That didn't last long:

Cathay Pacific to exit Dusseldorf on 17 May 2018. Launched in 2015, currently served 4x weekly with the A350.

As part of more agile mindset, Cathay said before it would take more risk with new destinations & fail early rather than drag out decisions

https://twitter.com/winglets747/status/ ... 4226852864

Poor DUS. What a bad week for them!

From what I gather, travel agents have been informed that the route wil be supended with effect March 25, 2018, not May 17.

Not surprising, especially given the imminent loss of Airberlin for any connecting traffic.

Disappointing news yes. And maybe another step towards an LH group monopoly at DUS.

Sad news. I took this flight and back and Cathay is quite nice.

Yes we knew CX was ending DUS as part of the 3 new routes CX is launching.

CX actually ending 3 routes - DUS, DPS and PEK with last 2 transferring to Dragon.

Was posted in the thread 2 weeks ago
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1372403

The beer was no good??...

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted.
With LH cutting down daily capacity to HKG from FRA by 200 seats in 2018 (going from A380 to A346) this seems like the right time to boost capacity on FRA-HKG by exactly what they are removing from DUS: adding 3-4 A359 per week.

News now confirmed by CX.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/busin ... usseldorf/

I guess too many new Asia-DUS routes got launched in short order, first with ANA to NRT, then CX to HKG, then SQ jumps on with SIN as well. How is SQ doing on the route? I can't imagine it's doing much better than CX on DUS?

planecrazy6762 wrote:

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted.
With LH cutting down daily capacity to HKG from FRA by 200 seats in 2018 (going from A380 to A346) this seems like the right time to boost capacity on FRA-HKG by exactly what they are removing from DUS: adding 3-4 A359 per week.

When I questioned BRU as a new destination when it was easily accessible from both PAR and AMS, I get some angry responses. Nonetheless I predict the route will not last long either.

raylee67 wrote:

How is SQ doing on the route? I can't imagine it's doing much better than CX on DUS?

German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

huaiwei wrote:

planecrazy6762 wrote:

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted.
With LH cutting down daily capacity to HKG from FRA by 200 seats in 2018 (going from A380 to A346) this seems like the right time to boost capacity on FRA-HKG by exactly what they are removing from DUS: adding 3-4 A359 per week.

When I questioned BRU as a new destination when it was easily accessible from both PAR and AMS, I get some angry responses. Nonetheless I predict the route will not last long either.

raylee67 wrote:

How is SQ doing on the route? I can't imagine it's doing much better than CX on DUS?

German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

Because:
- DUS is in the heart of the richest German state: North Rhine-Westphalia (total GDP wise)
- DUS is in the heart of the largest metropolitan area of Germany: Rhine-Ruhr

What a sad announcement for DUS. Losing Orlando and every Caribbean destination, and now Hong Kong.

Orlando and Hong Kong haven't been around for long, and Orlando was introduced this year I think if I'm correct.

Yes we knew CX was ending DUS as part of the 3 new routes CX is launching.

There were talks, but nothing was truly confirm (or, in better word, "make official") until now.

German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

DUS has a lot more business traffic in general compare to BER. Doesn't help that the new BER will probably open in 2046.

Bottom line, though, with AB more or less going into history book sooner or later, it reduced DUS to pretty much O&D, and such traffic can be served via the like of FRA/MUC.

raylee67 wrote:

I guess too many new Asia-DUS routes got launched in short order, first with ANA to NRT, then CX to HKG, then SQ jumps on with SIN as well. How is SQ doing on the route? I can't imagine it's doing much better than CX on DUS?

Don't forget CA's 3x A333 PEK services.

planecrazy6762 wrote:

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted.
With LH cutting down daily capacity to HKG from FRA by 200 seats in 2018 (going from A380 to A346) this seems like the right time to boost capacity on FRA-HKG by exactly what they are removing from DUS: adding 3-4 A359 per week.

For LH it's just moving A388 capacity to MUC and shifting the A346 to FRA. I guess it's just moving the connection capacity, A346 should still be good to serve the O&D between FRA and HKG.

In any case, I agree that there is definitely too much capacity in the market. When they announced BRU I was already thinking that DUS might be gone.

Cheers
Michael

planecrazy6762 wrote:

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted..

Good luck making it to either Fra or Amsterdam by car in two hours on a normal day. The spread is somewhere between two and five hours, and if you have a flight to catch, you better don´t relay on making it in two.
DUS is not the whole catchment area, and just a little to the north of it you´d have a hard time getting to Frankfurt early enough for a noon flight. When i fly to Taiwan for work, i pretty much always go to FRA the evening before and sleep in a Hotel, because getting from where i live, north of Münster, to the 11:20 CI Flight to TPE requires to leave ungodly early. DUS-HKG was a blessing, and got my my, mildly disappointing, first A350 flight. Flying FMO-FRA-TPE usually costs quite a bit more than Train and Hotel in Frankfurt to fly FRA-TPE.
And KLM charges an Arm and a leg for those nonstop flight in any case, their markup sometimes reaches almost 100% compared to the cheapest option.

best regards
Thomas

huaiwei wrote:

planecrazy6762 wrote:

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted.
With LH cutting down daily capacity to HKG from FRA by 200 seats in 2018 (going from A380 to A346) this seems like the right time to boost capacity on FRA-HKG by exactly what they are removing from DUS: adding 3-4 A359 per week.

