SurlyBonds wrote:

raylee67 wrote:

....
1. SFO has a vibrant tech sector that provides lucrative business traffic [whereas LAX's O&D traffic are largely VFR, which would be highly seasonal and low yielding

I agree SFO will have more business traffic, given Indian's importance in tech. But surely it is hasty to dismiss the second-largest US city, and a global alpha city, as irrelevant to business.

In particular, no one has mentioned Hollywood/Bollywood and the entertainment industry yet. Hollywood has an ever-more-global mindset and there has got to be some traffic between these two entertainment industry powerhouses.

Demand for p2p on SFO-BOM/DEL is way higher versus LAX as per 2019 stats below:

Round trip pax below

LAX/BOM - 79,000
SFO/BOM - 145.000

LAX/DEL - 114,000
SFO/DEL - 278,000

By the way, some people above are saying AI is perceived to not have high p2p market share on their SFO + NYC nonstop service to/from DEL. You will be surprised to know the following:

2019 stats below

SFO/DEL/SFO - AI had the highest market share carrying 36% of all pax followed by UA (15%) and EK (8%)

JFK/DEL/JFK - AI had the highest market share carrying 41% of all pax followed by EK (12%) and EY (8%)

EWR/AMD/EWR - EK had 51% whilst AI had 49%

EWR/BOM/EWR - UA had 42% whilst AI had 39%

IAD/DEL/IAD - AI had the highest market share carrying 34% of all pax followed by EK (18%) and EY (12%)

ORD/DEL/IAD - AI had the highest market share carrying 48% of all pax followed by UA (12%) and EY (9%)

The above stats clearly shows the Indian pax preference to fly nonstop wherever the option is being made available.

behramjee wrote:

SurlyBonds wrote:

raylee67 wrote:

....
1. SFO has a vibrant tech sector that provides lucrative business traffic [whereas LAX's O&D traffic are largely VFR, which would be highly seasonal and low yielding

I agree SFO will have more business traffic, given Indian's importance in tech. But surely it is hasty to dismiss the second-largest US city, and a global alpha city, as irrelevant to business.

In particular, no one has mentioned Hollywood/Bollywood and the entertainment industry yet. Hollywood has an ever-more-global mindset and there has got to be some traffic between these two entertainment industry powerhouses.

Demand for p2p on SFO-BOM/DEL is way higher versus LAX as per 2019 stats below:

Round trip pax below

LAX/BOM - 79,000
SFO/BOM - 145.000

LAX/DEL - 114,000
SFO/DEL - 278,000

By the way, some people above are saying AI is perceived to not have high p2p market share on their SFO + NYC nonstop service to/from DEL. You will be surprised to know the following:

2019 stats below

SFO/DEL/SFO - AI had the highest market share carrying 36% of all pax followed by UA (15%) and EK (8%)

JFK/DEL/JFK - AI had the highest market share carrying 41% of all pax followed by EK (12%) and EY (8%)

EWR/AMD/EWR - EK had 51% whilst AI had 49%

EWR/BOM/EWR - UA had 42% whilst AI had 39%

IAD/DEL/IAD - AI had the highest market share carrying 34% of all pax followed by EK (18%) and EY (12%)

ORD/DEL/IAD - AI had the highest market share carrying 48% of all pax followed by UA (12%) and EY (9%)

The above stats clearly shows the Indian pax preference to fly nonstop wherever the option is being made available.

What does demand look like from DFW/IAH as well as places like BLR and HYD?

I havent had access to IATA numbers since 2018 so Im sure some has changed, but I recall IAH had the highest fare premiums but DFW-India was larger. I also recall DFW-India was the 2nd fastest growing market to India after the Bay Area.

LAXdude1023 wrote:

behramjee wrote:

SurlyBonds wrote:

I agree SFO will have more business traffic, given Indian's importance in tech. But surely it is hasty to dismiss the second-largest US city, and a global alpha city, as irrelevant to business.

In particular, no one has mentioned Hollywood/Bollywood and the entertainment industry yet. Hollywood has an ever-more-global mindset and there has got to be some traffic between these two entertainment industry powerhouses.

