Rumor has it DL PHL-LHR

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

but you apparently still don't get that DL built its network around medium sized markets - on both sides of the Atlantic - and thus is far more able to "push up" into markets where AA and UA are stronger than for AA and UA to "push down" into DL's markets.

since deregulation, DL has expanded its network more into AA and UA's top markets than the other way around which says that AA and UA are at a long term structural disadvantage.

 
So would that be a sound business strategy for UA and AA to start to focus on 'medium-sized markets'?
 
I'm sure DL makes good money on DTW-AMS and SLC-CDG but seriously, do you think it would be a good idea for UA or AA to fly the routes just because they could do so?

 

[topDawg]

 
It had to because it would not have survived by remaining the airline of rural America.  
 
Indeed, Delta was still very much a regional airline up until the time of its bankruptcy reorganization.
 
When you consider that NY + LA produce more in GDP than 46 states, exactly how is it a structural disadvantage for AA or UA to stay away from DL's top markets, many of which, if not all, are in those 46 states?

few things. 
One Delta was quite large in both LA and NYC before BK. At one point in the 90s Delta has over 200 flights per day from LAX. 
 
two AA and UA would be tripping over themselves for the ATL hub. 
 
third as we see with a market like LAX, CHI, NYC it is a 2-3-4-5-6 hub market (LAX hub for VX, WN, AA, UA, DL for example) that is why those market places are so fragmented and, I know this sounds crazy because AA has 8583038589295787348573894573890579 gates in LAX, can't and wont be controlled by a single airline. 
So while AA is burning money on ORD-China Delta is happy to be making profits on DTW-China. Call that stupid if you want too..... 
 

 
So would that be a sound business strategy for UA and AA to start to focus on 'medium-sized markets'?
 
I'm sure DL makes good money on DTW-AMS and SLC-CDG but seriously, do you think it would be a good idea for UA or AA to fly the routes just because they could do so?

no but that isn't apples to apples. 
 
DTW-AMS is a lot like AA flying CLT-LHR. 

 

[WorldTraveler]

So would that be a sound business strategy for UA and AA to start to focus on 'medium-sized markets'?
 
I'm sure DL makes good money on DTW-AMS and SLC-CDG but seriously, do you think it would be a good idea for UA or AA to fly the routes just because they could do so?

except that AA and UA can't grow into DL's markets with the kind of success that DL can grow up into AA's.

AA"s attempt at adding ATL-LAX and ATL-LGA are precisely attempts for AA to get a piece of DL's markets. And yet, AA tried it ATL-LGA before and had a 20% plus average fare DISADVANTAGE to DL. that is why they dropped the market. AA will try its hand at ATL-LAX but with a couple flights to far more for DL and mainline costs that will be no cheaper than DL or WN's, AA will be the third wheel in a market where they, just like ATL-LGA, will have less frequencies that DL or WN.

the reason why DL has succeeded in pushing into NYC is because the local market is simply much larger. and DL also gained a structural advantage via the LGA slot swap which allows DL to gain a size advantage which no other carrier can match.

AA can try to do the same thing at LAX, but as much as some people want to believe otherwise, LAX is simply not an airport where AA will have free reign on every gate that comes along while no other airline will be able to grow. It just won't happen that way as dawg notes.

and specific to int'l markets, AA's choice is to slug it out at LAX with foreign carriers who have plenty of reason and resources to push back against any foreign carrier while DL and UA have well-developed hubs to Asia from other parts of the west. DL and UA also have well-PROTECTED hubs from other parts of the US to Asia that make geographic sense compared to DFW where AA is doing well but has to carry traffic to Asia significantly out of the way from most of the US. It's a great decent from Asia to Florida but for most of the northern tier, it is way out of the way which adds costs that AA has to compete in those markets that DL and UA do not have with stronger more northern hubs.
And as dawg notes, DL's hubs simply do not have near as many markets that work on a point to point basis as AA's hubs do.

DL isn't going to start CLT to Europe nonstop. but DFW or ORD or LAX do make a lot of sense and could very well happen. the same won't happen for AA or UA from ATL, DTW, or MSP.

