Does Metro Detroit really house a large Romanian-American population? I am looking at some data that oddly suggests that there is quite a bit of traffic between the two city pairs.

A new DTW Delta SkyClub opened yesterday. Pictures can be seen via the link below. As discussed, the location is by gate A43.

https://news.delta.com/newest-delta-sky ... -beverages

Landing on the 27's right now. Sustained west winds 43 mph gust to 64 mph at the NWS DTW reporting station at 10:53 AM EST.
Flight Radar showing some go arounds.

DaveMetroD wrote:

Landing on the 27's right now. Sustained west winds 43 mph gust to 64 mph at the NWS DTW reporting station at 10:53 AM EST.
Flight Radar showing some go arounds.

Had an AF A318 stop by too during the wind on it's way to storage. Great day to come land a light airplane in 50+ knot winds

kavok wrote:

A new DTW Delta SkyClub opened yesterday. Pictures can be seen via the link below. As discussed, the location is by gate A43.

https://news.delta.com/newest-delta-sky ... -beverages

I visited that on Wednesday. Nice club, but very small compared to the other 4 DTW SCs. They didn't bother putting an escalator in this club. I suppose they didn't want to pay for the extra space it would take up.

It appears B6 is going in the right direction again after a terrible performance in the most recent months. A colleague tells me they upgauged some flying to BOS to an A320 in the next couple of months and loads to JFK are improving. I think the problem B6 still has in Detroit is the brand. They need to re-instate FLL or add MCO, TPA, or RSW to gain a little more brand recognition on the Detroit point of sale.

flymco753 wrote:

It appears B6 is going in the right direction again after a terrible performance in the most recent months. A colleague tells me they upgauged some flying to BOS to an A320 in the next couple of months and loads to JFK are improving. I think the problem B6 still has in Detroit is the brand. They need to re-instate FLL or add MCO, TPA, or RSW to gain a little more brand recognition on the Detroit point of sale.

The other problem is connectivity. My wife and I used to fly B6 on flights to the Caribbean, but now all connections require an overnight stay in either BOS of JFK. I know B6 is primarily a point-to-point airline, but I wish B6 would at least time the flights for some connections.

flymco753 wrote:

It appears B6 is going in the right direction again after a terrible performance in the most recent months. A colleague tells me they upgauged some flying to BOS to an A320 in the next couple of months and loads to JFK are improving. I think the problem B6 still has in Detroit is the brand. They need to re-instate FLL or add MCO, TPA, or RSW to gain a little more brand recognition on the Detroit point of sale.

B6 routinely operates the A320 on one or more of its DTW-BOS flights. Obviously, travel to/from BOS & NYC has been hammered by COVID -- that B6 added DTW-JFK, and stuck with it, during in era in which few flights were operating to/from NYC is pretty admirable.

I doubt B6 will re-enter Florida. With NK peaking at 4x-5x daily to MCO, FLL/MIA, etc. and F9 hitting these communities 2x, there's oodles of LCC capacity, yielding ultra low fares. DL, of course, is the market leader and commands a healthy premium. B6's lowest fares don't include a carry-on... besides the presence of IFE and a complimentary drink/snack, there's not much difference between them and an ULCC.

So, I saw this article on the DL website about its new codeshare with ITA (formerly Alitalia):

https://news.delta.com/delta-and-ita-ai ... artnership

Noticed the statement "Effective Wednesday (Dec. 22, 2021), ITA Airways’ code will be placed on Delta-operated flights to a total of 92 destinations. This includes flights between Rome and Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and New York-JFK" Makes me wonder if there are now plans to bring back DTW-FCO next summer.

That press announcement makes it as explicit as possible without being actually explicit. I have a hard time believing that they would reference flights between Detroit and Rome (when all the other airports listed have loaded flights already) and not actually be planning on the route.

Then again, as with all things in Detroit as a region, I'll believe it when I see it.

Speaking of which, anybody hear anything about TK?

Let’s hope for a dtw - fco add this Saturday!

Air France loaded the A350 beginning in January. That'll be 2 A350's matching capacity going to AMS.

flymco753 wrote:

Air France loaded the A350 beginning in January. That'll be 2 A350's matching capacity going to AMS.

I’m guessing you mean the Paris flight is getting swapped to A350, if so damn! Not complaining about flying on A350 but was looking to finally get a 787 flight in May.