Demand for p2p on SFO-BOM/DEL is way higher versus LAX as per 2019 stats below:

Round trip pax below

LAX/BOM - 79,000
SFO/BOM - 145.000

LAX/DEL - 114,000
SFO/DEL - 278,000

By the way, some people above are saying AI is perceived to not have high p2p market share on their SFO + NYC nonstop service to/from DEL. You will be surprised to know the following:

2019 stats below

SFO/DEL/SFO - AI had the highest market share carrying 36% of all pax followed by UA (15%) and EK (8%)

JFK/DEL/JFK - AI had the highest market share carrying 41% of all pax followed by EK (12%) and EY (8%)

EWR/AMD/EWR - EK had 51% whilst AI had 49%

EWR/BOM/EWR - UA had 42% whilst AI had 39%

IAD/DEL/IAD - AI had the highest market share carrying 34% of all pax followed by EK (18%) and EY (12%)

ORD/DEL/IAD - AI had the highest market share carrying 48% of all pax followed by UA (12%) and EY (9%)

The above stats clearly shows the Indian pax preference to fly nonstop wherever the option is being made available.

What does demand look like from DFW/IAH as well as places like BLR and HYD?

I havent had access to IATA numbers since 2018 so Im sure some has changed, but I recall IAH had the highest fare premiums but DFW-India was larger. I also recall DFW-India was the 2nd fastest growing market to India after the Bay Area.

Anectodally, I'd guess that DF-HYD is second only to DFW-DEL, or maybe third behind DFW-BOM, when it comes to the Dallas-India market. I have no data on this, however; I just know that business traffic is fairly significant between many DFW-area companies and their offshore centers in Hyderabad.

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

Anectodally, I'd guess that DF-HYD is second only to DFW-DEL, or maybe third behind DFW-BOM, when it comes to the Dallas-India market. I have no data on this, however; I just know that business traffic is fairly significant between many DFW-area companies and their offshore centers in Hyderabad.

Pre-pandemic, DFW-HYD was the number 1 market from DFW to India.

SurlyBonds wrote:

raylee67 wrote:

....
1. SFO has a vibrant tech sector that provides lucrative business traffic [whereas LAX's O&D traffic are largely VFR, which would be highly seasonal and low yielding

I agree SFO will have more business traffic, given Indian's importance in tech. But surely it is hasty to dismiss the second-largest US city, and a global alpha city, as irrelevant to business.

In particular, no one has mentioned Hollywood/Bollywood and the entertainment industry yet. Hollywood has an ever-more-global mindset and there has got to be some traffic between these two entertainment industry powerhouses.

Yes a bit like London and LA, always some A lister up in First or production in Club or both.

Still there is that great big geopolitical elephant in the room that could hinder traffic depending on whom gets into bed with whom.

SurlyBonds wrote:

I agree SFO will have more business traffic, given Indian's importance in tech. But surely it is hasty to dismiss the second-largest US city, and a global alpha city, as irrelevant to business.

In particular, no one has mentioned Hollywood/Bollywood and the entertainment industry yet. Hollywood has an ever-more-global mindset and there has got to be some traffic between these two entertainment industry powerhouses.

Except the Bay Area's prominence in the tech industry matters more than these global city rankings. Not to mention SF is, by many metrics, a more important financial center than LA. It also, as has been discussed at length, has a much larger Indian population. These factors likely account for SFO's success in India even though SF technically ranks slightly lower than LA on most global city classifications.

hohd wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

BOM is not a true hub for AI, only DEL is.

Not if you see Air India's recent moves. They are beefing up Mumbai majorly. Better products (aka ex DL frames) than Delhi. Premium economy is being very well recieved on flights to US. And if you check twitter (I know not scientific but gives a gist) Air India has been getting some glowing reviews for long haul services from BOM, whereas DEL flight see a lot of complains about broken products, rude staff, and the infamous Pee-gate kinda incidents.

It will be very interesting to see the first base for The Etihad 777Ws and ex-SU A359s.

Under the house of Tata, BOM is getting lot more love from Air India than it has in the last 2 decades. Ads in newspapers, hoardings/billboards across the city, not to mention online ads (but thats cos google tracks my online activities) they are going all the way. Its very hard to miss.

SATexan wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

Anectodally, I'd guess that DF-HYD is second only to DFW-DEL, or maybe third behind DFW-BOM, when it comes to the Dallas-India market. I have no data on this, however; I just know that business traffic is fairly significant between many DFW-area companies and their offshore centers in Hyderabad.

