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alfa164 wrote:
Exactly. Until the perception of Detroit changes - and it will only change with noticeable improvements, over a period of time - there will be little success in luring travels from other parts of the world to the DTW area.
GSP psgr wrote:I don't know what it says about DTW, but here's a list of airports east of the Mississippi that see DL mainline, but aren't connected to the DTW hub (excl FNT):
ATL (24): Charleston (WV)*, Charlottesville*, Newport News, Roanoke*, Asheville*, Tri-Cities (TN), Fayetteville (NC), Jacksonville (NC), Wilmington (NC), Columbia (SC)*, Augusta (GA), Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Fort Walton Beach, Panama City, Key West, Pensacola, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Gulfport, Mobile, Shreveport, Lafayette, Baton Rouge
MSP(1)-Duluth
*=Were served from DTW back in the NW days.
A lot of these are destinations that NW served via MEM back in the day; but the most northerly ones and CAE, IIRC, had DTW service. Of what's on there, ROA, CHO, CRW, AVL, and CAE would make the most sense. ILM and BTR both seem large enough that they should have some service to the Midwest, but don't; ILM and some of the Florida destinations could make sense on a seasonal basis for beach traffic.
KDTWflyer wrote:I don't buy into DTW being marginalized by DL. I just don't see it happening. I don't have specific and articulable evidence to back this claim up, just an overall feeling. I do think DTW, at least for the leisure market segment consumer, would benefit from having greater competition among airlines. I'd also like to see DL continue to focus its Asian operations out of DTW for the Midwest / East Coast and try to expand further into Europe (this is evidenced already by adding MUC for example) as well as seasonal service to FCO. I'm really curious to see what the pax numbers are for FY2016 and that should be coming out soon. Hopefully it will approach 2005 levels as I recall that was the peak year in overall pax numbers. I am excited to see what the future holds for DTW.
flymco753 wrote:Well that's why G4 would be perfect for this route, JAX is such an eyesore in Detroit's network, same with SRQ which I'm surprised hasn't ended yet. There is not that many major gaps in Detroit though as much as people think, yes we have routes like SMF and SNA where a ton of people go to with no nonstop but the biggest issues are breaking monopolized routes like SAN and PDX.DTW-JAX can easily be a daily M88 but a CR7 is flown to restrict the mount of flow past ATL.
flymco753 wrote:The reason DL doesn't update aircraft or add Southeast routes is to protect ATL service, which is also why you'll never see routes like YYC, YEG, BOI, to protect MSP service, it goes each way. DTW-JAX can easily be a daily M88 but a CR7 is flown to restrict the mount of flow past ATL.
klm617 wrote:Delta doesn't do much to protect its Michigan service from DTW but they protect their inner NY markets pretty well like ITH, BGM, and ELM.flymco753 wrote:The reason DL doesn't update aircraft or add Southeast routes is to protect ATL service, which is also why you'll never see routes like YYC, YEG, BOI, to protect MSP service, it goes each way. DTW-JAX can easily be a daily M88 but a CR7 is flown to restrict the mount of flow past ATL.
And that is the most irritating thing because it dies not do the same here in Detroit as far as protecting routes in and out of Detroit. I can't think of any market out of Detroit that Delta does not protect in the same manner by not having flights to other hubs so that the bulk of the passengers flow over Detroit. For MSP you can add DLH, HNL and RST to that list. even MBS,LAN,AZO,TVC, and FNT have the MSP connection that takes passengers away from DTW the same can not be said for WI and MN markets most are exclusive to MSP.
