Well, that's good to hear. I didn't realize that the Bay had a large Indian community. I fly there all the time, as well as Vancouver, and I get Vancouver, but not the Bay; very rarely do I run in to people from the Sub Continent, but they must be in the burbs

The only way we do well out of SFO is to have feed. If it was not for the Star Alliance there would be no feed. If we did not have that then the one timers would dry up in short order. But flying through Auckland to get to Delhi is out, so it wouldn't work for us anyway.

My other question is fuel. Am I right to assume that EK pays very little for their fuel out of Dubai, hence the hubing through there? The problem comes once you've breached the 14 hour mark in that you are now burning 3/4 of a ton to take a ton. SQ apparently makes no money on the A345 run to JFK because of this, even with an all high yield flight.

Interesting stuff none the less. I don't profess to be any genius, and this is a very different way of looking at thing's for an airline, the EK way, but it seams to be making money and working, so perhaps the big US carriers could take note. . . or perhaps they won't. The great thing about EK is that it is doing so well, and with it and other similar carriers requiring pilots it means that the nightmare in the States is not going to affect the pilot group as badly as it could. Wages and benefits, in areas of the world other than the US, are going up.