DL grows LAX presence with new, expanded service

[WorldTraveler]

After several weeks worth of additions, DL has issued a press release with details of its expansion at LAX this summer.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/delta-expands-los-angeles-180000831.html

The new and expanded Los Angeles service between the following cities (start dates) includes:

New daily service to Nashville and three daily flights to Seattle (April 8)
New intra-West service to two markets: San Jose, Calif. with four daily flights (July 1) and Spokane, Wash. with one daily flight (June 10)
New summer seasonal service to three markets: Boston will operate daily (June 10), Anchorage, Alaska will operate three times weekly Friday-Sunday (June 21) and Bozeman, Mont. will operate Saturday only service (June 22)
New Central America service to San Jose, Costa Rica (July 1)
Expanding current intra-West service with one additional flight to Oakland, Calif., Phoenix and Sacramento, Calif. for a total of five (June 10)
Service to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico will increase frequency from Saturday only to daily (July 1) and one additional Saturday flight will be added to Guadalajara, Mexico (July 6)
Expanding service to New Orleans with one additional flight for a total of three daily (Sept. 4)
Full flat-bed seating in BusinessElite on four of the seven flights to New York-JFK this summer
Upgrading Las Vegas aircraft to six daily mainline flights in June

DL says they are increasing seats by 12% from LAX; they have added more seats from LAX than any other carrier this summer. In contrast, AA's capacity is flat, UA is down about 5%, US and WN are each up about 2%.

 

[737823]

Surprised BOS is seasonal, seems to me if they want to grow LA BOS is a market they should serve year round. As it is the times are far from ideal, redeye only and then a mid morning departure that has limited connectivity to partner flights may have the seats chasing low fare leisure travelers. DL has tried this several times, both with Song 757s and as Delta mainline 757/738 over the years and cut it back in 2008 before Virgin America came to scene.

Josh

 

[WorldTraveler]

It is direct operating cost flying.... BOS transcons are driven by low fare carriers. DL is not going to commit to the market until one of the other network carriers pulls out or the low fare situation changes.

IN the meantime, they can make money during the summer esp. given that the plane would largely sit unused if it weren't flying.

It's not hard to fill a plane to LAX during the summer.

 

[robbedagain]

wt i noticed at the bottom of the paragraph you said that dl capacity for lax is up 12% for the summer US n WN are also up while
AA is flat and UA is down... is that strictly for the summer and isnt that good if its up as well as adding more seats to those cities.. though it does kind of surprise me they would add phx oak and bonzeman mt to lax given that in the phx market alone youve got us n wn doing the battle and wn does the lax oak runs.... in addt to ual i believe i do wonder josh if dl would end up making it yr around btwn lax n bos.... like they had before 9.11

 

[WorldTraveler]

Some of the flight additions are seasonal so the capacity changes are not necessarily the same after the summer. At the same time, DL is adding flights later in the year that are not reflected in those numbers and could add more. DL, as all carriers, could also reduce flights further out.

Montana is a popular destination in the summer and DL is strong there already. The others are key destinations.

Two class RJs do have reasonably decent CASMs so can work well even when competing against low fare carriers... these are largely point to point domestic markets or int'l connections so DL can compete.

The yield for BOS-LAX is about 10%... w/ load factors for the industry even during the summer, the RASM is about 9 cents which is money losing for most carriers.

The transcons have to shake out and Virgin is part of the problem.

 

[737823]

Looks like DL downgauged to 73H from 75X and changed the departure (and arrival) times:

DL 2418 18:10 BOS 21:30 LAX 73H
DL 2417 09:35 LAX 18:00 BOS 73H


Marginally better times as far as I'm concerned, but still not ideal for connections to Asia. Perhaps they re-timed to better facilitate connections to DL 17/16 (SYD)? Interesting that this flight will be operating at the peak time for DL gates in Terminal A, three AS departures (PDX, SAN, SEA), and all the TATL (AMS [2x], CDG, and LHR) will make the SkyClub even busier than usual in the evening hours.

I'll still fly AA to LAX anyway.

Josh

 

[robbedagain]

does DL do the TATL out of LAX on their own metal or is it on their sky team partners? second is the 73h the same as 737-800 and whats the range on that ive noticed that they use the 737 on bwi to slc run daily

 

[700UW]

a 73H in Delta's fleet is a 737-800

Aircraft identified as 73H feature personal Audio Visual on Demand entertainment and USB power at every seat.

 

[robbedagain]

thank you 700 that makes sense there how many pax does the 737-800 hold

 

[700UW]

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Delta_Airlines/Delta_Airlines_Boeing_737-800_A.php

16 in first

18 in economy comfort class

126 in coach

 

[WorldTraveler]

Josh,
seatguru.com is pretty accurate on seat maps and services esp. for the US carriers.

DL’s times on BOS-LAX are now more focused on catering to local higher value traffic instead of the lower yielding traffic that DL would gain with its late night schedule.

DL does have a fair amount of corporate business in New England and BOS and probably believes they have a shot at gaining some of that business with an appropriately timed flight… and yes, it is just one more step in the ongoing battles between AA and DL; BOS-LAX is a far larger market than any of the markets AA will start and thus AA has more to lose to DL in this market than they will gain with one flight in their new markets.

Regarding your question about DL TATL service from LAX on its own metal, no, DL does not fly LAX to Europe on its own metal. For now. I would strongly bet that reworking schedules between DL and VS after the joint venture begins will involve DL operating one of the LAX-LHR flights on its own metal – and it probably will not be on a 210 seat 767-300ER.

Did you know that, even without operating a TATL flight on its own metal, DL carries more international revenue out of LAX than any other US carrier? DL “only” has three int’l longhaul flights from LAX – to NRT, HND, and SYD - but those three flights still carry more int’l revenue than AA and UA carry, and that local revenue count includes what those carriers get in connections via their other hubs.

DL’s NRT flight alone carries more onboard revenue that AA’s NRT and PVG flight COMBINED and almost as much as UA does (who has better TPAC revenue than AA as no surprise) on those same two flights. DL’s revenue on LAX-NRT is comparable to what UA carries on LAX-SYD, which DL also flies. DL’s LAXHND flight carries almost as much revenue as DL carries on LAX-NRT.
NW handed DL an incredibly valuable market in Japan which DL has only grown; it is still a highly valuable market for DL. DL’s international revenue premium in the LAX market is far larger than most people imagine.

Having a leadership position in the key markets from a city translates into far more revenue than do dozens of flights to cities where a carrier obtains far lower revenue.

 

[robbedagain]

WHEN DID dl start doing lax syd service? i always thought it was ual and australian airliners that did those runs

 

[700UW]

DL has been doing it for a while with a 777.

July of 2009.

 

[robbedagain]

thanks does ua still use a 47 and i think its qantas that does that run with a 47 or 777? thanks for the info

 

[metopower]

Qantas uses A 380's and 747's. they are retiring the 747's as fast as they can but have no replacement because of 787's problems