Connections

International

Yes, I meant international connections.

Going Europe->Canada/South America for instance, the US government doesn’t like it.

Going Australia->Canada/South America the US government also doesn’t like.

Yet the revenue loss may be significant. I just don’t see why a potential source of revenue is DELIBERATELY turned off? India is the same. I just don’t get it.

Yet, despite all the doom and gloom in the US airline industry, you still can’t connect in the proper sense of the word. US airlines seem to be collectively missing a trick.

Why?

I am a bit confused here? The US majors have based their entire strategies on hubs. There is an long standing joke in the US that “you have to connect in Atlanta to get to heaven”, referring to the mega hub of Delta there, with over 100 million passengers, the airport is rather reliant upun connecting traffic (given that Atlanta city has a population of around 3 million people). The main emphasis of these hubs in the US is still domestic to domestic, but there are significant (and increasing) amounts of International to Domestic (and vice versa) traffic. I recently read that Delta’s international routes made up about 24% of it’s network in 2005, today, their shifted emphasis to higher yielding international traffic, has led to that figure being 41%.

If you mean Europe to Australasia via the US then yes, you’re right, they’re not as succesful, but that is not the shortest route to Oz.

A good hub airport can rely solely on connecting traffic, if you look at the big hubs like LHR, CDG, AMS, FRA, DXB, SIN the cities in which they are located all have a huge importance financially, politically or some other reason thus there is also a huge amount of O & D traffic aswell.

The huge amount of routes couldnt continue with just O & D traffic either but they are lucky enough to have a good ballance of both.

I dont see what you meen about not being able to connect in the US? AA, DL, US, CO etc depend hugley on connections to survive! Do you meen arriving from an international flight going onto a domestic one?

I kind of get what you are saying but i think the reasons for this is the pre-determined style of the future of air travel. I think most airlines took to the hub-to-hub flying concept. DXB and SIN literally run on connections because of there geographical locations make them a perfect stop points between Asia and America.

For example Delhi, geographically has always been perfectly placed between Asia and Europe. The earliest KLM flights i think always used to have Delhi as a stop-over for flights to S.E.Asia. But Delhi never marketed itself as a hub resulting in what we have today from Delhi, are mostly direct flights.

Also depends on markets, i don’t know how it is in US but here in India domestic connections are usually easily available. International connections not so much because this is not a marketed hub.

Have you ever even tried to connect in DFW? The place is so bloody big that I nearly missed my flight, because I got lost.

Flights TO Lisbon are not too bad on the 744s, but try coming back any time soon! Ouch!

I got a feeling we could hear about more Drunken Footy fan rages during that time.

connections i think any enthusiast loves them as Bmused55 said you can take off and land more! and someties it involves using different types of aircraft! i.e i flew to Milan(MXP)
via AMS with KLM and i flew a F100 then a 737-900! and on return a 737-400 then F100,
Then another time we went to Milan (MXP) via Zurich with Crossair we flew the Avro100 then Avro100 and on return we flew the Saab 2000 then Avro100 !!! Connections all the way!

Flights TO Lisbon are not too bad on the 744s, but try coming back any time soon! Ouch!

I remember that when we were booking our Summer 2003 holiday, we had a choice of airlines to fly with to Bangkok.

The two cheapest were Thai (747 direct) and Qatar (A330/A300 via Doha). However, flying with Qatar would have saved us £20 each.

The only way Kuoni would let us fly would be to incur an 18-hour wait in Doha for the connecting flight. Something we were certainly not willing to do.

At the time, most forum-users urged me to fly with Qatar. If I can get a direct flight, I much prefer to do that. Let’s face it, you get there quicker and you’re flying with a popular airline. Well, Thai were recently voted 5th best airline in the world! Qatar didn’t come into the Top 10.

I fly to LHR at least once a year.If i had the money Id fly via somewhere just to have more takeoffs and landings and to see different parts of the airport.ie an airline who uses T3 etc.DUB-FRA-LHR or DUB-MAD-LHR sound very interesting.
Or what about this in june.DUB-LIS-LHR the LIS-LHR sector on a BA 744.Yup ba are flying 747-400s to Lisbon this summer allowing 14000 additional football fans to fly to Portugal.if anybody wants to know what flight on what days let me know and Ill let you know.

Connections of course. Flew LHR-MAN-IOM a few months ago, and am booked on an interesting set of flights this summer, LGW-GCI-DIN-GCI-LGW-AMS-LGW. ATR72, Trislander, 733 and 734 😀

Yep ATL really is great….and huge! I flew in on an MD-11 and back out again on a 764. Brilliant, especially the landing. It feels like you’re flying off the runway on the high speed at a few hundred knots as they desperately scramble so as not to cause a go-around! And on take-off, don’t expect much waiting around!

I am ready for this as I flew out of there last year on a DL MD-11 (in business class due to a muck up with our return flights. What a shame 😉 )and it was fantastic. I was meant to fly in there at the start of my trip as well but due to overbooking we volunteered to go with BA and AA via DFW. For this we got $400 in transport vouchers which is why we’re going to LAX in december. The whole trip (LGW-ATL-LAX-DFW-ATL-LGW) is costing £400 for 4 people and we get 12,500 skymiles each. Bargain!

Yep ATL really is great….and huge! I flew in on an MD-11 and back out again on a 764. Brilliant, especially the landing. It feels like you’re flying off the runway on the high speed at a few hundred knots as they desperately scramble so as not to cause a go-around! And on take-off, don’t expect much waiting around!

And …. cherry on the cake , ATL is just greaaatttt!!

Yes I know. I’m really looking forward to this trip as we fly to and from ATL on the 777. We also have 3 1/2 hours in ATL before our connection to LAX which is great and then fly to LAX on a 764 which I’ve never flown on so can’t wait. Looking forward to the 3 flights on the return and bumping up my skymiles account.

Depending on where I have to go through. LHR is great, SIN superb, LGW ok, DFW, bad.

And …. cherry on the cake , ATL is just greaaatttt!!

or we just love flying.

well then you guys have too much time on your hands.lol.

Connections every time as more connections=more flights!

In December I’m flying with Delta from Gatwick to LA and back on 2nd January. On the return I’m booked LAX-DFW-ATL-LGW. I managed to persuade my family this was the best way of getting back to Gatwick. It was also slightly cheaper than LAX-ATL-LGW but doesn’t take much longer (we’re just in the air longer rather than waiting on the ground in ATL).

you’re obviously not reading our replies.

Why would I take a connection rather than drivect?

Simple… MORE TAKE OFFS! woo hoo