Pre-pandemic, DFW-HYD was the number 1 market from DFW to India.

If I recall, DFW-HYD was one of the biggest HYD markets in the US.

So between the option to connect at SFO or on UA's new partner, Emirates in Dubai. or other ME3, LA is pretty well covered. Yes, a big market, and will likely happen, but not like double connections needed to almost any Indian destination. Would be interesting to see DL add India from LA with their market share in LA. That is add India servie, if they get an A350K or Russian overflies happen again. Although their track record to India is in and out historically(for legit reasons such as COVID etc). Highly unlikely for now, but only carrier outside of Air India I can see adding an LAX to India flight.

I think it all depends on the black stuff and whether India will be able to significantly reduce its massive imports of discounted Russian oil or more importantly has a will to.

Impossible to make any predictions on future timetables at this time.

Tragic and highly depressing but there it is.

bfitzflyer wrote:

Would be interesting to see DL add India from LA with their market share in LA. That is add India servie, if they get an A350K or Russian overflies happen again. Although their track record to India is in and out historically(for legit reasons such as COVID etc). Highly unlikely for now, but only carrier outside of Air India I can see adding an LAX to India flight.

DL doesn't even serve most of L.A.'s largest Asian markets (ICN, TPE, HKG, BJS, PVG, MNL, etc) with its own metal from there, so the chances of it launching DEL/BOM from SoCal are almost too low to compute.

bfitzflyer wrote:

. Would be interesting to see DL add India from LA with their market share in LA. That is add India servie, if they get an A350K or Russian overflies happen again. Although their track record to India is in and out historically(for legit reasons such as COVID etc). Highly unlikely for now, but only carrier outside of Air India I can see adding an LAX to India flight.

I would think if any US airline is going to add India service from LAX it would be UA, given historically they’ve been the most aggressive in that market pre-COVID.

Granted, I don’t see that happening (even if overflying Russia became an option again) as aside of Australia and Tokyo, UA has basically shifted all APAC flying out of the West Coast to SFO (take the 2x SFO-SIN vs. split LAX/SFO they tried for a bit).

No US airline will serve India unless and until Russian overflight is possible.

If and when that happens, the most likely candidates are UA on SFO-DEL/BOM, AA on ORD/JFK-DEL/BOM (or DFW-DEL/BOM if they have the right aircraft), and DL ATL-DEL/BOM or JFK-DEL/BOM.

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

No US airline will serve India unless and until Russian overflight is possible.

If and when that happens, the most likely candidates are UA on SFO-DEL/BOM, AA on ORD/JFK-DEL/BOM (or DFW-DEL/BOM if they have the right aircraft), and DL ATL-DEL/BOM or JFK-DEL/BOM.

UA still is flying EWR-DEL.

dmstorm22 wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

No US airline will serve India unless and until Russian overflight is possible.

If and when that happens, the most likely candidates are UA on SFO-DEL/BOM, AA on ORD/JFK-DEL/BOM (or DFW-DEL/BOM if they have the right aircraft), and DL ATL-DEL/BOM or JFK-DEL/BOM.

UA still is flying EWR-DEL.

In addition to AA JFK-DEL. It's obviously avoiding Russia and Afghanistan but that makes the routes more inefficient and longer.

Then again, aircraft like the A35K, 789, etc can possibly do these kinds of distances, at a stretch.

behramjee wrote:

Unless, AI ops for the A359LR, it is highly unlikely that DEL-LAX-DEL can be operated by any of the airplanes on order by the carrier. Definitely BOM-LAX-BOM nonstop isnt possible.

They might very well have right? We definitely don't know what mix of A350s and B787s they have ordered.

-----------
Chandrasekaran said the A350s will be used to “fly all ultra-long distance across the globe.”
-----------
Source - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/air-ind ... st%20price.

behramjee wrote:

Apart from LAX, even IAH/DFW nonstop are not possible with any of the aircraft on order by AI.

So for these 3 cities, AI needs to look at alternative one stop options either via EU or via the Pacific.

For IAH/DFWATL, I would suggest to recreate the BRU scissors hub using B787/A359 in the below manner:

Daily HYD-BRU-DFW
Daily BLR-BRU-IAH
Daily MAA-BRU-BOS
Daily BOM-BRU-ATL
Daily DEL-BRU-DEL

Fellow Star member, SN does not fly to these above mentioned 4 USA cities, so they can code share and provide useful feed from both their EU + African network alike.

