I've flew on these Delta pacific flights 4 times so far and I'm a loyal SkyMiles traveler. The frustrating part is that all flights are between LAX and Asia. LAX is a poor location as it is in Southern California causing lots of extra flight time and distance that is avoidable. Seattle, for example, would have been a smarter and more time-efficient hub connecting to Asia. If my final destination is Seattle, Salt Lake City, etc, stopping and connecting from LAX is obviously inefficient and a drain on time and overall experience. In addition, the in-flight attendants often show fatigue and dissatisfaction themselves to the customers on board. Blindly throwing the snack box of cheese pizza at my tray table is NOT okay. This experience has consistently happened to me. I've started avoiding taking Delta flights crossing over the Pacific. Many other airline options are better and smarter on time and distance, and overall services.
Competition is good and customers benefit from more transpacific flights. Keep it up Delta!
I think it’s important to remember that the strategies are different. United wants to offer direct service. Delta’s strategy is more through partners and heavily relies on Korean and China Eastern etc
false.
DL flies more than half of its TPAC network on its own metal including to Japan which is part of the DL-KE joint venture.
There is no joint venture with any Chinese carrier by any US airline.
Repeating the same wrong statements over and over again does not make them right.
It is actually United that is growing to its joint venture partner, NH's, markets while DL is adding service to non-partner countries.
or perhaps you can tell us who DL's joint venture is at MNL and HKG.
Not sure that I'd really call MNL an "addition." DL (and NWA before it) served MNL for decades until the pandemic. I've flown there on DL metal myself. Granted, this is the first time Delta has served it non-stop from the mainland U.S. rather than from Japan or South Korea. MNL was the one intra-Asia market that DL didn't give up when they closed the Narita hub, instead moving the flight over to ICN until it ended during the pandemic. I assume MNL's importance to Delta (and United) has a lot to do with the Fly America Act.
Who could, upon reading the title of this article, have predicted that popcorn would be required? Certainly not me.
The comments sections, and thusly the whole of OMAT, was higher quality when that one guy was on his time out.
Don't you dare deny us this fine entertainment. There's nothing better than watching Walter getting batted around like a ball of yarn by a kittens.
It is stretching it to speak of a 'major outlier' if all all you got is three observations. So 2 are normal, 1 is an outlier? Haven't seen more abstruse statistics abuse in quite some time
I'm surprised nobody is mentioning this, but isn't the point of the LAX expansion to capture credit card revenue? After NYC, LA is the most attractive metro in terms of economic scale that Delta can compete for. As long as Delta isn't losing money on its operations it should tolerate mediocre passenger unit economics and play the long game.
correct. DL said that part of their decision- making on the TPAC expansion is to grow Amex revenue. Amex is the card of the affluent in Asia and Amex wants to continue to grow their share.
DL is NOT losing money on its operations across the Pacific. Cargo and credit card are allocated to markets.
UA, the largest carrier across the Pacific, saw its TPAC profits fall by 3.6 times - or UA earned less than 30% of what it did before the jet fuel price hike while DL's TPAC profits were almost twice as much as UA's in the 2nd quarter.
UA execs expect jet fuel prices to remain elevated well into 2027 while fuel cost guidance for the US airlines that have reported show that DL will have a larger fuel cost advantage in the 4th quarter than it did in the 2nd quarter.
DL's system profits could be as much as 5X what UA reports in the 4th quarter based on their guidance.
AA doesn't make money flying the Pacific and has not for years.
DL has less than half the total debt that AA and UA have - and UA has now reached the same amount of total debt as AA.
UA will take on more debt as large numbers of aircraft deliveries continue for at least another year.
UA's financial position this year so far weakened far more than any other of the big 4 while DL is stronger relative to every other US airline.
DL is playing the long game in rebuilding its TPAC network and the economics will improve even more as the A350-1000s rapidly enter service over the next 2 years.
not directly related to the Pacific, DL is reportedly aggressively shopping for used 787s which are expected to enter service before DL's factory delivered 787-10 order; high fuel costs and the middle east mess are resulting in a number of 787s to be removed from other airline fleets over the next few years. Apparently the economics of refurbishing them and removing the 767 fleet is good enough.
DL always plays the long game which is how they have gone from an insignificant airline in the backwater south to the highest revenue and very likely once again most profitable airline in the world.
DL like every other well-run company moves forward during crises which cause harm to other airlines. This jet fuel cost crisis will be yet another example in DL's 100 plus year history.
As others have mentioned, it’s weird the DL doesn’t offer discounted points opportunities to fly TPAC on their own metal.
Or some enticing upgrade options for paying customers.
When looking at successful US airlines domestically, one can point to hubs and cities serviced, both for flights and credit card spend. When looking at Delta's presence in Asia, ICN doesn't scream quality origination or destination. Although there are several Asian Skyteam airlines, their partnerships with Delta appear weak. Tokyo? No real Asian Skyteam presence. Hong Kong? Same. Singapore? Forget about it. AA has Oneworld partners to go beyond the O/D, just like United with Star Alliance. AA and UA both have partners in Tokyo. Tokyo > Seoul.
DL has the most number of slots at HND to the US; KE is already the largest foreign carrier to Japan and their lead will grow as the OZ merger is finalized very shortly. There is a signfiicant amount of traffic from secondary Japan cities that connects over ICN including to DL flights to the US
The majority of local Tokyo traffic and certainly high value traffic is now to/from HND. It doesn't matter where connecting traffic to the rest of Asia goes but ICN is a very credible alternative to NRT.
ICN is already much larger than NRT and will continue to grow. DL and KE not only have the potential to easily grow their TPAC networks from ICN to the US including to cities that want TPAC service but don't have it but also on DL metal to cities elsewhere in Asia that are part of the JV but which DL does not serve.
