slowplay

All correct except the thin routes. The really thin ones would just go away. And thin doesn't mean total passengers traveled, just DL coded passengers.

Ferd149

Slow,

What about PDX HNL or SEA HNL or HNL ANC? I don't remember those being thin. Why did we give those up to Alaska? Seems to me that a 757 would be cheeper per seat mile over that distance.

I'm really tired of waking past gates in the Hawaiian Islands that Alaska are flying out of. Why aren't We doing those. Or even competing on them?

buzzpat

Slow, I've been based in LA for the past 3 1/2 years and I've seen quite a bit of change, both personally, and in the larger DAL operation. The airline that "owns" LA right now is SWA. Their presence appears to be increasing. If we're going to take them on in ATL, we ought to be taking them on out here as well. They don't seem to have the same fear of banking on LA that we do. I find that odd, and a little troubling.

Delta metal flying, in my estimation, has not increased. I guarantee you that if you compare the pre-merger DAL and NWA frequencies in LA to what the joint operation is now, its close to a wash. We also closed a category out here in the last three years. We did add a handful of FOs and a couple of CAs to the 73 but since early 2008, the numbers have been relatively static. I've personally lost about 50% seniority since I got out here (2001 hire). What I HAVE seen is a lot of our 73 flying going to AK. And that is not only in LAX but SNA as well. Almost all of the LAX 73 Mexico service has matriculated to AK. In its place is a significant increase in TRANSCON redeyes.

I think what most LAX bubbas see, and believe, is that LAX can be had (similar to what Western had prior to the merger). We've squandered a lot of that Western presence. I'm not a marketing or route structure guy, just a line guy who sees a lot of untapped potential out here. If we're going to "own" NY and the Orient, we might as well "own" LA.

slowplay

Ferd,

I don't know. I suspect that it's because Hawaii is historically a very low yield market that was used primarily for dumping frequent flyer points and vacation consolidation. As I recall NWA had a base there that had seen signficant variability in flying.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see us get more flying. But I'd also rather not work for the "stupidest competitor" that gets everybodies yields down.

Ferd149

Dead on Buzz and what I was trying to say (unsuccessfully) in a post a page ago. Flying continues to be put into ATL with western flying done by Alaska. Just how much more can we stuff into ATL?

Ferd149

Understand. Just seems like we measure "load factors" as the primary statistic these days.

And you're right of course on the HNL base.

Oh, what happened to Quangzou in China? That was announced for spring as I recall. Seems we could be making a killing right now on China to HNL. (Sorry for the thread drift)

slowplay

If you're referring to CAN, I believe we couldn't get commercially usable slots from the Chinese government. I think AMR ran into similar problems. The rumor I heard was the Chinese government wasn't too happy with the US Visa program and dished a little payback.

Ferd149

Interrrrrrrreeeeeessssssttttting. Thanks

I figured that was also why we weren't doing China to any beach spot.

gloopy

I think what you meant to say was you have no idea how a woman so massively less attractive than your wife ended up spoiling what would have been a photogenic and memorable picture.

gloopy

I've never bought into that logic. It just reeks of smoke and mirrors. Maybe its valid on a ticket purchase only on said codeshare with zero connections, but anytime a connection is made, the two companies can divvy up the revenue however they want with the net effect being the exact same as if revenue was shared in the first place, because it is. So DL gets the feed and still gets the revenue; maybe not as much revenue, but overhead for the connection is almost zero, which is a manager's dream. Sell your logo across your network while someone else runs a pretend airline for you.

I'm not against the AK codeshare in its entirety. Some of it does strengthen our overall network with feed and routes we wouldn't otherwise be doing. But going 0-fer eight on hub to hub (LAX-SEA) is unacceptable. No excuse. Heck, going 0-fer 2 BOS-SEA is pretty weaksauce. 0-fer 22 to outsourced RJ's? Please. That clearly proves we could be doing some of that. We need to use them to augment the thin routes and banks, but once you reach a certain seat/frequency volume that clearly justifies a mainline aircraft (not to mention 70-76 seaters should be C12K mainline aircraft anyway) we need to start weening them off the benevolence of our global network and politely inform them that we will be doing at least a sizeable minority of that flying. Not to mention all that revenue we would be getting that we are supposedly losing because we "can't share it" even though we all know that's exactly what goes on.

Add in them growing (and possibly using that against us, hard, in a future SLI) because of the code share while we stagnate/shrink and it only makes it twice as unacceptable.