flymco753 wrote:I know you have some erection towards B6 flying nonstop to MCO but people have to keep telling you it won't happen. If that's what you think is right which I hope not because I know you work for another company, than march up to their headquarters in New York and tell them. As for southwest though, yes I agree that the service has slipped for them, I think whoever is in charge of this area didn't asses that well enough because murder routes like EWR and PHL have flights, DTW could be at least daily. I don't know what to tell you other than that, you might not connect but other people will if it's cheaper, CLT and ATL are calling their names.What I think is strange is DL is cutting capacity to MCO next summer, by quite a bit. Per PDEW, MCO is DTW's 2nd largest market behind NYC (SWF, HPN, EWR, JFK, LGA). In years past NW and DL both could hold at least a few 757's during the summer but it will be 4x 739 2x A320. MSP, a much smaller O&D base to MCO will maintain 3x 757 1x 739. For NK they're up 1 daily to MSP on the 32S and DTW will be the 321S and 32S. DTW will have 3 weekly A321 on F9 and MSP will not have service. MSP will also have SY 1x daily on the 737/8. MCO-DTW is already miserable to travel on if you don't have a confirmed seat, why trim the market? Personally I'd target B6 or WN for daily service, the amount of seats vs the PDEW trends for the last few Summer quarters won't come close. Where do these pax have to go? The amount of connection opportunities aren't great, I won't connect on this route unless it's super urgent.
globalcabotage wrote:Maybe, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened eventually, but the problem is the brand is basically unknown so they would have to spend a long time advertising their flight before it starts. That'll be a long process.AA can't make DFW-PTY work, but CM seems to be fine at ORD and BOS. Maybe they know something AA doesn't know. Maybe they'll give DTW a try, but I think there are several cities ahead of our friends in Michigan.
iFlyDTW wrote:Ok but when you look at YoY comparisons this years seats don't equate nearly to what last years seats were. I travel this market more frequently than you think, and it has gotten to a point where employees who work for the airlines can never get a seat regardless of the time of year. There is instances where I buy my ticket to make sure I get to where I need if it's vacation or an emergency, and even 3-5 months out I've had to pay rediculous amounts of points or miles to get either way.flymco753 wrote:I know you have some erection towards B6 flying nonstop to MCO but people have to keep telling you it won't happen. If that's what you think is right which I hope not because I know you work for another company, than march up to their headquarters in New York and tell them. As for southwest though, yes I agree that the service has slipped for them, I think whoever is in charge of this area didn't asses that well enough because murder routes like EWR and PHL have flights, DTW could be at least daily. I don't know what to tell you other than that, you might not connect but other people will if it's cheaper, CLT and ATL are calling their names.What I think is strange is DL is cutting capacity to MCO next summer, by quite a bit. Per PDEW, MCO is DTW's 2nd largest market behind NYC (SWF, HPN, EWR, JFK, LGA). In years past NW and DL both could hold at least a few 757's during the summer but it will be 4x 739 2x A320. MSP, a much smaller O&D base to MCO will maintain 3x 757 1x 739. For NK they're up 1 daily to MSP on the 32S and DTW will be the 321S and 32S. DTW will have 3 weekly A321 on F9 and MSP will not have service. MSP will also have SY 1x daily on the 737/8. MCO-DTW is already miserable to travel on if you don't have a confirmed seat, why trim the market? Personally I'd target B6 or WN for daily service, the amount of seats vs the PDEW trends for the last few Summer quarters won't come close. Where do these pax have to go? The amount of connection opportunities aren't great, I won't connect on this route unless it's super urgent.