 

[jcw]

Yes only DL can grow the other airlines should shut down

 

[commavia]

One Delta was quite large in both LA and NYC before BK. At one point in the 90s Delta has over 200 flights per day from LAX. 

 
Delta was "quite large" at LAX after the Western merger, and remained one of the market's largest carriers through the late 1990s before dropping to fourth place by the early 2000s.  It was only very recently - in the last few years - that Delta has climbed back up.  In NYC, Delta was "quite large" in non-LHR Europe after the Pan Am acquisition, but again a great deal of the growth happened post-bankruptcy.  Even as recently as the mid-2000s, Delta has relatively minimal non-hub domestic flying from LGA (compared to what the EWR hub supported), let alone JFK, and only had a handful of JFK transcons (most timed specifically for Europe connections).
 

third as we see with a market like LAX, CHI, NYC it is a 2-3-4-5-6 hub market (LAX hub for VX, WN, AA, UA, DL for example) that is why those market places are so fragmented and, I know this sounds crazy because AA has 8583038589295787348573894573890579 gates in LAX, can't and wont be controlled by a single airline. 

 
These are each 3, not "4-5-6," hub markets.  Virgin and Southwest don't really "hub" at LAX - both do cater to connections there, but not to the same extent as the three network carriers.  The same is true in NYC, where AA has a massive operation at both JFK (and LGA), but it's not really a "hub" but rather a primarily-O&D-focused operation that happens to cater to a particular segment of specialized connections.

 

[700UW]

Wonder if this will hurt the largest airline from the US to Europe?
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/02/eu-usa-airlines-norwegian-air-idUSL6N0TM4EH20141202

 

[WorldTraveler]

commavia,
As I'm sure you remember, DL-Western was one of several mergers involving the left coast and 3 of those mergers involving AA, DL, and US all resulted in a pulldown of a big part of the north-south flying because of deep discounting and overcapacity.

WN's growth in the west came from the pullback of all of that capacity.

I don't have access to market share data but I'm not sure that DL was significantly larger at LAX then relative to AA or UA than it is now. DL has managed to grow LAX back with a focus on north-south and transcon flying from LAX but a lot of DL's growth from LAX has coincided with UA's pullbacks.

as for NYC, DL has been the largest airline from JFK to continental Europe since the Pan Am acquisition. AA had LHR and Latin America and for years the two seemed to coexist based on their strenghts.

the LGA/DCA slot deal is what propelled DL's growth at LGA which combined with DL's lower costs coming out of BK allowed DL to aggressively compete for much of the NYC market - DL has not changed its Asia presence and S. America is still just GRU. Still, NYC works best as a European hub and has a large domestic market. It is precisely as DL has been able to move market share from B6 at JFK back to LGA in markets that can be served from LGA that DL has succeeded in growing its domestic presence at JFK,.

 

[topDawg]

 
 
Delta was "quite large" at LAX after the Western merger, and remained one of the market's largest carriers through the late 1990s before dropping to fourth place by the early 2000s.  It was only very recently - in the last few years - that Delta has climbed back up.  In NYC, Delta was "quite large" in non-LHR Europe after the Pan Am acquisition, but again a great deal of the growth happened post-bankruptcy.  Even as recently as the mid-2000s, Delta has relatively minimal non-hub domestic flying from LGA (compared to what the EWR hub supported), let alone JFK, and only had a handful of JFK transcons (most timed specifically for Europe connections).
 

 
These are each 3, not "4-5-6," hub markets.  Virgin and Southwest don't really "hub" at LAX - both do cater to connections there, but not to the same extent as the three network carriers.  The same is true in NYC, where AA has a massive operation at both JFK (and LGA), but it's not really a "hub" but rather a primarily-O&D-focused operation that happens to cater to a particular segment of specialized connections.

 

for this case Virgin and WN, mostly WN are counted as hubs. 
 
Sorry, 120ish flights a day, call it a hub, focus city, pink flying things, it doesn't matter. WN is taking a large part of the LAX marketshare. That is my point. Also NYC has 4 hubs, AA, B6, UA and DL. CHI does have only three. 
 
 
and JFK has been a hub for Delta post PA. May not have been as large as it is today but it was a hub. LGA was over 100 flights before the slot swap. 
 