Yet.
ICN is and will increasingly be the ATL of E. Asia; a larger hub where DL and KE have a higher share and larger and more efficient operation than the competitive 2 airport setup at Tokyo.
AA doesn't even serve HKG and UA has no partner there.
Let us know how much traffic UA connects beyond SIN on SQ. it doesn't exist in any meaningful amount.
and the A350 is proving that it can carry far more cargo which on top of its larger passenger size more than makes up for the lack of partners.
JonNYC strikes again!
How he gets these scoops is beyond my (or anyone's, for that matter) ever knowing!
Go JonNYC! One can only wonder if he's a C-suite executive at Delta!
There are a couple facts in all this (despite that someone doesn't like the actual facts):
Best hub for TPAC: SFO -- Demand and the relative dominance United enjoys there
Second best hub for TPAC -- SEA - Better than SFO for geography best less demand so relies more on connections. Obviously LAX is a great place for demand but there's no ability to grow the market beyond current gates and the geographical is bad for connections unlike SEA and SFO, to a lesser extent.
Biggest Alliance on the West Coast -- Oneworld -- nearly double the size of Delta. AS alone is also bigger than Delta
Smallest alliance on the West Coast -- SkyTeam -- by FAR
Most long term gates at LAX -- AA metal and OneWorld overall with even more.
Best SoCal presence -- Easily OneWorld followed closely by Star. Delta has the most metal currently at LAX but is still smaller in capacity vs United currently at LAX and much smaller vs United across all Southern California airports.
Any hubris about LAX regarding Delta from a certain someone should also recall that Delta shrunk latin flying from LAX by 30%!!! that's a lot for an airline that is "growing" LAX and the only airline at LAX with two Latin Joint Ventures -- that's how much Delta is struggling at LAX. Shrinking 30% in a region where they alone have two JVs.
If you put aside the usual Delta marketing nonsense & hubris about "being bigger than United on TPAC", Delta's strategy on TPAC looks bleak.
Delta might be bigger in LAX for a year or two but doesn't have the gates to sustain that and AA has already said they'll grow back to be the biggest metal at LAX. You then couple that with the fact that AA and AS may be able to coordinate quite a bit at LAX soon.
Then you look at the planned attempt to add Alaska to the AA/JL Joint Venture and Delta's future looks even bleaker. If you had AA's massive domestic presence tied in to funneling passengers TPAC via SEA, Delta's future in SEA simply looks very very dark at half the size of AS for the long term.
AA passengers really haven't had a great ability to go to Asia on AA metal outside of DFW and a few exceptions like JFK-HND. Obviously, their paying passengers probably really enjoy flying JL from many other AA hubs but the ability to utilize SEA for TPAC would be huge for AA and OneWorld on the West Coast and really solidify a West Coast Presence that OneWorld already dominates domestically with a hub in every major West Coast city.
Somebody is going to whine and scream about actual facts out there. Can Delta pull off a miracle? Of course. They're a good company with smart people but it truly is hard to name a single advantage Delta has. The A35k really isn't an advantage when the 789 can do nearly anything the A35k can and Delta is clearly struggling to fill planes with decent yields, which is about the only advantage an A35K has over the 789, the ability to put more passengers on at a lower cost -- that higher cost per trip vs the 789 is still there for the A35K, it isn't cheaper to operate it just CAN be cheaper if you can fill the plane with good yields
I just really struggle to think of a true advantage Delta has in 2030 on TPAC. They're naturally the weaker carrier on the West Coast vs AS and United, they have fewer gates than AA at LAX and the restrictions on AA/AS codeshares go away in two months.
That's why Delta starts talking about LAX -- it's really all they have and they don't even have a real strategy there besides marketing that they're currently the biggest at one airport in Southern California. There truly is no path forward in SEA and no path in LAX for more gates either since Delta is on a side of the airport without straggler airlines that are in T6 or T5 now.
nobody will whine and scream but I will persistently post actual facts.
Nobody has ever said that SFO is not the best TPAC hub - but the mere fact that DL does have two very valid west coast hubs and has TPAC from 4 more hubs and is the largest TPAC carrier outside of the west coast says there is a huge amount of opportunity for DL that you simply do not want to acknowledge
We all want to speculate how LAX will turn out but the simple fact is that DL is growing from its position as the largest domestic airline there and has the potential to add more TPAC flights than any other airline, in part because the 350 in either form has the range to do things the 787 cannot; and the arguments about the 787 can reach SE Asia from LAX doesn't mean those routes can be profitable -and they very likely cannot at US labor routes with under 240 passengers and virtually no cargo.
you have never been willing to give DL the least bit of credit for anything DL does so we will take your jilted opinion for exactly what it is.
May I remind you that DL was the 6th largest US airline 48 years ago at the time of deregulation and now generates more revenue than any other airline in the world. Anyone including you that underestimates what DL can do, esp. in economic challenges which the global airline industry is in does so at their own peril.
And I can guarantee you that you will be proven wrong.
as to the comment below, Jon's comments are just the same drivel that the UA fan nuts were posting within hours after UA posted their results. They just added the AA results when AA reported yesterday.
none of them ever bothered to mention that US airlines report their PROFIT and revenue to the US DOT by global region on a quarterly basis. There is a lag so the latest DOT data is for the 2nd quarter, but as noted, DL earned twice what UA did on the Pacific in the 2nd quarter while flying half the capacity.
Anyone that isn't capable of realizing the enormous advantage DL has and disadvantage that UA- and even more so AA -has in trying to defend or grow their TPAC position against a much financially stronger competitor is simply not interested in the truth