flymco753 wrote:Yeah but this is all based off your beliefs, the people that travel to Disney don't care who they fly unless it's cheap. Airlines keep reducing seats because the yield on this route is so low that adding unnecessary seats will be a money looser. This is also in perfectly good driving distance, if you don't stop you can make it from Detroit to Mickey in 18 hours on maybe 2 tanks of gas? Less than $100 both ways and you bring all the baggage you want. This route won't be the same caliber as EWR, PHL, ATL or ORD ever. You're out of options, nobody else would fly it other than the carriers that already do.iFlyDTW wrote:Ok but when you look at YoY comparisons this years seats don't equate nearly to what last years seats were. I travel this market more frequently than you think, and it has gotten to a point where employees who work for the airlines can never get a seat regardless of the time of year. There is instances where I buy my ticket to make sure I get to where I need if it's vacation or an emergency, and even 3-5 months out I've had to pay rediculous amounts of points or miles to get either way.flymco753 wrote:I know you have some erection towards B6 flying nonstop to MCO but people have to keep telling you it won't happen. If that's what you think is right which I hope not because I know you work for another company, than march up to their headquarters in New York and tell them. As for southwest though, yes I agree that the service has slipped for them, I think whoever is in charge of this area didn't asses that well enough because murder routes like EWR and PHL have flights, DTW could be at least daily. I don't know what to tell you other than that, you might not connect but other people will if it's cheaper, CLT and ATL are calling their names.What I think is strange is DL is cutting capacity to MCO next summer, by quite a bit. Per PDEW, MCO is DTW's 2nd largest market behind NYC (SWF, HPN, EWR, JFK, LGA). In years past NW and DL both could hold at least a few 757's during the summer but it will be 4x 739 2x A320. MSP, a much smaller O&D base to MCO will maintain 3x 757 1x 739. For NK they're up 1 daily to MSP on the 32S and DTW will be the 321S and 32S. DTW will have 3 weekly A321 on F9 and MSP will not have service. MSP will also have SY 1x daily on the 737/8. MCO-DTW is already miserable to travel on if you don't have a confirmed seat, why trim the market? Personally I'd target B6 or WN for daily service, the amount of seats vs the PDEW trends for the last few Summer quarters won't come close. Where do these pax have to go? The amount of connection opportunities aren't great, I won't connect on this route unless it's super urgent.
iFlyDTW wrote:flymco753 wrote:Yeah but this is all based off your beliefs, the people that travel to Disney don't care who they fly unless it's cheap. Airlines keep reducing seats because the yield on this route is so low that adding unnecessary seats will be a money looser. This is also in perfectly good driving distance, if you don't stop you can make it from Detroit to Mickey in 18 hours on maybe 2 tanks of gas? Less than $100 both ways and you bring all the baggage you want. This route won't be the same caliber as EWR, PHL, ATL or ORD ever. You're out of options, nobody else would fly it other than the carriers that already do.iFlyDTW wrote:Ok but when you look at YoY comparisons this years seats don't equate nearly to what last years seats were. I travel this market more frequently than you think, and it has gotten to a point where employees who work for the airlines can never get a seat regardless of the time of year. There is instances where I buy my ticket to make sure I get to where I need if it's vacation or an emergency, and even 3-5 months out I've had to pay rediculous amounts of points or miles to get either way.I know you have some erection towards B6 flying nonstop to MCO but people have to keep telling you it won't happen. If that's what you think is right which I hope not because I know you work for another company, than march up to their headquarters in New York and tell them. As for southwest though, yes I agree that the service has slipped for them, I think whoever is in charge of this area didn't asses that well enough because murder routes like EWR and PHL have flights, DTW could be at least daily. I don't know what to tell you other than that, you might not connect but other people will if it's cheaper, CLT and ATL are calling their names.
klm617 wrote:It's funny because half of the time with baggage combined on NK or F9 round trip is cheaper than taking the family mini van if you plan it out at the right time. Or you can fly to MCO, have your bags sent to the hotel and you have transportation to the resort, the best part is your kids are pre occupied with all the stuff going on the famous words "are we there yet" are used less often.iFlyDTW wrote:flymco753 wrote:Yeah but this is all based off your beliefs, the people that travel to Disney don't care who they fly unless it's cheap. Airlines keep reducing seats because the yield on this route is so low that adding unnecessary seats will be a money looser. This is also in perfectly good driving distance, if you don't stop you can make it from Detroit to Mickey in 18 hours on maybe 2 tanks of gas? Less than $100 both ways and you bring all the baggage you want. This route won't be the same caliber as EWR, PHL, ATL or ORD ever. You're out of options, nobody else would fly it other than the carriers that already do.Ok but when you look at YoY comparisons this years seats don't equate nearly to what last years seats were. I travel this market more frequently than you think, and it has gotten to a point where employees who work for the airlines can never get a seat regardless of the time of year. There is instances where I buy my ticket to make sure I get to where I need if it's vacation or an emergency, and even 3-5 months out I've had to pay rediculous amounts of points or miles to get either way.