All I am saying is acting like Delta was some back woods regional airline is a joke. In the 1990s Delta was larger to Europe than America but yet to LDV Delta is the regional airline.I call horse crap.   

 

[WorldTraveler]

for this case Virgin and WN, mostly WN are counted as hubs. 
 
Sorry, 120ish flights a day, call it a hub, focus city, pink flying things, it doesn't matter. WN is taking a large part of the LAX marketshare. That is my point. Also NYC has 4 hubs, AA, B6, UA and DL. CHI does have only three. 
 
 
and JFK has been a hub for Delta post PA. May not have been as large as it is today but it was a hub. LGA was over 100 flights before the slot swap. 
 
All I am saying is acting like Delta was some back woods regional airline is a joke. In the 1990s Delta was larger to Europe than American but yet to LDV Delta is the regional airline.I call horse crap.

+895

 

[LDVAviation]

and JFK has been a hub for Delta post PA. May not have been as large as it is today but it was a hub. LGA was over 100 flights before the slot swap. 
 
All I am saying is acting like Delta was some back woods regional airline is a joke. In the 1990s Delta was larger to Europe than America but yet to LDV Delta is the regional airline.I call horse crap.   

 
In the early 90's, American and United were the primary non-stop options between LA and NYC/DC nonstop.  Delta wasn't even in the conversation.  I know because that is when I started flying back and forth from college and an internship in DC.   Delta could only get you to both places via Atlanta.  In part, that's how in LA (and even NYC) Delta got the perception of being a regional airline.
 
Back then, I also came to this conclusion from talking to many college friends and associates.  I went to a college in CT which attracted students from all over the country.  For those from the west coast, United and American were the favored airlines.  For those from the midwest, American and United again were the favored airlines.  For those from Texas, American and Continental (through EWR) were the favored airlines.  For whatever reason, in proportion to those groups, there weren't many students from the southeast at my college.  (Those students might have favored Delta.)
 
That was in the early 90's.  But, even up to the late 90's, one could walk through the ticketing area of LAX T5 and get a sense that most of the Delta passengers had originated in the Southeast.  Back then when I had the chance to take my partner to the airport (AA T4), I would walk through the ticketing lobbies on the south side.  From that, I concluded that there were differences between the various customer groups that were consistent with the observations I had made earlier.  While those differences had diluted over time, vestiges of them persisted in nuanced ways.  (You still cannot fly nonstop LA/DC or LA/Chicago on Delta.)
 
On the subject of LA/DC, there's perhaps a stronger argument to be made for this perception.  That is, there's the possibility that the lack of this route has in effect "regionalized" Delta in the mind of one LA's significant industries, aerospace.  Indeed, it was originally my partner's perception that Delta was a regional airline.  That is based on his experiences working within the So Cal Defense Industry and conversations he's had with his own associates.  For the record, his company has dropped Delta as one of their preferred airlines because American more or less serves the national scope of their operations.  His company, however, does not force travel on American.  Those who opt out, however, often choose United, not Delta.
 
Thus, in addition to what commavia asserted above, there is the perception based on a range of experiences that Delta was and may still be (for certain industries from LA) a regional airline.

 

[WorldTraveler]

thanks for sharing your NE college experiences with us, but it proves little other than that you have no idea what the word "regional" means.

First, even if DL's domestic network was heavily concentrated in the US SE, that still doesn't make DL a "regional" airline. perhaps you have a different use of the world regional but a carrier that as dawg noted flew the Atlantic post deregulation - IIRC before AA did - is not a regional airline. DL served South America before AA. DL crossed the Pacific on a daily basis, again, long before the 90s and again, IIRC, before AA did.

You and other people's views of the NE as the end all and be all of the country is arrogant and limited. as much as I am very proud of what DL has done in the NE - where I personally was involved in DL's efforts to grow at BOS, NYC, and WAS, I am just as proud if not more so of DL's MSP and DTW hubs which make DL the largest carrier in the Midwest and where NW's dual hub strategy provides far more service to far more places than any carrier's single Midwest hub strategy does.

