Didnt DL fly their seasonally over the last few years?

I know a smaller Italian airline flew 330s to JFK nonstop a few years ago.

It's a short train ride from Rome. Even adding in the Fiumicino-Termini leg, it's not that bad of a commute, as the frequencies of departures are great. There's not a lot of incentive for a US airline to add it.

Meridiana flew Palermo and Napoli to JFK seasonally for many years but just stopped. DL never flew it IIRC but did fly to Pisa at one point.

Traffic to Italy other than MXP is fairly low-yielding. I could see FZ starting DXB, but they would obviously see if CTA, which starts in June is successful. I think QR would now rather route pax through MXP with the IG partnership. From the US this route would probably be from NYC, and only DL does these type of summer seasonal routes, UA only has ATH and VCE in southern Europe. DL has been very successful on summer seasonals AGP and NCE but as others mentioned PSA didn't work even when it was downgraded from 763 to 757's. With added capacity on JFK-FCO, DL up to an A330, AA now a 772, and DY in the market, I don't see this happening. If anything, when IG gets more A330's and 787's it wouldn't surprise me if they did the seasonal JFK-NAP/PMO routes again.

SCQ83 wrote:

Naples (NAP) has grown an astonishing +46,1% in Q1 this year. It must be one of the fastest growing airports in the world.

http://www.assaeroporti.com/statistiche/

Naples has been growing very fast in the last few years notably due to Ryanair:

2013: 5,444,422 passengers (−6.2%)
2014: 5,960,035 passengers (+9.5%)
2015: 6,163,188 passengers (+3.4%)
2016: 6,775,988 passengers (+9.9%)
2017: 8,577,507 passengers (+26,6%)

At this pace, 2018 could double the numbers of 2013 (!).

Interestingly Meridiana has stopped flying from NAP to the US. With Southern Italy gaining global traction (i.e. Naples is the gateway to Capri, Costa Amalfitana or Pompeii), how long will it take to an US3 or ME3 to fly there at least seasonally? For instance AA to PHL or DL to JFK.

Wonder what is at play here. I really like Italy and was based in MXP for a while. Have travelled the country extensively. Napoli is not one of my favorite spots... But Amalfi and Pompei are great for a visit.

arcticcruiser wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

Naples (NAP) has grown an astonishing +46,1% in Q1 this year. It must be one of the fastest growing airports in the world.

http://www.assaeroporti.com/statistiche/

Naples has been growing very fast in the last few years notably due to Ryanair:

2013: 5,444,422 passengers (−6.2%)
2014: 5,960,035 passengers (+9.5%)
2015: 6,163,188 passengers (+3.4%)
2016: 6,775,988 passengers (+9.9%)
2017: 8,577,507 passengers (+26,6%)

At this pace, 2018 could double the numbers of 2013 (!).

Interestingly Meridiana has stopped flying from NAP to the US. With Southern Italy gaining global traction (i.e. Naples is the gateway to Capri, Costa Amalfitana or Pompeii), how long will it take to an US3 or ME3 to fly there at least seasonally? For instance AA to PHL or DL to JFK.

Wonder what is at play here. I really like Italy and was based in MXP for a while. Have travelled the country extensively. Napoli is not one of my favorite spots... But Amalfi and Pompei are great for a visit.

In terms of traffic growth, then Ryanair scaled up ops significantly in November after starting at NAP earlier in 2017.

jfklganyc wrote:

Didnt DL fly their seasonally over the last few years?

IIRC, Delta had a multi-year run JFK-Pisa. First on a 767 (I am certain of that), then as a 757.

ScrantonUSC wrote:

It's a short train ride from Rome.

Thanks for that. I hadn't recognized there were some train journeys under an hour.

Naples is very leisure based and also sees a lot of cruises. I know TUI will have a ship operating out of there for Summer 2019. I don't see it being an attractive destination for an US3 but I'm surprised Qatar doesn't operate there.

Naples itself is more of a means to get to other places in the area - Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, Pompeii etc... I suppose its possible for a seasonal flight, I think that the nature of travel to southern Italy in general is very leisure and low yield oriented. As someone mentioned, the trains are quite good. If traveling with a group, it’s also fairly cost effective to hire a private van and driver to access places without good train access.

For context, we just flew JFK-FCO on AZ in J for just over 3000 USD RT, and our parents flew BOS-FCO for about the same. Y was going for 6-700 and Y+ was going for about 1100. Granted, we were slightly ahead of peak season (first week of May).