Are you kidding me you are advocating driving to Disney just because airlines won't add seats in the DTW-MCO market when the volume of traffic indicates that this market warrants the additional capacity. Another beautiful example of how consolidation in the airline industry has helped the consumer.
kavok wrote:The issue is that DTW-MCO has become one of the few truly competitive and relatively low cost DL flights out of DTW. Yes the demand is there, but as stated the yields are low.
My guess is DL sees the opportunity to charge more for tickets, but expects not as many pax will pay the higher cost. They can still profit more by doing this:
As a simple example from a $$ profit perspective, $200*1000seats/day< $300*800seats/day. Especially when 1000 seats generates $200,000 profit with higher costs vs. 800 seats generating $240,000 profit with lower costs.
iFlyDTW wrote:klm617 wrote:Delta doesn't do much to protect its Michigan service from DTW but they protect their inner NY markets pretty well like ITH, BGM, and ELM.flymco753 wrote:The reason DL doesn't update aircraft or add Southeast routes is to protect ATL service, which is also why you'll never see routes like YYC, YEG, BOI, to protect MSP service, it goes each way. DTW-JAX can easily be a daily M88 but a CR7 is flown to restrict the mount of flow past ATL.
And that is the most irritating thing because it dies not do the same here in Detroit as far as protecting routes in and out of Detroit. I can't think of any market out of Detroit that Delta does not protect in the same manner by not having flights to other hubs so that the bulk of the passengers flow over Detroit. For MSP you can add DLH, HNL and RST to that list. even MBS,LAN,AZO,TVC, and FNT have the MSP connection that takes passengers away from DTW the same can not be said for WI and MN markets most are exclusive to MSP.
GSP psgr wrote:Interesting fact: Delta in Detroit is, by flight numbers at least, only ~90% of what CVG was at it's peak in 2001 (505 daily flights, 174 of which were mainline), and this is after the massive cuts at CVG. I'm not sure what the story is in terms of ASMs, but my guess is that things are at least close-most of the DL Connection flights in 2001 were CRJ-200s.
I'll throw out another interesting idea; with the retirement of the 744s, JFK-TLV is now a 772, which is a smaller aircraft. Do you think DTW-TLV on a 763/764 could work? It's a convenient connection for ORD, LAX, DFW, and IAH, and the big Florida markets, and around 500 air miles less than ATL-TLV.
GSP psgr wrote:Interesting fact: Delta in Detroit is, by flight numbers at least, only ~90% of what CVG was at it's peak in 2001 (505 daily flights, 174 of which were mainline), and this is after the massive cuts at CVG. I'm not sure what the story is in terms of ASMs, but my guess is that things are at least close-most of the DL Connection flights in 2001 were CRJ-200s.
I'll throw out another interesting idea; with the retirement of the 744s, JFK-TLV is now a 772, which is a smaller aircraft. Do you think DTW-TLV on a 763/764 could work? It's a convenient connection for ORD, LAX, DFW, and IAH, and the big Florida markets, and around 500 air miles less than ATL-TLV.
cvgComair wrote:GSP psgr wrote:Interesting fact: Delta in Detroit is, by flight numbers at least, only ~90% of what CVG was at it's peak in 2001 (505 daily flights, 174 of which were mainline), and this is after the massive cuts at CVG. I'm not sure what the story is in terms of ASMs, but my guess is that things are at least close-most of the DL Connection flights in 2001 were CRJ-200s.
I'll throw out another interesting idea; with the retirement of the 744s, JFK-TLV is now a 772, which is a smaller aircraft. Do you think DTW-TLV on a 763/764 could work? It's a convenient connection for ORD, LAX, DFW, and IAH, and the big Florida markets, and around 500 air miles less than ATL-TLV.
CVG's peak was in 2005 when they hit 670 daily flights right before the bankruptcy, but over 450 of those were DL connection flights. Many of the mainline adds were weaker routes that did not last long like CVG-ANC/FCO/SJD/PVR/etc.
klm617 wrote:Are you kidding me you are advocating driving to Disney just because airlines won't add seats in the DTW-MCO market when the volume of traffic indicates that this market warrants the additional capacity. Another beautiful example of how consolidation in the airline industry has helped the consumer.