When I questioned BRU as a new destination when it was easily accessible from both PAR and AMS, I get some angry responses. Nonetheless I predict the route will not last long either.

raylee67 wrote:

How is SQ doing on the route? I can't imagine it's doing much better than CX on DUS?

German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

Beginning to think that Germany-Singapore has too much capacity with the recent SQ decoupling of SIN-MUC-MAN to just SIN-MUC-SIN, launching SIN-DUS-SIN and now LH restarting its MUC-SIN-MUC flights. That brings daily capacity in the market to 2xA380+1x77W to FRA daily (granted one A380 goes on to JFK), 12x weekly on the 77W and A359 to MUC and 3x A359 to DUS. Don't think which carrier flying it makes a difference since SQ and LH have an immunized JV on the routes, but still a lot of capacity!

But the end of CX could actually help SQ and they hopefully will be able to get some additional traffic that has been attracted by CX until now.

As for DUS in general, it is quite a blow - they will most likely loose more than a dozen long-haul destinations with the imminent demise of airberlin and the decision by Cathay.

777klm wrote:

huaiwei wrote:

planecrazy6762 wrote:

Operating from DUS to HKG with both AMS and FRA hubs to be reached in a 2h car ride from DUS and only 1h to take you from DUS downtown to FRA airport in a high speed train seems not very farsighted.
With LH cutting down daily capacity to HKG from FRA by 200 seats in 2018 (going from A380 to A346) this seems like the right time to boost capacity on FRA-HKG by exactly what they are removing from DUS: adding 3-4 A359 per week.

When I questioned BRU as a new destination when it was easily accessible from both PAR and AMS, I get some angry responses. Nonetheless I predict the route will not last long either.

raylee67 wrote:

How is SQ doing on the route? I can't imagine it's doing much better than CX on DUS?

German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

Because:
- DUS is in the heart of the richest German state: North Rhine-Westphalia (total GDP wise)
- DUS is in the heart of the largest metropolitan area of Germany: Rhine-Ruhr

And yet it is being cancelled.

I think we tend to make many assumptions about market sizes based on nothing but population sizes and relative wealth. But for long-haul flights, it does not always matter as much as, say, public awareness and cultural affinity. DUS is simply not in the public consciousness of most people in East Asia, because it is not known as a tourist destination for casual travellers, nor is it seen as the premier destination for business (which clearly goes to FRA). FRA, MUN and BER are all way above DUS in this respect.

zakuivcustom wrote:

Yes we knew CX was ending DUS as part of the 3 new routes CX is launching.

There were talks, but nothing was truly confirm (or, in better word, "make official") until now.

German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

DUS has a lot more business traffic in general compare to BER. Doesn't help that the new BER will probably open in 2046.

Bottom line, though, with AB more or less going into history book sooner or later, it reduced DUS to pretty much O&D, and such traffic can be served via the like of FRA/MUC.

BER has two things going for it as far as East Asian markets are concerned thou:

1. Tourism. BER is simply too famous a city to be entirely ignored for long-haul casual travelers. While FRA has long served as Germany's gateway due to the cold war and all that, it is just a matter of time where tourists would prefer to just go straight to BER, especially considering there is comparatively less tourist interest in FRA (sorry to my friends in FRA) itself and FRA involves backtracking from the eastern part of the world.

2. Gateway to Eastern Europe. As East Asian tourism and air traffic continues to grow, more travelers want to go to more "exotic" destinations, and Eastern Europe fits the bill (probably not that exotic to Europeans, but hey...we are talking about East Asians here! ). Much of Eastern Europe is still poorly linked to East Asia in terms of non-stop flights, and the ME3 + TK has been exploiting this. However, not all of us wants to transit via the ME, or to use any of those airlines. BER fits the bill very well here, both for it being a destination in itself, and for the convenience to either make a transit, or to use high speed rail to Eastern Europe.

I hope that with the airlines scaling back on DUS, that they may reconsider BER in the near future instead. Pity about the airport mess there however!

chiraagnt wrote:

12x weekly on the 77W and A359 to MUC

A small correction, it's 12x weekly 359 since SQ downgauged MUC to A359 earlier in the year.

Michael

Tourism

Berlin does not lack tourists / leisure passengers from overseas. What it lacks is business travel that fills the cabin where money is made (and probably also freight in the belly). You could easily fill planes to longhaul destinations from Berlin, but not with right mix of passengers to make it profitable.

huaiwei wrote:

777klm wrote:

huaiwei wrote:

When I questioned BRU as a new destination when it was easily accessible from both PAR and AMS, I get some angry responses. Nonetheless I predict the route will not last long either.


German-Singapore routes are stronger due to Star, but I am also not sure how SQ can sustain DUS that much when BER could not work.

Because:
- DUS is in the heart of the richest German state: North Rhine-Westphalia (total GDP wise)
- DUS is in the heart of the largest metropolitan area of Germany: Rhine-Ruhr

And yet it is being cancelled.

I think we tend to make many assumptions about market sizes based on nothing but population sizes and relative wealth. But for long-haul flights, it does not always matter as much as, say, public awareness and cultural affinity. DUS is simply not in the public consciousness of most people in East Asia, because it is not known as a tourist destination for casual travellers, nor is it seen as the premier destination for business (which clearly goes to FRA). FRA, MUN and BER are all way above DUS in this respect.

I was referring to the SQ flight. An airport or region not being in the public consciousness is as much an assumption, the relevance of that argument as well. Fact is SQ operates the flight, for whatever reason, but I think its safe to assume they're making money on the route, being it with connections on the SIN end, tourists or business travellers.