Delta sending some jets to Hong Kong for service

[FWAAA]

How does it help do that?

The U.S. DOT (not China) determines which US carriers get the slots allocated to the U.S.

I agree with you - China has nothing to do with whether Delta ever gets authority to fly to China. Only need to butter up the DOT decision-makers for that.

Alice used the term "landing slots," however, not "route authority" or "frequencies," the two things awarded by the DOT. So was Alice using language inartfully or are there actual landing slot issues at PVG or PEK?

My guess is that Alice was using the term "landing slots" to refer to the right to fly to China, not in the "slot restricted sense."

CO, AA, NW and UA don't seem to have experienced any difficulty getting appropriate landing slots at any of the China airports to which they fly. With so very few total frequencies between China and the USA, landing slots shouldn't be an issue (compared to NRT or LHR or JFK, where appropriately-timed slots are very crucial and sometimes impossible to obtain).

 

[phasersonstun2]

It's all about getting landing slots in China.

The contract was terminated early because Delta did not allow US to buy them.

What, you say?

Yes. ACE is a 5% holder of LCC stock, and DAL did not do what they were supposed to do, so ACE is punishing them.

 

[eolesen]

I'm not sure what "meeting DL's cost expectations" means, unless ACE had a clause which allowed rates to be increased two years into the contract (which sort of defeats the purpose of a five year deal, but I'm not a lawyer...).

<_< ---Now, aa has done heavy "C" checks on Air Canada's 767's. At the same time ACE was doing the same for Delta! Go figure!!!---- Is there something here we don't understand?--- 😉

My guess after talking with someone at AC is that ACE underestimated their ability to handle DL along with their other workload, and was looking for a way out. While the supposition about ACE punishing DL sounds feasible, I think it was simply a matter of cutting their losses - AC having to send aircraft to AA actually cost more than ACE was receiving in revenue from DL.

 

[DalMD88]

The contract was terminated early because Delta did not allow US to buy them.

What, you say?

Yes. ACE is a 5% holder of LCC stock, and DAL did not do what they were supposed to do, so ACE is punishing them.

I don't think the US deal had anything to do with the contract. That contract was in trouble before the US deal ever became public. ACE was having a hard time doing it for the cost it was bid at. Same thing happened at Avborne with the MD88. Dl wasn't very happy with ACE either. They were to be the sole 767/757 HMV lines but were backing up so aircraft had to be sent to Timco.