I had considered Naples for the Amalfi and Pompeii but ultimately decided on Ibiza. I did not like the hotel options for Amalfi, as old hotels are not my thing, and there wasn't much inventory. Naples itself looked great, its the home of pizza so how could one go wrong there, and Pompeii is on my list. I will eventually visit, just not this summer.

I think it is one of the airport benefiting from European tourists now avoiding Africa and some Mid-east former tourist hot-spots.

Seems like a perfect candidate for a Qatar A320 route.

ScrantonUSC wrote:

It's a short train ride from Rome. Even adding in the Fiumicino-Termini leg, it's not that bad of a commute, as the frequencies of departures are great. There's not a lot of incentive for a US airline to add it.

NAP is infinitely more convenient and saves a ton of time compared to Rome. Yes there are frequent trains but by the time you factor in luggage, travel from airport to the train station, then again another mode of transport depending on your destination...much, much easier to fly to NAP. There are reasonably priced car services too. I think we paid 220 euros roundtrip from NAP to Praiano (gorgeous btw, one of our favorite places ever). Would skip Rome and so that every time we go to Amalfi.

asuflyer wrote:

Traffic to Italy other than MXP is fairly low-yielding. I could see FZ starting DXB, but they would obviously see if CTA, which starts in June is successful. I think QR would now rather route pax through MXP with the IG partnership. From the US this route would probably be from NYC, and only DL does these type of summer seasonal routes, UA only has ATH and VCE in southern Europe. DL has been very successful on summer seasonals AGP and NCE but as others mentioned PSA didn't work even when it was downgraded from 763 to 757's. With added capacity on JFK-FCO, DL up to an A330, AA now a 772, and DY in the market, I don't see this happening. If anything, when IG gets more A330's and 787's it wouldn't surprise me if they did the seasonal JFK-NAP/PMO routes again.

I don’t know what is Southern Europe for you but UA flies to MAD n if I am not wrong to BCN

Naples has really turned around recently....the city has been very smart cleaning itself up, gearing towards the tourists (even a lot of Northern Italians like the Milanese are coming down), the cruise ships, opera season, Amalfi, Pompeii, as well as the big US bases nearby. Compared to Rome and Palermo, it's much more tourist friendly, though I find Palermo is figuring it out and coming around very quickly. Firenze and Roma are just so overwhelmingly touristy, and the locals are always cranky. As one older Napolitano told me "we have been a port city for eons, and we welcome tourists and foreigners visiting our city unlike other Italians." (don't flame me, he said it LOL.) It's become my favorite city in Italy, and I go every year when in the country for work. I've been known to escape Tuscany and head south on the train to Napoli for the weekend just to eat and get away from the stuffy Toscani The trains (especially the Frecciarossa high speed) and the Centrale station are state of the art, run on time, and super clean. The city itself is very walkable for tourists, all clearly labeled and laid out, and there are numerous great hotels and Airbnb's all over. The food is some of the best in Italy, the people the most friendly, and the lifestyle superb. And you can get away from the tourists and hang with the locals in neighborhoods like Vomero and Chiaia. But I agree with some of the other posters....it's really a non-issue to fly into Roma, hop on the da Vinci train to Termini, transfer to a high speed and you're in Napoli in no time. I'm doing exactly that in mid-June, flying from Seattle and ending up in Napoli the next day.

outside of peak summer season, it seems unlikely to support daily service. Would love to see service from JFK in summer time though. There surely is a lot of leisure demand to go to Amalfi coast and Naples area.

AA suggesting Naples (& Palermo) although not being among their destintions.

https://youtu.be/rcrYk78Lirw

Echoing others here: Naples has a tremendous amount to offer and the new mayor has done a good job in improving touristic facilities, overall cleanliness and things. It's a wonderful city in so many ways, but North American and Northern European tourists tend to spend a few hours at most en route elsewhere (Amalfi, Positano, Capri...). Regarding longhaul, I don't see much of a case for it, especially as it is very leisure-oriented and is well-served via all European hubs (FCO, ZRH, MUC, FRA, AMS, etc...). Also, the competition between Trenitalia and Italo make it less logical for folks within Italy even to fly. That said, NAP has a nice renovated terminal and is much easier than several other regional Italian aeroports. BLQ, for all its benefits, is hopelessly outdated and cramped; PMO is in a time warp; TRN and TRS are also a bit of a mess - only CTA is up to snuff among second tier destinations.
I always wondered about the seasonal Meridiana services between NAP/PMO and JFK - I imagine very VFR and cruise ship packages, but only a guess. I wonder if someone like WOW would consider that with connections thru KEF?

