to AMM, but with lower paying traffic.
That's just one route, but add in all the other traffic. JFK may seem on paper to be a great connecting hub for Delta, but the reality is that wasn't very good in terms of service or ATC delays. Sure, we can fill the planes but at what price?
O&D traffic drives how successful a hub is. JFK is the O&D capital for international travel. Every time Delta has tried to move a flight from JFK to another hub it has failed completely. Yields and traffic drop like a stone. That is the reason for Delta's huge investment in the JFK infrastructure. It also functions perfect on a cost basis for anywhere on the eastcoast since most traffic passes over JFK going to Europe. Its a lot more expensive to fly a passenger to DTW or ATL to connect them to NYC then to fly to NYC and connect them to those destinations.