WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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Pan Am served a fraction of the cities it once served in its final days and London was not one of them.
Delta seeks yet another extension to file reorganization plan
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WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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just reporting the facts is not being defensive, madam.
Cosmo
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WorldTraveler:
The highlighted part is not true -- Pan Am served London (albeit LGW, not LHR) from MIA in late 1991 before it collapsed.
As for the rest of your statement, it is really overly dramatic and implies that Pan Am was serving well under half of its former international cities, and that's just not true. Yes, Pan Am sold its Pacific operation (13 cities) to United in the mid-1980s, and other cities (like CPH, DUB, MID, SNN and THR, to mention a few) came and went over the years. Nonetheless, in late 1991, Pan Am still served 75 international cities with mainline aircraft. In an interesting comparison, Delta today serves 77 international cities with mainline aircraft, with the number increasing to 79 later this year with the addition of ACC, DKR and JNB together with the dropping of MAA. Viewed from the perspective of Delta's self-described unprecedented recent international route expansion, the similarity is downright eerie.
Of course, comparing Pan Am's problems in 1991 with Delta's problems today is not really fair. Delta benefits from a large domestic system (including a massive hub in ATL, better domestic feed at JFK and huge domestic code-sharing regional partners), a much more liberal international regulatory regime, and significant domestic and international traffic growth in the intervening 15 years. On the other hand, Pan Am never recorded annual losses of the magnitude seen by Delta in the past few years. Which brings up an interesting question -- which carrier did better with the tools it had to work with and the competitive situation existing at their respective times of trial, Pan Am or Delta? Since Pan Am stopped flying and Delta hasn't (yet), the logical answer right now is Delta. But perhaps we should revisit this question in a year or two to see if the answer has changed.
And as you so aptly put it earlier today, I'm just reporting the facts (and a few observations and questions 😀 ).
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
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Cosmo,
I've seen you lurking and knew you would stop by.
Pan Am did not serve London after Nov 1, 1991 because it sold all of its remaining transatlantic authorities including its DTW-LON and MIA-LON routes to DL. Pan Am ceased operations in early Dec 1991. From Nov 1 when PA's remaining transatlantic assets were sold to DL and its final flight in early Dec, Pan Am served only Latin America and there were certainly not 77 cities in Pan Am's route system on Dec 1, 1991. I'm not sure how long you define "last days" but I'd be hard pressed to stretch that statement out to mean 6 weeks.
Yes, DL does have a much greater advantage in serving the world today and that is the point I have made over and over again. For some strange reason, most US airlines have been content to serve a relative handful of cities in Europe, Asia, and Latin America (except for AA) unlike European carriers that fly to dozens of cities in all corners of the world. Thankfully, CO and DL have recognized that the US is the largest economy in the world and has people from just about every country on the planet - an ideal combination for developing much more expansive int'l route systems than have been seen by any airline since the days of Pan Am. And we all know that Pan Am lacked the feed, the market, and the right aircraft to serve the cities that are served around the world today.
My contention has been that DL is in the best position of any US airline to rapidly tap into the globalization that is occuring because it has a huge fleet of 767s, most of which were doing mundane runs from ATL to Florida and Hawaii instead of stretching their legs on near-6000 mile flights as the 767 is capable of doing. And the 767 is the lowest cost per trip widebody available - until the 787 comes on line.
The argument that DL is doomed because it has pursued an expansionistic strategy is patently ridiculous. UA still generates far more system int'l RPMs than DL does because of its vast Pacific network and yet we all recognize that those Pacific routes are UA's bread and butter. And in all deference to CO, it wasn't DL that thought up this expansionistic strategy - or if they did they sat on it for a couple years while CO added cities around the globe. And I do believe CO serves more cities worldwide than DL does thanks largely to CO Micronesia since DL and CO are now on pretty similar footing on cities served in Europe and Latin America (although they serve those cities quite differently).
To continue to say that DL's int'l expansion is doomed because other carriers once did it makes no sense unless you also want to argue that every carrier with larger int'l route systems or which serve more int'l cities are also doomed. My just about everyone's reckoning, CO is in no danger of failure. And if UA fails, it won't be because of their Pacific system unless East Asia as a whole implodes in which case DL could be the luckiest carrier on the planet with its solitary ATLNRT flight.
I've seen you lurking and knew you would stop by.
Pan Am did not serve London after Nov 1, 1991 because it sold all of its remaining transatlantic authorities including its DTW-LON and MIA-LON routes to DL. Pan Am ceased operations in early Dec 1991. From Nov 1 when PA's remaining transatlantic assets were sold to DL and its final flight in early Dec, Pan Am served only Latin America and there were certainly not 77 cities in Pan Am's route system on Dec 1, 1991. I'm not sure how long you define "last days" but I'd be hard pressed to stretch that statement out to mean 6 weeks.
Yes, DL does have a much greater advantage in serving the world today and that is the point I have made over and over again. For some strange reason, most US airlines have been content to serve a relative handful of cities in Europe, Asia, and Latin America (except for AA) unlike European carriers that fly to dozens of cities in all corners of the world. Thankfully, CO and DL have recognized that the US is the largest economy in the world and has people from just about every country on the planet - an ideal combination for developing much more expansive int'l route systems than have been seen by any airline since the days of Pan Am. And we all know that Pan Am lacked the feed, the market, and the right aircraft to serve the cities that are served around the world today.
My contention has been that DL is in the best position of any US airline to rapidly tap into the globalization that is occuring because it has a huge fleet of 767s, most of which were doing mundane runs from ATL to Florida and Hawaii instead of stretching their legs on near-6000 mile flights as the 767 is capable of doing. And the 767 is the lowest cost per trip widebody available - until the 787 comes on line.
The argument that DL is doomed because it has pursued an expansionistic strategy is patently ridiculous. UA still generates far more system int'l RPMs than DL does because of its vast Pacific network and yet we all recognize that those Pacific routes are UA's bread and butter. And in all deference to CO, it wasn't DL that thought up this expansionistic strategy - or if they did they sat on it for a couple years while CO added cities around the globe. And I do believe CO serves more cities worldwide than DL does thanks largely to CO Micronesia since DL and CO are now on pretty similar footing on cities served in Europe and Latin America (although they serve those cities quite differently).
To continue to say that DL's int'l expansion is doomed because other carriers once did it makes no sense unless you also want to argue that every carrier with larger int'l route systems or which serve more int'l cities are also doomed. My just about everyone's reckoning, CO is in no danger of failure. And if UA fails, it won't be because of their Pacific system unless East Asia as a whole implodes in which case DL could be the luckiest carrier on the planet with its solitary ATLNRT flight.
