On Monday I posted about Asiana's new shuttle service between San Diego and LAX as of April 1, 2014. Originally I thought this was added as a way to compete with Japan Airlines, which has nonstop 787 service to Asia out of San Diego. However, it appears as if Asiana may just be trying to…
Continue reading: Asiana Adds Chicago O’Hare Shuttle Service
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Wow, my alma mater, my current residence, and my hometown. I guess I need to book an OZ flight to/from ORD, haha. This seems to be intended for Korean travelers going to relatively close by University locations, but it presumably works for anyone on those flights. Interesting, and certainly a nice perk. Hail Purdue!
My guess is this is just so that recently-demoted pilots (on the ICN-SFO route) can be repurposed as shuttle drivers.
OZ was cut off by AA/UA on interline agreements, hence they cannot connect passengers to their destinations anymore. This is the simple reason why they are adding these shuttles (either this or losing passengers).
I'm more interested in the karaoke options on the limo bus and the 42-passenger bus...
Hmm...feeding Asian college students to large Midwest Engineering schools. Purdue, Urbana, Madison you get the idea. It's been noted that at times PVG-DTW on DL is full of college students heading to Michigan(Ann Arbor) or Notre Dame.
Given the shameful ground transportation options in this country, this is a welcome move by Asiana.
Brilliant move targeting Korean students in the mid-west.
Flew Delta DTW->ICN last August and (judging from the # of Michigan hats/shirts/jackets worn on the plane I think there were at least 100 parents who were coming home after dropping off their freshmen children in Ann Arbor.
Need to find a reason to go back to Korea asap. Such a wonderful country.
That's a game changer. I used to study in Urbana-Champaign. If I were still in Urbana-Champaign I'd be much more tempted to fly OZ to minimise the hassle and the wait time, given the long international passport immigration queues in the US at just about every major international US airport, and having to factor the wait time in when booking the shuttle back to UC (after all, who wouldn't prefer a linked reservation?)
Good luck to them. I had experience offering a similar service at Dusseldorf for Ghanaian passengers traveling onward to Amsterdam, Brussels and Hamburg. It was a huge issue every week when people showed up without reservations and we had to scramble around finding larger or additional buses for them. Also, when inbound buses get stuck in traffic or break down you have to treat these as misconnects. Finally, it completely screws up your airport presentation profile to have a huge number of people show up at the same time en masse. A great service no doubt that will draw business, but a nightmare to run logistically!