MIflyer12 wrote:

ScrantonUSC wrote:

It's a short train ride from Rome.

Thanks for that. I hadn't recognized there were some train journeys under an hour.

The Frecciarossa trains are High speed, connecting. Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples, I have used it many times. Book via the Italian site for cheaper rates!. I would imagine one needs to get the express train from FCO to Rome's main station and change there.

If you're going to Amalfi, skip Naples and stay on the train to Salerno. You're so much closer to Amalfi (even if you're going all the way to Positano - the view is killer!). From the Salerno train station it's 200 meters to the ferry and then 8 Euros to Amalfi.

We took the train from FCO down to Sorrento (via Naples) in March and while it's not a super difficult transfer it is long and inconvenient. Leonardo Express from FCO to Termini, Termini to Naples, then either taking the ferry or the rickety, slow as molasses train down to Sorrento. It makes for a long day especially after coming off a TATL flight.

If Italy and USA gives EK 5th freedom NAP-JFK/EWR, DXB-NAP-NYC would be an interesting route.

Kadish wrote:

asuflyer wrote:

Traffic to Italy other than MXP is fairly low-yielding. I could see FZ starting DXB, but they would obviously see if CTA, which starts in June is successful. I think QR would now rather route pax through MXP with the IG partnership. From the US this route would probably be from NYC, and only DL does these type of summer seasonal routes, UA only has ATH and VCE in southern Europe. DL has been very successful on summer seasonals AGP and NCE but as others mentioned PSA didn't work even when it was downgraded from 763 to 757's. With added capacity on JFK-FCO, DL up to an A330, AA now a 772, and DY in the market, I don't see this happening. If anything, when IG gets more A330's and 787's it wouldn't surprise me if they did the seasonal JFK-NAP/PMO routes again.

I don’t know what is Southern Europe for you but UA flies to MAD n if I am not wrong to BCN

I was reffering to summer seasonal destinations in Southern Europe from NYC. For UA They are ATH, VCE, and OPO which just started this year. MAD and BCN are completely different markets that can sustain year-round service from EWR. FCO and LIS have matured from summer seasonal and are now year-round. Markets like AGP/VCE/ATH/PMO/NAP/NCE have low demand outside summer months, little business demand and have no chances at going year-round on UA or DL.

Could the US3 / ME3 fly to Naples? I'm glad to know that Naples is booming, so the US3 / ME3 could fly there if they want to. That is, until Campi Flegrei or Vesuvius start doing some booming of their own. Both volcanoes are overdue to do just that!

Naples has really turned around. Used to be dump which I think still hurts it in the USA.

For those who love Amalfi there is a little town called Agerola overlooking it. You can stay up there for a tenth of the cost and walk down the hill. 45 minutes down and 1.5 hours up. Fantastic views.

I fly in to NAP quite frequently to see family. Coming from SE Asia I often use TK. However, it would be great if ME3 also flew in there. It amazes me how NAP has developed over the last few decades.

asuflyer wrote:

I was reffering to summer seasonal destinations in Southern Europe from NYC. For UA They are ATH, VCE, and OPO which just started this year. MAD and BCN are completely different markets that can sustain year-round service from EWR. FCO and LIS have matured from summer seasonal and are now year-round. Markets like AGP/VCE/ATH/PMO/NAP/NCE have low demand outside summer months, little business demand and have no chances at going year-round on UA or DL.

What’s up with the calling all of these places Southern Europe - no European would call these Southern Europe... the only place where one truly refers to North or South is Italy.

First of all Spain/Portugal are Iberian peninsula, NCE is Western Europe, VCE is too and if you dare tell someone from VCE they are anything South you’ll literally be smacked...

Besides that NCE had year round service to JFK for years and has healthy business demand and doesn’t quite fit in the list. ATH has daily service to EWR with EK running outside summer months. Just because some of these places are near to the sea doesn’t make them all leisure or summer only destinations.

runway23 wrote:

asuflyer wrote:

I was reffering to summer seasonal destinations in Southern Europe from NYC. For UA They are ATH, VCE, and OPO which just started this year. MAD and BCN are completely different markets that can sustain year-round service from EWR. FCO and LIS have matured from summer seasonal and are now year-round. Markets like AGP/VCE/ATH/PMO/NAP/NCE have low demand outside summer months, little business demand and have no chances at going year-round on UA or DL.

