Atlanta Airport - Airline Service & Routes Updates Thread (Dallas: authority, best)

[testa50]

Nice addition!

Retaliation to Delta for building up so much on the West Coast (SFO services from LAX and SEA) has to play a role too. People have talked about an AA LAX-ATL route being a possibility for the same reason.

[Fastphilly]

Originally Posted by Atlwarrior

United adds SFO-ATL again starting April 2014


SFO - ATL - SFO on UA is resuming effective April 1st 2014 eastbound and April 2nd 2014 westbound. Flights are now loaded and bookable on united.com.
SFO - ATL - SFO flights will use 737-800 aircraft.

I figured this would make a comeback sooner or later. Atlanta was the largest domestic market without nonstop UA service to SFO. That unfortunate distinction now goes to Detroit, and as such I wouldn't be surprised to see UA break the DL monopoly by adding SFO-DTW sometime soon. In fact, the Detroit metropolitan area is almost twice as populous as the Tampa Bay Area, now the second largest domestic market unserved from UA's burgeoning Pacific hub at SFO. In addition to DTW and TPA, I wouldn't be surprised if UA is considering a resumption of BDL, or new flights to BNA, CLT, CMH, or OMA (UAX/CR7) from SFO.

Anyhow, back on the subject of UA's SFO-ATL. I think there may be a few competitive factors to consider as well:

1) O&D travelers may forget/not know to check southwest.com, and once the FL flights are gone, UA will be that only other/non-DL option on those popular travel sites...

2) Devolving DL/KE relationship reducing SkyTeam attractiveness/options for Atlanta-Asia traffic, UA can capitalize on this issue...

3) Preempt VX addition of SFO-ATL. One can logically assume that Atlanta (and Houston) is on that carrier's shortlist for future expansion...

Your second point does make good sense. From Atlanta to any Asian city that's not Tokyo or Seoul a connection must be made in those two Asian cities. If you fly United to SFO, the choice of direct flights to many Asian cities out of SFO is abundant. Either way, you will need to connect once (except Tokyo and Seoul). It's a good move for United.

Still, not to have a non-stop flight from SFO-ATL unitl now is mind boggling. Surely the two markets are big enough to sustain competetion from two carriers on the route.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by Fastphilly

Your second point does make good sense. From Atlanta to any Asian city that's not Tokyo or Seoul a connection must be made in those two Asian cities. If you fly United to SFO, the choice of direct flights to many Asian cities out of SFO is abundant. Either way, you will need to connect once (except Tokyo and Seoul). It's a good move for United.

Still, not to have a non-stop flight from SFO-ATL unitl now is mind boggling. Surely the two markets are big enough to sustain competetion from two carriers on the route.

Southwest/Airtran also flies it, which is a significant detractor to a legacy airline entering the market.

[Atlwarrior]

Although Atlanta still have a huge passenger advantages, O'hare actually beats Atlanta in total air traffic for a couple of months this past summer. However Atlanta does operates more mainline larger aircraft versus O'hare smaller RJ's flights. Furthermore, I guess we can also thank Southwest for its Air Tran Atlanta flight reductions.


FAA aircraft movement stats for both July and August, 2013 indicate that ORD did indeed surpass ATL:
July, 2013
ATL = 80755
ORD = 81186

August, 2013
ATL = 80362
ORD = 80884

Source - https://aspm.faa.gov/opsnet/sys/Default.asp

ATL will, in all likelihood, retain the highest total movements for CY 2013.

With regard to total passenger numbers, ATL retains a wide lead over ORD. However, YTD (through August, 2013)

[testa50]

Meh, aircraft movements don't mean much to me. O'Hare can have it. Delta is getting the 717 soon with the explicit goal of phasing out regional jets, which will depress aircraft movements. But overall it's an expansionary strategy, and one which will benefit passengers with more consistent mainline service to more cities. Look for ATL to become an even more efficient operation this winter with Delta's 717s and 737-900ERs coming online.

Delta has flagged Latin America as its big growth market for 2014, and with these new deliveries it should have the aircraft for some expansions. So far they have announced 2x daily Sao Paulo and Guatemala City, and new service to Kingston. Others I'd like to see are Santiago DR, Medellin, Guayaquil, La Paz, Port of Spain, and Tobago.

