sorry, but DL's profit in 2013 was indeed an industry high... that is not my opinion....
Delta Air Lines’ $2.7 billion profit for 2013 was not just a record for the company, but also a record for all airlines, according to a key industry publication.
The Atlanta-based carrier’s results announced Tuesday were the highest net profit in airline history, according to Airline Weekly, which confirmed the fact in its financial archives. The publication’s records cover the world’s publicly-traded airlines and other carriers that publish audited financial statements.
According to Airline Weekly, the previous record was German carrier Lufthansa’s 2007 profit of $2.6 billion, or $1.8 billion excluding special items. By either measure, Delta’s annual profit of $2.7 billion excluding special items beat the previous industry record — reinforcing Delta’s recovery since it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection nearly seven years ago.
http://www.ajc.com/news/business/deltas-2013-profit-an-industry-record/ncx8X/
Regarding LAX, again, let's read carefully what I wrote, not what you or others want to think I said.... the tense of verbs matters.
Based on DL's current growth rate at LAX alongside that of other airlines if continued for even one more year, DL would overtake AA and UA in size at LAX based on seats offered.
Obviously, actual results will not be known for close to another year for the schedules that will be flown this summer AND it is not certain that the rate of growth for DL or other airlines will be the same.
The point is that DL is indeed capable of reaching its strategic goals within the constraints DL has. DL made clear that one of its primary goals in 2014 was to
We have heard the "DL can't grow at LAX and SEA because of facility constraints" for months, if not years and yet DL with a smaller facility is indeed within single digits in size of its largest competitors. At SEA, DL has indeed added enough flights to be about 1/3 of the size of AS even though AS has a much larger facility to work with.increase its presence on the west coast. Even though many people want to talk about DL's buildups and pulldowns on the west coast in the past, my contention has long been and DL is validating that its focus for the past 20 years has been on strengthening and growing its presence in key east coast markets. Now, DL is comfortable enough with where it is on the east coast that it can slow its overall growth rate in the east and shift its larger growth focus to the west coast.
Based on what DL has accomplished in NYC and in defending its own hubs from other competitors (DL has the highest percentage of local market share in each of its large hubs compared to AA and UA), DL is very well-positioned for becoming a much more west coast focused airline while still preserving its position in the eastern US.
DL's remaining strategic growth areas are the southwest/south central US where the 717s are clearly being set up to grow in that region including to the west coast and from MIA-Latin America. You can fully expect that as DL succeeds on the west coast (and there will be new int'l flights coming to support/be supported by DL's domestic growth), the focus will shift to the remaining major strategic growth area which is MIA-Latin America.