GSP psgr wrote:Interesting fact: Delta in Detroit is, by flight numbers at least, only ~90% of what CVG was at it's peak in 2001 (505 daily flights, 174 of which were mainline), and this is after the massive cuts at CVG. I'm not sure what the story is in terms of ASMs, but my guess is that things are at least close-most of the DL Connection flights in 2001 were CRJ-200s.
compensateme wrote:I think a certain poster above has a hard time with comprehending this exact reason as to why this markets doesn't need JetBlue. He/she/it feels that because they fly non revenue to get to work in Detroit (which totally gives away who they work for) that they're obligated to a personal nonstop on an airline they don't even work for, and would possibly hurt the airline they work for. The market is fine where it is, there is no reason to grow. All of the excess passengers can use perfectly good ATL or CLT to get there. Maybe SW would be the only last logical option but B6 doesn't ever need to happen.klm617 wrote:Are you kidding me you are advocating driving to Disney just because airlines won't add seats in the DTW-MCO market when the volume of traffic indicates that this market warrants the additional capacity. Another beautiful example of how consolidation in the airline industry has helped the consumer.
I'm bemused by your thinking. There has always been, and always will be, a large faction of the market that prefers to drive. You have to consider the overall cost -- in addition to airfare and baggage fees, there's also local transportation cost and for many, airport parking fees. For most people traveling to Florida, local transportation = rental car and they can be quite costly, especially larger family vehicles. For a family of four already budgeting $3,000 for attraction tickets, lodging, meals, etc. the prospects of driving to and from Orlando for $150 in gas sounds much more appealing than spending another $1,000 on "rock bottom" airfare, baggage, rental car & airport parking. Ultimately, if you plan accordingly and drive straight through, the trip can be made in 17-18 hours -- or less if you have a lead foot (and radar.
compensateme wrote:You have to remember, during DL's bankruptcy it engineered a plan to acquire preowned aircraft (at the time, it was looking at MD-80) and flow most of its traffic via ATL while simultaneously building a hub at JFK -- a plan which it gradually executed. DL sought to divest the crux of its 50-seat fleet and dump its debt obligations at CVG; it was pretty clear it was seeking to significantly downsize CVG and the airport even hired the Boyd Group, which more-or-less told it to prepare for the worst. Ultimately, DL agreed to keep many of its 50-seaters, reached a deal on the debt, didn't acquire the MD-80 and the pull down was more gradual and less dramatic.
I realize the CVG fan boys have long insisted the airport was a victim of the merger, but that's simply not true -- plans to downsize/dehub CVG were made during DL's bankruptcy, but the pull down was gradual. And that's a fact that can't be argued with.
cvgComair wrote:It's completely ignorant to say that the plan was to completely dehhub CVG before the merger, as they put it, they were "right sizing" CVG. The extent of the "right sizing" dramatically changed when DL merged with Northwest adding DTW into the network, the fact that Richard Anderson was the new CEO did not help matters. While no one was going to speculate CVG would rival ATL like some said in the 90's or regian its 670 departures, there is no way DL would cede the entire Midwest if the merger had not happened. ATL is a great hub location, but there are many flows that cannot work without a CVG/DTW/MSP.
If you want to go the origin of the problems, I would call 2000 the "peak" year at CVG, where traffic hit 22.4 million, just under the peak in 2005, but many more flights were on larger aircraft with less frequency (727/737 used extensively). This time was also the peak of profitability for the CVG hub,
cvgComair wrote:compensateme wrote:You have to remember, during DL's bankruptcy it engineered a plan to acquire preowned aircraft (at the time, it was looking at MD-80) and flow most of its traffic via ATL while simultaneously building a hub at JFK -- a plan which it gradually executed. DL sought to divest the crux of its 50-seat fleet and dump its debt obligations at CVG; it was pretty clear it was seeking to significantly downsize CVG and the airport even hired the Boyd Group, which more-or-less told it to prepare for the worst. Ultimately, DL agreed to keep many of its 50-seaters, reached a deal on the debt, didn't acquire the MD-80 and the pull down was more gradual and less dramatic.