For LAX though, it would need to be via Japan (preferably KIX in order to have less competition on the 5th freedom sector)

Then how would AI standout? There are plenty of one stop options. If at all AI wants to go the scissor hub route then might as well do it out of FRA and MUC...a dual tandem hub *A hub strategy and feed into the LH & UA network for the cities you listed and a host of other North/South American and European cities . But still, the preference would be to do the non stops on A350s and 787-9s. QF does PER-LHR and NZ does JFK-AKL ..both on the 787-9.

bfitzflyer wrote:

So between the option to connect at SFO or on UA's new partner, Emirates in Dubai. or other ME3, LA is pretty well covered. Yes, a big market, and will likely happen, but not like double connections needed to almost any Indian destination. Would be interesting to see DL add India from LA with their market share in LA. That is add India servie, if they get an A350K or Russian overflies happen again. Although their track record to India is in and out historically(for legit reasons such as COVID etc). Highly unlikely for now, but only carrier outside of Air India I can see adding an LAX to India flight.

Disagree with the SFO part. Most Indian Americans I know, that are based in LAX, would rather have a nonstop to DEL from LAX than connect over at some US Airport to get to DEL. Keep in mind that some of UA/AI's legacy passengers onboard were passengers who connected from other UA hubs(i.e. DEN/LAX/IAH) to (SFO/ORD/EWR) in order to catch flights to India nonstop. As for the ME3, they are routinely some of the most expensive options to fly to South India, where a small, but sizeable, population of LA's Indian Americans/Indians originate from. A LAX-DEL flight will only help to connect people and improve competition on the LA-India market as people now have the option to go to DEL directly and connect to other destinations throughout India. Besides, in a recent interview, Campbell Wilson himself said that they are looking to further expand on the U.S. West Coast, proving that a future India-LA flight is in the works in the near future. We'll just have to see when it'll happen and where LA will be connected to.

stl07 wrote:

If you want standstill traffic, a smog layer covering the city, poverty-lines streets, dirty beaches, film industry, nightclubs, and palm trees, you can just visit BOM. Why even make the 17 hour flight to LAX?

Lol that’s funny as hell and TRUE. Sometimes people here take themselves too serious.

Once someone goes nonstop US-India, they do not want to go via the European, ME3 one stops.
AI needs to focus on nonstops rather than scissors in some European nation.

I thought the LAX-DEL pax stats was interesting. Bigger than I thought it would be. AI will end up launching LAX-DEL from my pov. Because of the SFO frequencies, they don’t need daily. So maybe 4X and 3X to BOM. The one thing AI has going for them is the premium VFR who happily pay AI J fares (meaning not the $8K UA fares) to sit in J and fly nonstop or with an easy “safe” connection in DEL. These pax don’t need daily.
Wrt BOM, I think Tata are building up BOM to basically stop another player. DEL is and should be their big connecting hub. BOM should be for O&D and secondary hub for close by cities (like BLR, GOI, MAA).
Finally the market share post was amazing. Go AI. Really shows that people want nonstops. Would be great to see how many connected in DEL onward to other Indian cities.

747megatop wrote:

They might very well have right? We definitely don't know what mix of A350s and B787s they have ordered.

Pretty sure the A350s are split between 6 A359s (NTU SU) and 34 A35Ks, and 20 789s. Yet to be confirmed, but I believe that's the plan.

747megatop wrote:

behramjee wrote:

Unless, AI ops for the A359LR

They might very well have right?

Almost zero chance, seeing as it's a defunct concept compared to today's standard-produced A359s.

Then there's the upcoming sunrise A35Ks, which will offer greater range at far superior payload; another factor for the obsolescence of the A359ULR.

Not that it'd be necessary. A standard A35K at 319t could do DEL-LAX with one wing tied behind its back.
Could probably do LAX-BOM fairly comfortably as well, with at most a single row blocked for the worst of winter.

portola2727 wrote:

As for the ME3, they are routinely some of the most expensive options to fly to South India

EY used to offer very compelling connecting fares, that a lot of my Indian acquaintances in L.A. swore by. EY leaving LAX really hit them hard.

'Course, having sub-$3K premium fares is probably a big reason WHY they left the market, but still.

