And yet both companies are thriving almost equally today. That was despite UAL taking those risks before the consolidation era, which made them even riskier moves at the time.

DAL can afford to push the envelope a little bit more and take greater chances on international expansion.

This is promising. It's great that we are attempting to spread our wings a bit more across the globe and compete on our own metal. I do wonder if there will be more of a balancing of the core hubs though. Like, is it necessary or even good network strategy to have ATL at 900+ flights a day while DTW sits at, what ~ 300? I think MSP and SLC are a little better. But ATL and DTW handle a lot of the same connecting flows from the northeast and southeast, respectively. DTW has been scaled down so much so that the B and C gates almost look mothballed at certain times of the day. Meanwhile money is being spent in ATL to widen concourse D (rightfully so) to accommodate more people.

Using anything pre 9/11 as a benchmark for anything is a fool's errand. That's like looking at brick and mortar commerce in 2000 and using it as a benchmark for today.

While true, that may not tell the entire story. The regional gates there have been significantly up-gauged. Gone are the days of trying to fly the world 50 (or less!) seats at a time. The 50 seaters were truly maxed out at 50. Today’s 76ers are really mostly 90 (all coach) seaters scoped to 76 which the company wants anyway because of first class. Airlines no longer have to compete with each others (and their own) inefficient 50 seater super hubs, so we see illusions that we like to label “ghost town” even at airports that continually set pax enplanement records like CVG. ATL D gates are getting swoled up because they’re not full of 50s and 30 seat Brazilias anymore, but 321s and 739s a lot.

IMO we get value from our presence in DTW. Even 300ish daily flights is significant. Current gauge makes that the equivalent of 500+ daily flights not that long ago. We only need one super hub, but it’s good to have other hubs. Just ask a gate or res agent during an irop!

Part of the problem with Detroit is it’s Detroit. I rarely go when I’m not waiting to get parked, late because bags aren’t loaded, waiting on a jet bridge driver, etc... We can’t grow there because as it stands we can’t handle what we have.

China Airlines and EVA fly JFK-TPE without overflying Russia so TPE and maybe PVG can be done without overflying Russia.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...ar-future.html

In this forum someone at the delta one lounge jfk opening asked delta executives if a350s at jfk would happen any time soon and was told it would be route length dependent meaning it would only do so if it launched a route necessitating its range.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...es-2026-a.html

in this forum the same person mentioned at the time delta was afraid it would lose money on jfk-hnd based on competition, cost of flying route, and not wanting to operate a350 flights out of jfk at the time. Strange how delta felt it would gain something by choosing not to fly its flagship aircraft out of nyc. Now with delta’s new focus on Asia expansion maybe delta reconsiders jfk-hnd if slots open up.

Granted, I don't fly out of DTW much but I used to be based there at my previous airline beginning just before the DL/NW merger. So I guess Im remembering the "heydays". Im not suggesting we need to build it up to ATL #2 but just that some of the connecting flows to and from ATL could instead go through DTW which can absorb much more capacity than it currently sees, notwithstanding the apparent staffing issues. But what do I know...

Detroit is great. I rarely have issues. My favorite base in the whole system.

Is this for real? 96.9% of my trips there will have zero rampers ready, followed by multiple calls to ops where they reply “they’re on their way,” and they aren’t on their way.

I don't got there much but when I have, I've rarely had to wait.