I see DL made some schedule changes for the thick of the winter, the most notable being Florida capacity. Lets review.

MCO will feature 13 daily flights among 4 carriers; DL, F9, NK, WN. Every carrier will deploy its highest capacity narrowbody aircraft on at least one of its frequencies. We're looking at 7 flights on Delta, 6 753s, and a 739. 4 on Spirit, 2 A321s, and 320neo, and a 319. 1 flight on Frontier, an A321. 1 flight on Southwest, a 738. The only other Midwest airport with more capacity is obviously ORD, but DTW is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.

Also, several 757's make a return to FLL, which was only loaded as 4 flights on Delta is up to 6. TPA up to 6 on Delta, RSW up to 6 on Delta. JAX goes back to double daily A320s.

Also, noticed CHS is running twice a day on 717s. DL will run an A320 to MYR as well. Still looking at a pair of A350's between DTW and ATL.

flymco753 wrote:

Also, noticed CHS is running twice a day on 717s. DL will run an A320 to MYR as well. Still looking at a pair of A350's between DTW and ATL.

Nice! Mainline to CHS.

Is HNL still around??

Looks like DL is putting a 717 on DTW-SAV on Saturdays in March & April

HNL is not still around.

A lot of welcomed changes were uploaded to the winter schedule. In addition to the above: several more markets, like IAH & GRR, were moved to all mainline. Widebody service to LAS was extended (but as 763, not 764). Additional frequencies to long-haul domestic markets like SFO.

Fares have also fallen, so I suspect that -- at least for the time being -- COVID is impacting ticket sales again. Of course, COVID may force major changes again..

bhxdtw wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

Does Metro Detroit really house a large Romanian-American population? I am looking at some data that oddly suggests that there is quite a bit of traffic between the two city pairs.

There actually is. I don't have any specific numbers to back it up however it is a well known fact that there is a large presence of Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian region diaspora throughout the metro Detroit area.
I work with one chap who's folks moved here roughly 25 years ago from rural Albanian. They wanted to be closer to other family who were thriving themselves since moving here years earlier.
Apparently in the Sterling Heights, Rochester Hills, Novi, Livonia, Romulus areas there are high densities of Balkan ex pats. There are a few big Balkan community centers and churches in the area also.

I knew about the large Yugo population but when I was researching some DTW markets I noticed OTP was large compared to other major US cities. Makes sense now.

Also, TSA lines at the McNamara are horrendous. Bag drop lines are backed up into the Westin which I had no bags thankfully, but I waited in TSA for about 40 minutes. They had agents going to the TSA lines to announce to those in line which flights left and who needed to get rebooked.

Over in the Delta Network Thread somebody shared figures for DL's SLAPRASM by hub (for 2019)—

DL
DTW 14.49
LGA 14.40
ATL 14.25
JFK 14.17
MSP 14.15
SLC 13.74
LAX 13.45
BOS 12.74
SEA 11.63

I wonder how operating costs ex-DTW compare to other hubs as well. I'm surprised that DTW is at the top of this list (again, for 2019).

I know nothing about airline economics, but I interpret DTW's 14.49 to indicate a pretty efficient operation in terms of capacity and frequency. I wonder if this is one reason why Delta deprioritizes DTW for more intercontinental flying on partner airlines (i.e., KL, KE, VS)—the assumption being that these airlines with better hard and soft product can drive shareable revenue more easily at hubs with greater competition (although D1 Suite is pretty, pre

Also that DL is capturing the premium revenue that is available in the market quite efficiently, obviating the need to entice flyers away from Star Alliance and OneWorld carriers at other hubs.

Consider DL's difficulty making 2x LHR work: starting with less premium demand compared to FRA or something similar, expanding capacity at DTW instead of other hubs would both lower SLAPRASM through both O&D and connections, and foreclose competing at a hub or focus city with consistently strong premium demand to LHR like BOS or RDU or a similar market. If DL wanted, they could fill the plane through DTW at 2x or even 3x a day and perhaps maintain PRASM in Y, but see lower yield in J.

By the same token, I'm still dumbfounded that DL isn't flying to KEF from DTW...same for DUB—short stage lengths compared to a destination like BCN. These seem like routes with lots of leisure demand from a market like the Detroit CSA which is not as sophisticated as other large CSAs but certainly has a large pool of travelers spending money on trips to Europe.