LAXdude1023 wrote:

SATexan wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

Anectodally, I'd guess that DF-HYD is second only to DFW-DEL, or maybe third behind DFW-BOM, when it comes to the Dallas-India market. I have no data on this, however; I just know that business traffic is fairly significant between many DFW-area companies and their offshore centers in Hyderabad.

Pre-pandemic, DFW-HYD was the number 1 market from DFW to India.

If I recall, DFW-HYD was one of the biggest HYD markets in the US.

You are correct as indeed DFW-HYD is the biggest India O&D market segment from that city...2019 stats below DFW vs IAH

HYD - 66,000 vs 31,000
BOM - 48,000 vs 69,000
DEL - 43,000 vs 46,000
MAA - 42,000 vs 23,000
BLR - 39,000 vs 25,000

EK is by far the dominant carrier on DFW-India !

behramjee wrote:

HYD - 66,000 vs 31,000
BOM - 48,000 vs 69,000
DEL - 43,000 vs 46,000
MAA - 42,000 vs 23,000
BLR - 39,000 vs 25,000

Thank you for the numbers! I fully expect the numbers for 2023 to be increasing across the board particularly HYD, MAA and BLR.

behramjee wrote:

LAXdude1023 wrote:

SATexan wrote:

Pre-pandemic, DFW-HYD was the number 1 market from DFW to India.

If I recall, DFW-HYD was one of the biggest HYD markets in the US.

You are correct as indeed DFW-HYD is the biggest India O&D market segment from that city...2019 stats below DFW vs IAH

HYD - 66,000 vs 31,000
BOM - 48,000 vs 69,000
DEL - 43,000 vs 46,000
MAA - 42,000 vs 23,000
BLR - 39,000 vs 25,000

EK is by far the dominant carrier on DFW-India !

Are the numbers really this large? I'm just curious, because 66,000 annual pax comes out to about 180 PDEW on DFW-HYD. I know the market is large, but that's almost large enough to justify a daily nonstop flight (and is many multiples larger than DFW-TYO, for example).

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

behramjee wrote:

LAXdude1023 wrote:

If I recall, DFW-HYD was one of the biggest HYD markets in the US.

You are correct as indeed DFW-HYD is the biggest India O&D market segment from that city...2019 stats below DFW vs IAH

HYD - 66,000 vs 31,000
BOM - 48,000 vs 69,000
DEL - 43,000 vs 46,000
MAA - 42,000 vs 23,000
BLR - 39,000 vs 25,000

EK is by far the dominant carrier on DFW-India !

Are the numbers really this large? I'm just curious, because 66,000 annual pax comes out to about 180 PDEW on DFW-HYD. I know the market is large, but that's almost large enough to justify a daily nonstop flight (and is many multiples larger than DFW-TYO, for example).

66,000 isnt 180 PDEW, its 90 PDEW. You have to divide it by 365 and then divide it by 2 again to get the directional data.

Love the DFW stats. Go HYD, who would have thought. That said, DFW and IAH are very long routes and no city pair is over 100k. I think AI is best served by flying IAH-DEL (because of UA) and then funneling all the onward pax at DEL (or same plane DEL-HYD so that all the US nonstops can have a widened DEL-HYD). If HYD got a nonstop, I would say ORD or EWR are the best bets so that people can connect onward via UA (I also think UA should fly the route and not AI once Russia opens up). This all said, the numbers seem to show that LAX is a much better bet for AI than DFW or IAH.

LAXdude1023 wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

behramjee wrote:

You are correct as indeed DFW-HYD is the biggest India O&D market segment from that city...2019 stats below DFW vs IAH

HYD - 66,000 vs 31,000
BOM - 48,000 vs 69,000
DEL - 43,000 vs 46,000
MAA - 42,000 vs 23,000
BLR - 39,000 vs 25,000

EK is by far the dominant carrier on DFW-India !

Are the numbers really this large? I'm just curious, because 66,000 annual pax comes out to about 180 PDEW on DFW-HYD. I know the market is large, but that's almost large enough to justify a daily nonstop flight (and is many multiples larger than DFW-TYO, for example).

66,000 isnt 180 PDEW, its 90 PDEW. You have to divide it by 365 and then divide it by 2 again to get the directional data.

Fair point, you are correct - that number is still much, much higher than I would have ever guessed.

