Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
toltommy wrote:Delta relied heavily on the TriStar back in the days of the DFW hub. Did the plane have the legs to fly trans-atlantic from DFW?
sprxUSA wrote:In case no one mentioned it, DL flew DFW-FRA nonstop. LOL.
777law wrote:Please delete if this is addressed elsewhere or if its off topic, but why did DL pull out of DFW? I remember flying TPA-DFW-SEA a few times in the late '90s & early 00's and thinking DL was pretty well entrenched at DFW. What happened?
enilria wrote:I think they had some Mexico at some point. It was never a large hub. AA was always much bigger. Same reason MEM never had more than just an AMS. The hub wasn’t big enough. Plus interior hubs have traditionally had very limited long haul service. DEN, for example, has only very recently gotten a reasonable amount of long haul. United didn’t even have a single long haul there until well after DL closed the DFW hub.
rwsea wrote:DFW was always a less important hub for DL than ATL/CVG/SLC at the time. Pre-bankruptcy in the mid-2000s, DL had a much smaller international footprint that centered on ATL, select flights out of JFK as a holdover from the PanAm days, and 1-2 flights from CVG. SkyTeam was in its infancy and DL didn't yet have access to the powerful NW/KL operation at AMS. DL didn't have access to LHR and was forced to fly to LGW as a result. There was also the PDX experiment in the late 90s that was gone by then too. DL had almost no footprint in Asia when they went into bankruptcy - ATL-NRT was the only route.
Through the bankruptcy process DL closed DFW and simultaneously invested in NYC (and later SEA/LAX) to rapidly transform and expand from a domestic focused carrier (with heavy traffic to and from Florida that was increasingly being lost to B6, WN, etc.) to much more of an international footprint.
There are many more factors at play but considering just the above it's clear why DFW was never an international hub for Delta.
Tomsixty2 wrote:My wife and I flew on a L1011-250 from DFW to FRA in the mid 80s
910A wrote:Wrong...In the mid 70's at DFW #1 was Braniff, #2 - Delta and #3- American. At that time DL operated a number of widebodies to ATL, LAX, SFO, LAS. (741 and L-1011).
toltommy wrote:Delta relied heavily on the TriStar back in the days of the DFW hub. Did the plane have the legs to fly trans-atlantic from DFW?
rwsea wrote:[...]SkyTeam was in its infancy and DL didn't yet have access to the powerful NW/KL operation at AMS.[...]
gdg9 wrote:I thought there was also DFW-MUC, DFW-CDG on Delta back in the day, but I could be wrong.
It was June/July timeframe in 2005 when the hub closed. Went from 250-260 daily flights to about 20. DL had all of Terminal E and the Satellite, then down to 4 gates. E was a literal ghost town for a few years after that. Was odd to walk a terminal with 30+ empty gates, abandoned stores etc. If memory serves, I think a temporary wall was put up by E30 or so to hide the last 6-8 gates on the concourse.
gdg9 wrote:I thought there was also DFW-MUC, DFW-CDG on Delta back in the day, but I could be wrong.
It was June/July timeframe in 2005 when the hub closed. Went from 250-260 daily flights to about 20. DL had all of Terminal E and the Satellite, then down to 4 gates. E was a literal ghost town for a few years after that. Was odd to walk a terminal with 30+ empty gates, abandoned stores etc. If memory serves, I think a temporary wall was put up by E30 or so to hide the last 6-8 gates on the concourse.
Kilopond wrote:rwsea wrote:[...]SkyTeam was in its infancy and DL didn't yet have access to the powerful NW/KL operation at AMS.[...]
Delta`s first transatlantic partnership took off at VIE and GVA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Excellence
jasoncrh wrote:Delta only flew DFW - FRA.
910A wrote:enilria wrote:I think they had some Mexico at some point. It was never a large hub. AA was always much bigger. Same reason MEM never had more than just an AMS. The hub wasn’t big enough. Plus interior hubs have traditionally had very limited long haul service. DEN, for example, has only very recently gotten a reasonable amount of long haul. United didn’t even have a single long haul there until well after DL closed the DFW hub.
Wrong...In the mid 70's at DFW #1 was Braniff, #2 - Delta and #3- American. At that time DL operated a number of widebodies to ATL, LAX, SFO, LAS. (741 and L-1011).
SpaceshipDC10 wrote:Kilopond wrote:rwsea wrote:[...]SkyTeam was in its infancy and DL didn't yet have access to the powerful NW/KL operation at AMS.[...]
Delta`s first transatlantic partnership took off at VIE and GVA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Excellence
Are you referring to the OS/SR/DL joint-venture on the VIE-GVA-IAD route? If so, I believe DL had a transatlantic partnership prior to that with at least SR. After they acquired Pan Am European routes, amongst which was a service to GVA from JFK via CDG, or was it BRU, a year later or so, I believe they partnered with SR on the latter non-stop daily service to JFK.jasoncrh wrote:Delta only flew DFW - FRA.
Okay, so not even LGW, contrary to my doubt. Also, contrary to what I said, DL had six, not just one L-1011-250, all converted from -1s. For more about the new version, here are more details about the changes: https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive ... %20tristar
UA857 wrote:When I was looking at this website that shows daily departures from DL's DFW hub http://www.departedflights.com/DLDFWhub.html I noticed that there are no long-haul international flights out of DFW? Can you tell me why?
rwsea wrote:Pre-bankruptcy in the mid-2000s, DL had a much smaller international footprint that centered on ATL, select flights out of JFK as a holdover from the PanAm days, and 1-2 flights from CVG.
gdg9 wrote:It was June/July timeframe in 2005 when the hub closed. Went from 250-260 daily flights to about 20. DL had all of Terminal E and the Satellite, then down to 4 gates.
rwsea wrote:Through the bankruptcy process DL closed DFW and simultaneously invested in NYC (and later SEA/LAX) to rapidly transform and expand from a domestic focused carrier (with heavy traffic to and from Florida that was increasingly being lost to B6, WN, etc.) to much more of an international footprint.
Semperfi28 wrote:I always thought Frankfurt was in Germany.
dfwjim1 wrote:Since we are beating DFW - FRA to death I am curious as to why DL choose to even fly this route when their passengers going to FRA could have easily been routed through ATL.
Coexstud wrote:I think it may be the reason they took 777’s and 767’s all day long from ATL too MCo focused predominantly on domestic divaship and less on long haul international for the longest time
KlimaBXsst wrote:Delta learned that it was not financially wise to have tiny little hubs in DFW, MEM or CVG.
This is why they have gone in big with their hubs in places like SLC and SEA. They learned a decade ago hubs have to be full sized to make money.
People need to chill and realize DL kind of knows what it is doing.