That is one way to need a lot of west coast flying quick.

If and when DAL grows out West, it will need a lot of international connecting traffic to be supported. That will take time and money. The domestic O and D market is a no win out there. Yes, we could fly full aircraft out of there, but we would be giving the seats away. Let SWA do that. We will cherry pick our customers.

FWIW, Slow is correct here.

Umm, uhh, hmmm,...., wasn't that exactly why the NWA merger was supposed to be a good idea? Connect Europe to the Orient? I understand all of the dynamics but that was the original intent (I thought).

DAL tried to make a go of PDX and SEA, but both those bases are gone for the southside.

At that time DL did not have aircraft that could do it efficently...now we do.

Precisely. NWA did it right on the left coast and had the right equipment. Now, we have the routes and the jets. Lets rock. It kills me to see the inroads that SWA and JB have made on the west coast. We, DAL, had some great LAX to Mexico/Central America flying until the agreement with AS. Now, they get the good routes and we're back to flying the normal CONUS and Hawaii stuff.

We have some of the aircraft. In the coming years we will really have the aircraft and more importantly the type of aircraft we need to do the West Coast effectively. It is of importance and will get a lot of attention and growth, but a few facts remain.

The 330 is needed more to South America than to go saturate LAX to the Orient. The 744 is just to darn bid to effectively fill at an acceptable price to the Orient.
As we get different gauge aircraft and actually have the ability to move fleet types around, you will see the West Grow. SEA will see its dynamics shift first. Our leaders see the need for a STRONG West Coast and points to the Orient presence, but we need to make sure the foundation of this merger is strong before we start building on it. IE we need to take care of the holes on the East cost.

We are talking a few years tops. (IMHO)

Buzz JV's are good for the pilot group! :D

We've got the east coast saturated. So much so at JFK and LGA, we can't even operate effectively. There's always been a lack of will to compete on the west coast, even with costs way down following BK. We gave a huge concession to the company when we allowed the Alaska codeshare to be brought over. Those were jobs that could have broken the cycle of the endless upgrade to Capt here. No dominant carrier at LAX looks like a huge opportunity, not a reason to not grow there.

If Delta were to come in and fly on a large scale up and down the west coast they would have to compete with the likes of Alaska/Horizon, United, Southwest, Virgin America, and to some extent, Jetblue. Delta's added presence would just add more capacity and push fares lower. This code share with AS/QX allows DL to have the feed to its important Pacific flying out of SEA and LAX without jumping into what would be a money loosing battle on the west coast.

If we were to merge with AS - now, that would be a different story :)

I definitely agree with all of the above.

It's tough anywhere you go. I guess I just don't see how the fight on the East is worth it but not the West as well. I'm probably biased because I'm from there..

Jet Blue, United and Virgin have a small presence on the North/South West coast traffic. From a life long West coaster, there is only one airline doing the majority of the work and its AS.