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Love the DFW stats. Go HYD, who would have thought. That said, DFW and IAH are very long routes and no city pair is over 100k. I think AI is best served by flying IAH-DEL (because of UA) and then funneling all the onward pax at DEL (or same plane DEL-HYD so that all the US nonstops can have a widened DEL-HYD). If HYD got a nonstop, I would say ORD or EWR are the best bets so that people can connect onward via UA (I also think UA should fly the route and not AI once Russia opens up). This all said, the numbers seem to show that LAX is a much better bet for AI than DFW or IAH.

Another piece of the puzzle is fare premiums. Fare premiums from IAH to BOM/DEL are very high due to oil industry ties. DFW has a bigger O&D but the fare premiums aren't as high. I'm unsure what they are from LAX so I can't comment.

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Go HYD, who would have thought.

I would go so far as to state that, from just about any secondary or tertiary US city, HYD is usually in the top 2 markets to India. The yields are a problem with HYD. Lots' of students and VFR.

SATexan wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Go HYD, who would have thought.

I would go so far as to state that, from just about any secondary or tertiary US city, HYD is usually in the top 2 markets to India. The yields are a problem with HYD. Lots' of students and VFR.

That's interesting - I just assumed that HYD traffic slanted toward the business travel side, given the large offshore operations centers there.

SATexan wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Go HYD, who would have thought.

I would go so far as to state that, from just about any secondary or tertiary US city, HYD is usually in the top 2 markets to India. The yields are a problem with HYD. Lots' of students and VFR.

I would love to see the data. I really struggle with that for NYC (EWR/JFK), SFO, LAX, IAD, ORD, BOS. I think it is reasonable in cities that aren’t big tourist entry points for Indians. That said, it doesn’t surprise me given recent immigration and that those coming from HYD tend to be professionals. Back in the day, BOM did better than DEL because of the nature of those immigrating from BOM area vs vs North India (more affluent immigrants will go back more). Techies earn enough to easily afford an annual trip to India.

CaliguyNYC wrote:

SATexan wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Go HYD, who would have thought.

I would go so far as to state that, from just about any secondary or tertiary US city, HYD is usually in the top 2 markets to India. The yields are a problem with HYD. Lots' of students and VFR.

I would love to see the data. I really struggle with that for NYC (EWR/JFK), SFO, LAX, IAD, ORD, BOS. I think it is reasonable in cities that aren’t big tourist entry points for Indians. That said, it doesn’t surprise me given recent immigration and that those coming from HYD tend to be professionals. Back in the day, BOM did better than DEL because of the nature of those immigrating from BOM area vs vs North India (more affluent immigrants will go back more). Techies earn enough to easily afford an annual trip to India.

Indian immigration is pretty spread out across the country but three places stand way head of the rest: the Bay Area, Dallas/Fort Worth, and NYC. They are by far and away the biggest recipients of Indian immigrants over the last 15 years. After them, you have a large clump of cities are getting similar numbers of Indian immigration: Seattle, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. After that, then you have some modest growth cities: Detroit, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Love the DFW stats. Go HYD, who would have thought. That said, DFW and IAH are very long routes and no city pair is over 100k. I think AI is best served by flying IAH-DEL (because of UA) and then funneling all the onward pax at DEL (or same plane DEL-HYD so that all the US nonstops can have a widened DEL-HYD). If HYD got a nonstop, I would say ORD or EWR are the best bets so that people can connect onward via UA (I also think UA should fly the route and not AI once Russia opens up). This all said, the numbers seem to show that LAX is a much better bet for AI than DFW or IAH.

UA is notoriously difficult to work with and does not like to cooperate with Star alliance members except a select few. It has a relatively poor relationship with AI and sees it as a direct competitor, so AI cannot rely on UA funneling any passengers beyond UA hubs. If AI ever considers a flight from DFW, it could be something like DFW-DEL-HYD 3x weekly.

I posted this in another thread some months back....

SonaSounds wrote:

Philippine333 wrote:

3D101CA wrote:

The Bay Area has a much larger Indian population, and the demand from SFO to India is twice as large compared to LAX.

It's not surprising why AI chose to fly to SFO first. Maybe AI will serve LAX at some point in the future, but the Bay Area has more overall traffic to India.

That's true, but what would be even better than that, is for United to thicken its India route network by adding LAX-DEL services (and to a certain extent, by adding IAH-DEL services too to connect Texas with India for the very first time), mainly to compliment its SFO-DEL route as historically, United has been regarded as the strongest player in Asia including India.