I realize the CVG fan boys have long insisted the airport was a victim of the merger, but that's simply not true -- plans to downsize/dehub CVG were made during DL's bankruptcy, but the pull down was gradual. And that's a fact that can't be argued with.
While I agree CVG's future was still in the 200 daily flights range without the merger, the hub was a victim of the merger. Delta's capacity was only reduced by 3% in 2007 compared to 29% in 2006. While it was a big cut in 2006 due to the bankruptcy, most of those changes were aimed at increasing profitability, not a draw-down of the CVG hub. Most of the changes were to smaller destinations served well from ATL, early morning departures, and late-night departures. Once these changes were made, they even added some new destinations in the 2006/early 2007 timeframe. It was not until the merger was announced that DL cut further, and they went down big time, from 2008-2012, DL reduced capacity by 10-20% every year! These cuts removed connecting flows and changed CVG from a continuous hub to the clearly defined banks that we see now. It's completely ignorant to say that the plan was to completely dehhub CVG before the merger, as they put it, they were "right sizing" CVG. The extent of the "right sizing" dramatically changed when DL merged with Northwest adding DTW into the network, the fact that Richard Anderson was the new CEO did not help matters. While no one was going to speculate CVG would rival ATL like some said in the 90's or regian its 670 departures, there is no way DL would cede the entire Midwest if the merger had not happened. ATL is a great hub location, but there are many flows that cannot work without a CVG/DTW/MSP.
Listed here are adds in 2004, these are the same cities DL cut in 2006: http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/0 ... delta.html.
If you want to go the origin of the problems, I would call 2000 the "peak" year at CVG, where traffic hit 22.4 million, just under the peak in 2005, but many more flights were on larger aircraft with less frequency (727/737 used extensively). This time was also the peak of profitability for the CVG hub, but that changed due to the combination of 9/11, the Comair Pilot Strike, and rising fuel prices greatly reduced the profitability of CVG as hub for Delta, the rise in 50-seaters was the way DL tried to keep CVG profitable, but it failed. DL stated in 2003 that none of their hubs except ATL were profitable†, but they needed to keep hubs like CVG/JFK/SLC to maintain operations. PDX/MCO/LAX/BOS/DFW were all dehubbed around this time. CVG was essential for an independent DL network, but DL as an airline was not feasible without the merger with NW.
†“Delta CEO Warns Airlines Have More Hubs Than Needed,” Lucy May, Pittsburgh Business Journal, October 6, 2003.
†http://www.reconnectingamerica.org/assets/Uploads/Missed-Connections-II.pdf
compensateme wrote:With all due respect, why on Earth do you think DL pursued Richard Anderson as CEO? Even before DL & NW filed for bankruptcy, it was widely reported that the two had flirted with a merger. It wasn't until DL successfully fought off US' hostile bid and named Richard Anderson CEO that talks progressed. You're pretty naive if you believe DL pursued NW solely for its MSP hub, then had to choose between DTW & CVG, picking the former due to its nicer facilities and CEO bias. Of course, that narrative ignores the fact that DTW had more than double the local enplanements and revenues that dwarfed CVG. Reality was, CVG was not working for DL and sought to replace it.
compensateme wrote:Peak profitability? There are several former DL network planners on these forums who've said CVG was a money loser most of the mid-1990s, even while most of the rest of the network was profitable; the transition to CRJ was an attempt to turn its fortunes around.
That CVG was a prosperous hub that "printed money" until the move to the CRJ is simply an unsubstantiated a.net myth. Put simply, CVG lacked the local traffic to be a successful, large hub.
cvgComair wrote:Anderson did great things for DL as an airline and DL bought NW so it could continue as a viable airline (with DTW and MSP as hubs). Its pretty clear though that Anderson would not give CVG a chance in the new DL network like MEM got, simply because he was the NW CEO. My biggest problem was Anderson/DL keeping MEM larger than CVG for so long. MEM has a weaker O&D market, really close to ATL, and look at it now! The fact that DL stated they would consider keeping MEM "complementary" to ATL was ridiculous! The comparison of DL's network at CVG and MEM says enough.
