Atlanta Airport - Airline Service & Routes Updates Thread (College Park: appointed, 2014)

[testa50]

There's no catch-all for this as of yet, so here it is: a place to update flight services to and from ATL. Post any new/rumors/speculation/whatever here.

Nothing major has happened lately--kind of a boring summer, actually--but there have been a few tidbits:

- Korean delayed the A380 service again until September 1. But this finally feels like the starting date that will hold, and it looks like the first iteration of service will indeed be 3x A380 and 7x 777 weekly, which is a significant expansion over 10x 777 weekly we currently have.

- Aeromexico resumed service to Atlanta. But since it and Delta are both Skyteam/codeshare partners you can't really count on this adding any competition.

- Delta will reinstate service to Kingston, Jamaica, in December. Not the biggest deal (we already have massive service to Montego Bay), but an interesting market that Atlanta will have a good shot at capturing a big chunk of North America's traffic to (they only have service from Miami, New York, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale in the US). More business/family traffic, rather than resort traffic.

- Delta has apparently bumped service to Port-au-Prince up to 3x weekly from Atlanta (it debuted as once weekly), mix of 757/737/A320. Hopefully this can be woven into our network of daily flights in the coming year, if the demand proves to be consistent.

- Delta also restarted service to Calgary on a seasonal basis, but there is oddly little information about it online.

- Delta has added a couple new routes. Burlington, Green Bay, Anchorage. Honestly our shorthaul route network on DL is so expansive that the new destinations left to add are pretty minimal.

- Southwest continues to serve Atlanta uninspiringly. Definitely the feel-bad story of the year for Atlanta's airport. Seems like they'll continue a reasonable focus city operation here, but clearly the move is dismantling Airtran's operation. RIP Airtran...I enjoyed your flights a lot. I'm mostly wondering about Airtran's international flights (Montego Bay, Nassau, Aruba, Cancun, and Punta Cana). It would be a significant loss to Atlanta's general public to not have competition on those high-volume leisure routes. But I bet Southwest will keep some of them around in some way, shape or form. Maybe if Airtran stopped doing international altogether (a possibility), Aeromexico would pick up ATL-CUN. It's very high-volume O/D market.

- Delta axed Memphis officially as a hub. This will likely benefit Atlanta, since even more traffic will be driven through here. This means a bit more frequencies, more mainline service, etc should be added over the next year.

- Delta's 737-900ERs and 717s are starting to come in this fall. This will be good for Atlanta, and as a frequent flyer is something I am excited about. I hate having to fly in old DC-9s (at least once a month lately!), or have my seat selection jacked up by an equipment change because DL runs every manner of aircraft imaginable out of here, or flying a regional jet that is far less reliable in terms of crew/aircraft availability. We will start to see consolidation of airplane types and ultimately more consistent service. Also, with the influx or new metal, Delta will start to have more options in Atlanta and all over the country.

As far as new exciting thing happening (ie: foreign metal or new DL longhaul), there doesn't seem to be much on the horizon. There's always a gulf carrier coming, or possibly Turkish, but I'd be surprised if this happens in the next year. Maybe Nairobi either by Delta or Kenya Airways, given the huge connection possibilities at both ends, but I don't think DL has the metal and Kenya Airways is in turmoil. Avianca or COPA would be awesome, but don't have connections on this end. Still, it seems like one of those could work to serve various connecting markets throughout South America and provide DL a bit more competition. COPA is an awesome and efficient airline. Asiana would be great, but it looks like with the Korean A380 service the route will remain a monopoly.

[ATLondoner]

Great post....really interesting.

Do you know if there is anything happening with the news I heard a while ago of Delta buying a share of Virgin Atlantic and whether or not that will lead to any additional services coming to Atlanta?

[Atlwarrior]

Also Air France is up gauging its aircraft from the 777-200 to 777-300. Once the Virgin Atlantic and Delta thing is approved, I wonder if Virgin Atlantic will fly to Atlanta. Also Qatar is still mentioning Atlanta, Detroit, and Boston as the next US Gateway city. I really hope Delta brings back the nonstop to Tel Aviv. I'm a bit concern about Southwest Atlanta's operations. Before the Merger Air tran was at 229 daily flights, that is now down to 175 daily flights not good. Any idea on what runway the Korean 380 will use ? Hopefully the winds will be from the east and the plane will fly over College Park Marta train station. I really hate that Delta was not able to sustain Daily non stops to Shanghai and have shift Asian flights from Atlanta to Detroit and Seattle. Atlanta have several cargo flights to Asia. I wonder if nonstop Singapore passenger service from Atl would work.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Atlwarrior

I wonder if nonstop Singapore passenger service from Atl would work.

I wish!! Singpore airlines is nice too!