What’s up with the calling all of these places Southern Europe - no European would call these Southern Europe... the only place where one truly refers to North or South is Italy.

First of all Spain/Portugal are Iberian peninsula, NCE is Western Europe, VCE is too and if you dare tell someone from VCE they are anything South you’ll literally be smacked...

Besides that NCE had year round service to JFK for years and has healthy business demand and doesn’t quite fit in the list. ATH has daily service to EWR with EK running outside summer months. Just because some of these places are near to the sea doesn’t make them all leisure or summer only destinations.

Many Europeans refer to those places as southern Europe, all of Italy included. Many Europeans even refer to places in Europe as up there and down there. I come from the south and I don't think anyone minds really. I think most Venetians would be more offended if you called them Italians rather than southerners.

admanager wrote:

If you're going to Amalfi, skip Naples and stay on the train to Salerno. You're so much closer to Amalfi (even if you're going all the way to Positano - the view is killer!). From the Salerno train station it's 200 meters to the ferry and then 8 Euros to Amalfi.

Indeed! I was waiting for someone to mention sweet, lovely little Salerno...!
Salerno is SO MUCH EASIER for the Amalfi coast than Naples, and it's very nice and quaint...a sort of mini-Naples, but much cleaner
You can take the Frecciarossa high speed trains from Rome (or from up north for that matter), and those trains are amazing. Then from Salerno (well worth a visit btw, and super cheap!) you take the boat up the coast....it's BEAUTIFUL!!

Hi all,
i'm from Naples confirm the growth, confirm the Qatar ( inglobed Meridiana in to Air Italy) to stop the always full JFK ; they offer feeder MXp hub, very strange strategy, sure they are interested to connect UAE to Europe then USA, not interested in local traffic.
The airport today is most confortable in italy, very near to the city center, to the port to isle and to the motroway to Pompey and Costa Sorrento\Amalfi.

JFK - PSA worked pretty good for me in the past years.
I did fly twice that route, back in 2013 if I'm not wrong. Anyway, it was on the 757. Was also pretty comfy. Plane was always almost full.
It was super nice for us living in central Italy. Driving to FCO can be a nightmare, using the train is a possibility but you have to commute to go to the terminal, if your plane takes off very early in the morning you have to book a night in Rome, surely not a cheap night.
Same story in MXP.

Ryanair is, as stated, the main driver of this growth. It went from zero to quite a lot quite quickly. In May 2018, it has 101,000 seats there across 28 routes, meaning it is now the #2 airline in Naples by capacity with an 18% share of seats. easyJet is #1 with 28% and Alitalia #3 with 10%.

oldannyboy wrote:

admanager wrote:

If you're going to Amalfi, skip Naples and stay on the train to Salerno. You're so much closer to Amalfi (even if you're going all the way to Positano - the view is killer!). From the Salerno train station it's 200 meters to the ferry and then 8 Euros to Amalfi.

Indeed! I was waiting for someone to mention sweet, lovely little Salerno...!
Salerno is SO MUCH EASIER for the Amalfi coast than Naples, and it's very nice and quaint...a sort of mini-Naples, but much cleaner
You can take the Frecciarossa high speed trains from Rome (or from up north for that matter), and those trains are amazing. Then from Salerno (well worth a visit btw, and super cheap!) you take the boat up the coast....it's BEAUTIFUL!!

Agreed - Salerno is much cleaner than Naples, has easier access to the Amalfi Coast and the Frecciarossa trains are very good.

Traffic for Q2 was as follows:
April: +25.8%
May: +12.3%
June: +7.5%

YTD: 4,475,396 +24.7%

So growth is still very strong, but is slowing to more normal levels. The OP said double 2013. It's looking more like NAP will instead flirt with 10 million pax...which is still impressive!

SCQ83 wrote:

So Naples has got its first US3 route. Will ME3 follow suit? QR or EK?

Great call btw. I reread our posts from a few months ago and it's funny how every other poster summarily dismissed the idea.

9w748capt wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

So Naples has got its first US3 route. Will ME3 follow suit? QR or EK?

Great call btw. I reread our posts from a few months ago and it's funny how every other poster summarily dismissed the idea.

What about FZ on a MAX 8? That seems more right sized.

asuflyer wrote:

Markets like AGP/VCE/ATH/PMO/NAP/NCE have low demand outside summer months, little business demand and have no chances at going year-round on UA or DL.

