FWIW, the central valley CA city I live in is nearing 1M people. We serve it with 3 RJs to SLC.

My wife has been in PDX for two days now. Not one seat out to SLC was open.

There are opportunities and O & D population out west. The problem is DAL is still picking the low hanging fruit and hasn't exploited those opportunities yet. West coast flying (besides N - S) involves large distances to the hubs and low yeilds.

With that said, Bob Crandall stated years ago that some markets you have to serve even with a very low yeild because those pax will eventually travel on a high yeild flight. Delta just hasn't figured that out yet.

You should have seen the routing from LAX - SFO when I had to deadhead a few months back. The World's Premier Global Airline doesn't fly between the two most popular (and I'm guessing populous) cities in CA.

PATHETIC

It's not like DL just has planes lying around doing nothing (at least ones that would be suitable for the domestic market).

With moves like re-tooling the DCA-LGA shuttle. Putting 319's on the low-yield summer NY-FL season, etc,etc I believe they are doing their best to put airplanes where they will make us the most money.

Once we get that all figured out then maybe we can start filling in the blanks. I'm actually very impressed with how things have been materializing and am glad we don't have our fingers in every market out there, especially one as over saturated as LAX-SFO (UA, AA, Southwest and Vir America)

No offense, but Hauenstein and Cortelyou are much smarter than all of us combined on "The Latest and Greatest" thread at revenue and network opportunities. Why go against UAL, SWA, and the others on LAX-SFO right now in the worst revenue market in recent history. Perhaps its better to leave the plane parked in the desert and return it to service when yields do improve.

On the east coast we do those high density cities to FL and they're not exactly profit centers for us. Delta is figuring out how to connect low yield to high yield for the most part. The big glaring exception is what's been done to the Shuttle product. That said, they are making changes but they also must balance the cost to make these changes with the horrible revenue market right now. Sometimes saving money and sitting on the sidelines and saving yourself is better than leaving your 1st string players in the game when you're leading 51-10 in the 4th.

Glad someone else realizes this.

If we tightened our scope it would force the Company to merge.

I wonder how much we paid out in vouchers and fines for over booking flights? Every flight I have seen domestically as asked for volunteers due to over booking. I was in BUF yesterday trying to get my wife home to SAT. I had to buy tickets on Airtran to get her home. Every DAL flight was oversold both legs to all destinations.

Airtran had seats and sold me a business class seat for $365! They can't be making money on that seat. SWA was completely booked too so I couln't use a Zed faire. Checked the web and DAL, AA, USair all wanted over $700.

So come September does the traffic drop off a cliff? It seems to me that right now we could put a bigger airplane on almost every leg. Will that change next month?

Agreed that they are way smarter. I'm just stating that California is not a small market. It's my opinion only that we could pick up some dedicated frequent flyers if we provided the service in some of these markets. I'm not saying try to beat UAUA or LUV, but maybe 4-5 flights a day between LAX - SFO might be in order.

When Delta tried to make PDX work as the asian gateway, we had like 1 or 2 RJs running from SFO - PDX. SFO - aisia is a hudge market. Bottom line is nothing can compete with the profits we gain domestically from ATL; it's the most profitable hub in the world. DAL gets caught up in that and while picking the low fruit maybe misses some already on the ground.

Every time there is a leadership change we hear "we're gonna grow LAX and the west coast." Take a look at the current AE. We took the brunt of the surplus considering we're only 400+ strong.

But what the hay, I've got a job and flying to places I like. Not trying to p.ss anyone off, just making conversation.

Cheers.

Yea, my wife was saying that they were giving $400 in Delta dollars to people that paid $108 for their tickets out of PDX.

The system is very close to breaking. All in all though, besides our buddies at SkyWest, the agents are doing a damned good job.

Yes, agreed, the Delta agents I have seen have been doing a good job of remaining cool. The contracted employees of the "partners" seem to be less patient. It's hard to remain calm when you have people in your face all day angry that they missed their flight.

BUF to ATL was 5 Mad Dogs, not one RJ yet every flight was oversold Airtran had two flights and both had seats available. I bought a business class refundable ticket while sitting in the airport on the web for $365. We must be kicking their butt in that market.

It all has to do on where these people are connecting to. AAI does not offer that.

All I have to say is patience. Things will start to take shape next year. They have plans to change the way we do business, but it is going to take time to make sure these plans are rolled out correctly.

[quote=DAL4EVER;659702]

No offense, but Hauenstein and Cortelyou are much smarter than all of us combined on "The Latest and Greatest" thread at revenue and network opportunities.

I sure hope so - our future depends on it.

Scoop