I don't think it would. With the high capacity service Korean Air provides and Delta to Japan there would be alot of 1-stop competition options.

That route would probably be one of the longest in the world if not the longest.

We have their cargo service though! However, that might work to a disadvantage since sometimes they will sell some cargo space on long-hauls to make routes more worthwhile.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by ATLondoner

Great post....really interesting.

Do you know if there is anything happening with the news I heard a while ago of Delta buying a share of Virgin Atlantic and whether or not that will lead to any additional services coming to Atlanta?

I'm not sure. I haven't heard anything anywhere, but I do remember a big deal to the merger was flight slots in NYC and London.

[Atlwarrior]

Turkish Airlines CEO is out with details regarding the airlines plans to expand in the Americas.

The CEO says the carrier would like to add US service points of Atlanta, Boston and San Francisco as well with some commencing for summer 2014 also.
For Canada carrier continues to seeks access to a second service point of Montreal, but such rights are currently not available under the bilateral.

Much of this growth will be made possible thanks to the arrival of additional 77W fleet commencing in 2014, and a few more A330s arriving this winter.

[westau]

Turkish coming here would be nice, I saw some insanely good deals from DC to Istanbul back around February that I would have taken in a heartbeat had it been from Atlanta.

[Atlwarrior]

Originally Posted by westau

Turkish coming here would be nice, I saw some insanely good deals from DC to Istanbul back around February that I would have taken in a heartbeat had it been from Atlanta.

Istanbul is a nice city with so much rich history, and clearly give Atlantans more choices for connections to Israel and Asian cities.

[testa50]

re: Delta/Virgin Atlantic, this is a pretty big question to me right now. Virgin Atlantic runs a ton of really thin routes to resort destinations in North America on huge planes, mainly from Gatwick. Some of them only 1/2x per week. I could see Delta wanting to consolidate this somehow, which could involve Atlanta. A daily 747 to serve a full set of connections to Latin America and the Caribbean would be ideal, but would be difficult to schedule. Still, it would allow Virgin Atlantic to compete in a ton of new markets it doesn't serve whatsoever right now.

I missed the new Turkish news, which is guess is just some off the records comments from the CEO but still important. That would be an awesome addition of foreign metal to ATL, on nice, big aircraft. Turkish and Qatar in the same year would be really awesome, but I would put that in longshot territory. I think one will fall through at least for a year or two.

Shanghai could eventually come back (Anderson made some comments recently I believe), but we need to let the O/D market grow a few more years probably. Right now it's at ~40 pax/day each way. If that grew to say 60-80 (totally possible in the 2016-2018 timeframe) it would be possibly be enough to restart service, given the connections at both ends. But it's still going to be a thin route. Most of the big American O/D markets with Shanghai aren't convenient to Atlanta, which is the main reason Detroit got the flight instead of us. I made the trip to Shanghai on Korean in February, and the layover definitely makes the trip a lot more brutal. I'll probably have to do it again soon.

Singapore isn't happening. Sorry. Just too far for any aircraft to serve reasonably, and not a big market for us.

More service to Brazil would be nice. Delta definitely has that targeted as a growth market, and most of its plans concern Atlanta heavily. Narrow-body aircraft can reach certain destinations in Brazil from Atlanta (Brasilia and points northward), which is a considerable advantage for running thin routes. 2x/day to Sao Paulo plus flights to some of the smaller cities in the north (which Delta did serve for a spell in the mid-2000s) would be cool, plus GOL codeshare on all Brazil-Atlanta flights. Side note: I'm going on vacation in Brazil in a week, so wish me luck with the riot situation.

[ATLondoner]

Originally Posted by testa50

re: Delta/Virgin Atlantic, this is a pretty big question to me right now. Virgin Atlantic runs a ton of really thin routes to resort destinations in North America on huge planes, mainly from Gatwick. Some of them only 1/2x per week. I could see Delta wanting to consolidate this somehow, which could involve Atlanta. A daily 747 to serve a full set of connections to Latin America and the Caribbean would be ideal, but would be difficult to schedule. Still, it would allow Virgin Atlantic to compete in a ton of new markets it doesn't serve whatsoever right now.

I really hope that it means new flights from London to Atlanta, I was really disappointed that Delta dropped the Gatwick flight and moved an extra one to Heathrow...Gatwick was much more handier for South-East London (home!).

I read something yesterday that said the Virgin/Delta partnership would give them 25% of total trans-atlantic flights (compared to British Airways/American who have 60% share). You'd like to think that Delta would be keen as you say to move flights away from the routes such as Gatwick>Orlando and onto the presumably much busier (year-round) routes to places like right here in Atlanta....lets hope so.

I had the pleasure 2 weeks back of flying Emirates from Dubai to London, now that is one classy airline!