Well DL was doing something very, very wrong then. Not sure why they would have invested the money in CVG that they did in the 90's if it was losing money! That's interesting, I am not saying you are wrong, I would love to know more about the profitability of CVG during the 90's. Do you know who/what forums this was discussed? I know Comair was making tons of money at CVG during this time, connecting passengers on small aircraft with high frequencies. They were worth over 2 billion at that time! I have to wonder how DL could not be making money even during that time!
klm617 wrote:I think it would but Delta will never try it because it doesn't want to take passengers away from the JFK flight. Remember when EL AL ran charters from DTW to TLV.
iFlyDTW wrote:The point I'm trying to make is that this route COULD do B6, the seat/PDEW ratio falls short and obviously no other airline is going to add more than what has already been served. WN has shown their Saturday flight success to extend it to April, F9 has shown their success by adding a 2nd daily, I think it'll be 12x weekly next month.compensateme wrote:I think a certain poster above has a hard time with comprehending this exact reason as to why this markets doesn't need JetBlue. He/she/it feels that because they fly non revenue to get to work in Detroit (which totally gives away who they work for) that they're obligated to a personal nonstop on an airline they don't even work for, and would possibly hurt the airline they work for. The market is fine where it is, there is no reason to grow. All of the excess passengers can use perfectly good ATL or CLT to get there. Maybe SW would be the only last logical option but B6 doesn't ever need to happen.klm617 wrote:Are you kidding me you are advocating driving to Disney just because airlines won't add seats in the DTW-MCO market when the volume of traffic indicates that this market warrants the additional capacity. Another beautiful example of how consolidation in the airline industry has helped the consumer.
I'm bemused by your thinking. There has always been, and always will be, a large faction of the market that prefers to drive. You have to consider the overall cost -- in addition to airfare and baggage fees, there's also local transportation cost and for many, airport parking fees. For most people traveling to Florida, local transportation = rental car and they can be quite costly, especially larger family vehicles. For a family of four already budgeting $3,000 for attraction tickets, lodging, meals, etc. the prospects of driving to and from Orlando for $150 in gas sounds much more appealing than spending another $1,000 on "rock bottom" airfare, baggage, rental car & airport parking. Ultimately, if you plan accordingly and drive straight through, the trip can be made in 17-18 hours -- or less if you have a lead foot (and radar.
flymco753 wrote:Right here is where you shot yourself right in the foot, there's no way any carrier would want to enter a market with Delta, Frontier, Southwest and Spirit already in it, all selling tickets for dirt cheap. Did you even count how many weekly flights DTW to MCO will have next month? 83 weekly flights if that's not enough for you than take your complaints to all of these airlines headquarters and tell them to add more flights, because I guarantee you youll get laughed at.iFlyDTW wrote:compensateme wrote:WN has shown their Saturday flight success to extend it to April, F9 has shown their success by adding a 2nd daily, I think it'll be 12x weekly next month.
iFlyDTW wrote:MSP has a smaller market to MCO and they have all of these plus SY.flymco753 wrote:Delta, Frontier, Southwest and Spirit already in itiFlyDTW wrote:
flymco753 wrote:The point I'm trying to make is that this route COULD do B6, the seat/PDEW ratio falls short and obviously no other airline is going to add more than what has already been served. WN has shown their Saturday flight success to extend it to April, F9 has shown their success by adding a 2nd daily, I think it'll be 12x weekly next month.
klm617 wrote:Many people from LAN, AZO, MBS and FNT drive to DTW. There's no reason to have flights.flymco753 wrote:And that is the most irritating thing because it dies not do the same here in Detroit as far as protecting routes in and out of Detroit. I can't think of any market out of Detroit that Delta does not protect in the same manner by not having flights to other hubs so that the bulk of the passengers flow over Detroit. For MSP you can add DLH, HNL and RST to that list. even MBS,LAN,AZO,TVC, and FNT have the MSP connection that takes passengers away from DTW the same can not be said for WI and MN markets most are exclusive to MSP.