Please relax and keep cool before sarcastic and salty responses. I'm just thinking through ways to interpret this particular metric...

flymco753 wrote:

Also, TSA lines at the McNamara are horrendous. Bag drop lines are backed up into the Westin which I had no bags thankfully, but I waited in TSA for about 40 minutes. They had agents going to the TSA lines to announce to those in line which flights left and who needed to get rebooked.

When were you at DTW? I arrived there at 11 AM this morning, and the lines in both Pre Check and regular security were very short.

Even the curb in front of the ticketing level of the DL terminal wasn't too busy.

WA707atMSP wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

Also, TSA lines at the McNamara are horrendous. Bag drop lines are backed up into the Westin which I had no bags thankfully, but I waited in TSA for about 40 minutes. They had agents going to the TSA lines to announce to those in line which flights left and who needed to get rebooked.

When were you at DTW? I arrived there at 11 AM this morning, and the lines in both Pre Check and regular security were very short.

Even the curb in front of the ticketing level of the DL terminal wasn't too busy.

Early yesterday morning, most passengers who missed seemed to be going to or through ATL. Some RSW and FLL missed too.

My parents flew out of DTW yesterday morning (Wed) and reported similar to you flymco753.
The got there about 6am and said the regular checkin counter / bag drop lines were insane. They were in the First Class / Elite bag drop line, which they said wasn't that long put was really slow.
FWIW, They said the agent said the computers were really slow.

They said they breezed right through TSA Pre-check and said no one was in the security line then since they were all stuck in the bag drop lines.

I think yesterday (Wed) and today (Thu) are the biggest outbound travel days before Christmas with the way the holiday falls, school breaks, and company holidays.
The big morning departure bank goes out between 8:30-9:30am, but DL added a bunch of extra frequencies for the holiday schedule to Florida destinations that depart between 7-7:30am.
Thus you get a huge rush of people arriving at the airport early in the morning, and you get in the lines the people who arrived 2-3 hours early along with those who showed-up 1-2 hours early and big lines result. Plus the passenger mix now results in a lot more people checking bags for holiday travel, than during a "normal" week when there would be more business travelers with carry-on bags.

I flew out Monday mid-morning, and the airport was super quiet, but 10am is an off-peak time. When I flew back Tue night, it was the usual crowds in the concourse for the evening connecting bank.

I checked out the new Skyclub its nice but similar decor and style to the new clubs in the system that have opened in the past year or two. Decor reminds me a lot of the new SLC club. I honestly prefer the Upper / Lower A clubs or the C club since I'd rather look outside over the ramp.

reasonable wrote:

By the same token, I'm still dumbfounded that DL isn't flying to KEF from DTW...same for DUB—short stage lengths compared to a destination like BCN. These seem like routes with lots of leisure demand from a market like the Detroit CSA which is not as sophisticated as other large CSAs but certainly has a large pool of travelers spending money on trips to Europe.

Shorter direct EU flights would be a G-dsend. Not to mention I'm still salty about missing out on WOW a few years back...

reasonable wrote:

By the same token, I'm still dumbfounded that DL isn't flying to KEF from DTW...same for DUB—short stage lengths compared to a destination like BCN. These seem like routes with lots of leisure demand from a market like the Detroit CSA which is not as sophisticated as other large CSAs but certainly has a large pool of travelers spending money on trips to Europe.

DTW has been a very traditional TATL market: LHR because they speak English, CDG for culture, FRA for business, AMS for connections, FCO seasonally for the Roman Catholic Church. DTW is not an edgy, outdoorsy KEF market. Think of all the TATL destinations they haven't even tried in the last twenty years. That, and DTW travelers would be overflying JFK and BOS, anyway.

WA707atMSP wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

Also, TSA lines at the McNamara are horrendous. Bag drop lines are backed up into the Westin which I had no bags thankfully, but I waited in TSA for about 40 minutes. They had agents going to the TSA lines to announce to those in line which flights left and who needed to get rebooked.

When were you at DTW? I arrived there at 11 AM this morning, and the lines in both Pre Check and regular security were very short.

Even the curb in front of the ticketing level of the DL terminal wasn't too busy.

Ninety seconds to check a bag Wednesday early afternoon, and 17 minutes with TSA, if we're asserting anecdotes are analysis.

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Detroit (DTW) Aviation Thread - 2022

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