Although it’s not a big business hub, can’t put ATH In the same bucket as AGP or PMO in my opinion. It’s a capital city of 4 million people and is busy year round. Plus it’s a Star Alliance hub with a successful local carrier and a decent network across southeastern Europe, the eastern Med and the Middle East.

Prefinancial crisis (10 or so years ago) ATH used to have year-round flights to JFK (on both OA and DL) as well as EWR (on CO, although that only lasted a couple of years). Now only EK has a year-round flight you EWR. So I wouldn’t be surprised if winter flights on US carriers came back at some point. DL has two daily flights to JFK in the summer now.

Planeflyer wrote:

Naples has really turned around. Used to be dump which I think still hurts it in the USA.

For those who love Amalfi there is a little town called Agerola overlooking it. You can stay up there for a tenth of the cost and walk down the hill. 45 minutes down and 1.5 hours up. Fantastic views.

I was there a month ago transiting through to get to Sorrento. There is no mincing words... Naples is a dump.

It’s the Amalfi coast, Capri, and Pompeii that draws the tourists, not Napoli.

Also, beware when flying out of NAP with a tight CNX on your way home... airport operations are on Italian time. What a mess.

SCQ83 wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

9w748capt wrote:

Great call btw. I reread our posts from a few months ago and it's funny how every other poster summarily dismissed the idea.

What about FZ on a MAX 8? That seems more right sized.

FlyDubai already flies to Catania, so DXB-NAP seems like a no brainer.

Qatar also flies to Pisa (a smaller airport) so DOH-NAP should also be a logic addition, specially considering QR's investment in Air Italy.

Maybe Catania isn't performing as wonderfully so they are not that optimistic about Naples.

Just heard of UA going nonstop in 2019 EWR NAP on 763.

Great news for this airport, which historically had to depend on FCO.

ScrantonUSC wrote:

It's a short train ride from Rome. Even adding in the Fiumicino-Termini leg, it's not that bad of a commute, as the frequencies of departures are great. There's not a lot of incentive for a US airline to add it.

It is a loooong ride to travel from Naples downtown to FCO. Take a train to Rome' s Termini station, change to the local train to FCO. Although the distance is not enormous, it might take at least 3 to 4 hours. That' s why AZ still has 4 daily A320 flight on this route. Flight time? 30 minutes.

Noteworthy that TK has up to 2x daily (depending on the day) on NAP-IST.

I love this area of Italy! I spent weeks there in my mispent youth!

runway23 wrote:

asuflyer wrote:

I was reffering to summer seasonal destinations in Southern Europe from NYC. For UA They are ATH, VCE, and OPO which just started this year. MAD and BCN are completely different markets that can sustain year-round service from EWR. FCO and LIS have matured from summer seasonal and are now year-round. Markets like AGP/VCE/ATH/PMO/NAP/NCE have low demand outside summer months, little business demand and have no chances at going year-round on UA or DL.

What’s up with the calling all of these places Southern Europe - no European would call these Southern Europe... the only place where one truly refers to North or South is Italy.

First of all Spain/Portugal are Iberian peninsula, NCE is Western Europe, VCE is too and if you dare tell someone from VCE they are anything South you’ll literally be smacked...

Besides that NCE had year round service to JFK for years and has healthy business demand and doesn’t quite fit in the list. ATH has daily service to EWR with EK running outside summer months. Just because some of these places are near to the sea doesn’t make them all leisure or summer only destinations.

Nitpick, but many people have referred to Northern and Southern Europe for generations. I've been in Europe and have had Europeans refer to Northern and Southern Europe.

Italy is facinating how much the culture in the North and South are different.

But what matters is yeild. There are only certain cities in any region with high yeild long haul passengers. It is not the examples you gave.

Unfortunately, I cannot think of one high yeild airport in the EU South of Milan. I would be happy to be proven wrong. NCE is very low yeild in my experience. Yeild incentivise new competition and routes.

Airlines are in a money making business. They only discriminate on profit. Having routes work to New York City, IMHO the #1 premium destination in the USA, is not the same as being a direct to ATL, IAD, CLT, or ORD.
Unfortunately for Italy, it is outside of A321LR to the USA. (I'm a proponent of frequency and fragmentation).

Lightsaber

I am astonished that nobody mentions the high crime rate in Naples - marauding gypsies and people from the Balkans, who especially in the form of pickpockets steal the tourists. I myself have been robbed already in the airport bus, friends in the city and at night on the streets. and the police? Shrugs and helpless! Naples? never again!