Hopefully we get another flag carrier in 2014. Either a gulf carrier or COPA.

[Atlwarrior]

Originally Posted by testa50

Meh, aircraft movements don't mean much to me. O'Hare can have it. Delta is getting the 717 soon with the explicit goal of phasing out regional jets, which will depress aircraft movements. But overall it's an expansionary strategy, and one which will benefit passengers with more consistent mainline service to more cities. Look for ATL to become an even more efficient operation this winter with Delta's 717s and 737-900ERs coming online.

Delta has flagged Latin America as its big growth market for 2014, and with these new deliveries it should have the aircraft for some expansions. So far they have announced 2x daily Sao Paulo and Guatemala City, and new service to Kingston. Others I'd like to see are Santiago DR, Medellin, Guayaquil, La Paz, Port of Spain, and Tobago.

Hopefully we get another flag carrier in 2014. Either a gulf carrier or COPA.

I see your point, also Delta seems to be the leader in the airline industry, therefore I guess American and United will follow Delta lead in upguaging from small regional jets. I'm excited about any new Latin American Destination that Atlanta will hopefully pick up in 2014.

[Atlwarrior]

Nice recent video.


A Tour of Atlanta International Airport, Concourses A, B, C, D, E, and F (2013) - YouTube

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Fastphilly

Your second point does make good sense. From Atlanta to any Asian city that's not Tokyo or Seoul a connection must be made in those two Asian cities. If you fly United to SFO, the choice of direct flights to many Asian cities out of SFO is abundant. Either way, you will need to connect once (except Tokyo and Seoul). It's a good move for United.

Still, not to have a non-stop flight from SFO-ATL unitl now is mind boggling. Surely the two markets are big enough to sustain competetion from two carriers on the route.

Sorry for being late to the game...

I think you missed the point... UA is adding the service.
It already exists on multiple other airlines.

Atlanta was dominated by Delta and Airtran so long, we detracted competition from other carriers. Most other carriers offered great service to their hubs + a few of the largest cities.

With airtran being dismantled, I fully expect to see other nationwide carriers slowly open up flight options to non-hubs from Atlanta.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by testa50

Singapore isn't happening. Sorry. Just too far for any aircraft to serve reasonably, and not a big market for us.

A recent fact has come to my attention and I wanted to offer an update...

I still don't believe we will have direct flights based on availability of 1-stop competition and the sheer length of the flight, but Singapore is one of the top 5 countries Georgia exports goods too.

Rather impressive for what is essentially a small city-state. We also have some economic similarities making this happen. I think they were a 3rd largest country we exported to last year. This is also why we maintain cargo flights to Singapore.

Ultimately, direct flights will probably only happen if Delta starts code-share agreements with an airline based in Singapore, which is unlikely given the various airline alliance affiliations.

I know I have had to fly out there twice in the last 2 years.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

A recent fact has come to my attention and I wanted to offer an update...

I still don't believe we will have direct flights based on availability of 1-stop competition and the sheer length of the flight, but Singapore is one of the top 5 countries Georgia exports goods too.

Rather impressive for what is essentially a small city-state. We also have some economic similarities making this happen. I think they were a 3rd largest country we exported to last year. This is also why we maintain cargo flights to Singapore.

Ultimately, direct flights will probably only happen if Delta starts code-share agreements with an airline based in Singapore, which is unlikely given the various airline alliance affiliations.

I know I have had to fly out there twice in the last 2 years.

It's good that we have strong ties with Singapore, but the distance issue makes it a non-starter. It would be the longest commercial flight ever, by a margin of several hundred miles.

Our best hope for a new flight to Asia remains Shanghai. Either on Delta or, potentially, China Eastern. Atlanta actually has pretty good geography for layovers between China and South America, which is a market that is essentially impossible to serve nonstop. Our only legitimate North American competition would be DFW, ORD, and Toronto, and, out of those, Atlanta has South and Central America covered the best. Right now the preferred routing is via Europe, but European airlines can't serve Caribbean destinations and smaller cities nearly as well as Atlanta can.

I'd prefer to see China Eastern in here, just to add some flavor. They are ordering a ton of new widebodies capable of making the trek.

Happily, we're still getting weekly 7x 777 service and 3x A380 service on Korean, and it's still scheduled to be daily A380 + 3x 777 in the future as far as I know.