Further, DL served the transcon markets from JFK as part of the Pan Am acquisition - which was on November 1, 1991. again, your definition of "early" has to be questioned but 1991 seems early in the 90s. DL obviously did not have the frequency of service that AA and UA had, but DL was in the market.

and instead of holding onto the past as if it holds some kind of exclusive license, you might do well to look at the current situation where DL has managed to grow larger than BOTH AA and UA in the JFK-LAX AND SFO markets, some of the largest markets in the US.

Considering that DL's push to become a major player in the transcon markets only started less than 15 years ago - and included its failed Song efforts - it is a major accomplishment for DL that both AA and UA have turned to niche transcon strategies while DL remains the only legacy carrier that serves the JFK transcon markets with a full coach strategy. Since UA has managed to become virtually irrelevant in the JFK-LAX market while AA is in the same position on JFK-SFO, you shouldn't hold too tightly to the past as an indication of what will take place in the future.

 

[eolesen]

No, the term regional has been used for decades to describe carriers like Hawaiian, Ozark, and Western, who didn't operate itty bitty propeller airplanes or RJ's, but tended to serve a specific region and little else beyond it.

Even when WA was flying to LGW, and HA was flying into the South Pacific, they were both still seen as a regional airline with an international route or two.

Without a doubt, DL was viewed that way by a fair degree of the traveling public even just prior to the NW merger. Public perception and DOT classifications are very much mutually exclusive.

As for your knowledge of who served which continents when... I think you might be overstating, but will give you a chance to back up the statement.

AA was serving EZE and GIG back in the 1970's, and had pretty extensive operations in post-war Europe into the 1950's, and IIRC, was serving Mexico in the 1940's. They eventually sold off the European operations to Pan Am and discontinued the Brasil and Argentina flying, but that doesn't change the fact that AA was serving those markets before DL set a single tire on those continents.

AA's first service to Japan was in either 1986 or 1987, and they resumed service to LGW in 1981 when BN collapsed.

When was DL's first scheduled service to those continents? Not NW, but DL.

 

[WorldTraveler]

what you saw them as is immaterial.

DL was NEVER considered in a different category by the DOT, DOJ, or CAB from AA or UA since at least WWII.

You might want to check out DL's route maps from the C&S merger and see who was in S. America first.

I'm talking about AA, DL, and UA, not any of their predecessors. Other than AA's former AOA efforts, DL flew the Atlantic and Pacific before AA.

http://www.aa.com.br/i18n/amrcorp/corporateInformation/facts/history.jsp

DL started ATL-PDX-NRT service on April 1, 1987.

you can fill in the start dates for DL's ATL-LGW route as well as AA's DFW-NRT route, the first for each of those carriers to that continent.

only in your mind could DL be considered a regional even if every government agency considered AA, DL, and UA in the same class of airlines and DL served each continent before AA did.

 

[eolesen]

AA started DFW-NRT six weeks after DL. So you have a six week advantage there (and both were presumably awarded in the same route proceeding).

However... AA was operating to SYD and AKL from HNL back in the 1970's. Just in case you're geographically challenged, that's flying across the Pacific.

AA started flying to Mexico on Sept. 8, 1942 from DFW to MTY.

Per DL's Flight Museum website, C&S didn't start flying international until 1946.

Besides, C&S is a predecessor airline, not DL proper.

If you want to include some predecessors and not others, AA's routes into South America likely predate even those of C&S, since their South American system route authorities (going by the CAB airmail route numbers) was originally Panagra, then Braniff, then Eastern, then AA's.

 

[WorldTraveler]

I'll give you SYD - interesting that AA is the only one of the big 3 that isn't in the S. Pacific now.


Please tell me that you know that Mexico is not S. America.

I suppose your argument is valid regarding predecessor airlines since most of DL's mergers have involved int'l carriers that had domestic route systems while AA and US both merged with largely if not entirely domestic airlines and then killed off most of their system.

NW and PA's (asset acquisition) int'l route systems have largely remained intact while the EA and TW route acquisitions for AA do but AA's int'l route system - like US' - was whipped up in the kitchen.