For perspective, here is how the USA West Coast-India market broke down in CY2019 by PDEWs:

SFO - 1,405
LAX - 558
SEA - 333
PHX - 105
DEN - 73
PDX - 59
LAS - 40
SAN - 36
SLC - 23



Or to really drive home how much bigger the Bay Area market is to India...

SFO - 1,405
All other large West Coast Cities - 1,227

There has to be a good enough reason to overfly SFO to offer LAX nonstop and the traffic mass + yields are in the San Francisco Bay Area.

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

That's interesting - I just assumed that HYD traffic slanted toward the business travel side, given the large offshore operations centers there.

Parts of North Irving (Royal Ln, McArthur/Walnut Hill blvd, Las Colinas) are hubs for H1 dependent Indian body shopping companies which have lots' of employees but generate zero business travel. Same thing with parts of Plano (Plano Pkwy, Tennyson, Legacy Dr etc). There are companies with large offshore partners such as Verizon, BCBS, Citi, Pepsi, BNSF & possibly AT&T among others. But whatever business travel is generated by the offshore/client companies is not exclusive to HYD.

As far as Indian students are concerned, visit any university in the area - UTA, UTD, SMU or some directional/religious denominational university in Oklahoma or Arkansas, you will find that the students from Telugu speaking states outnumber their DEL or BLR counterparts by atleast 8 times! After they graduate they will end up (most of the times) in those body shopping companies. This cycle is not helping business travel to HYD which in turn affects the yields. This is precisely why, despite the burgeoning volume, HYD has not attracted many EU carriers.

This is a thread about LAX and India. Sorry for veering off topic.

SATexan wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

That's interesting - I just assumed that HYD traffic slanted toward the business travel side, given the large offshore operations centers there.

Parts of North Irving (Royal Ln, McArthur/Walnut Hill blvd, Las Colinas) are hubs for H1 dependent Indian body shopping companies which have lots' of employees but generate zero business travel. Same thing with parts of Plano (Plano Pkwy, Tennyson, Legacy Dr etc). There are companies with large offshore partners such as Verizon, BCBS, Citi, Pepsi, BNSF & possibly AT&T among others. But whatever business travel is generated by the offshore/client companies is not exclusive to HYD.

As far as Indian students are concerned, visit any university in the area - UTA, UTD, SMU or some directional/religious denominational university in Oklahoma or Arkansas, you will find that the students from Telugu speaking states outnumber their DEL or BLR counterparts by atleast 8 times! After they graduate they will end up (most of the times) in those body shopping companies. This cycle is not helping business travel to HYD which in turn affects the yields. This is precisely why, despite the burgeoning volume, HYD has not attracted many EU carriers.

This is a thread about LAX and India. Sorry for veering off topic.

Im not doubting you (although by 8 times seems a bit much). That said, I would caution a bit - the way Indians socialize, it can seem that their community is all there is. Here in NYC or in LA where I am from I hardly even notice Telugu speakers. It’s the usual Gujarati/Punjabi crowd with others thrown in the mix (I am neither). Not saying that is the actual fact of representation mix just saying things can be deceptive. The other thing i see especially after people have been here awhile is they want to stop in say BOM for shopping (especially wedding) or DEL on their way to ATQ. Many people going to BLR are actually not Kanada speakers just as most BOM travelers aren’t Marathi speakers…

CaliguyNYC wrote:

SATexan wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

That's interesting - I just assumed that HYD traffic slanted toward the business travel side, given the large offshore operations centers there.

Parts of North Irving (Royal Ln, McArthur/Walnut Hill blvd, Las Colinas) are hubs for H1 dependent Indian body shopping companies which have lots' of employees but generate zero business travel. Same thing with parts of Plano (Plano Pkwy, Tennyson, Legacy Dr etc). There are companies with large offshore partners such as Verizon, BCBS, Citi, Pepsi, BNSF & possibly AT&T among others. But whatever business travel is generated by the offshore/client companies is not exclusive to HYD.

As far as Indian students are concerned, visit any university in the area - UTA, UTD, SMU or some directional/religious denominational university in Oklahoma or Arkansas, you will find that the students from Telugu speaking states outnumber their DEL or BLR counterparts by atleast 8 times! After they graduate they will end up (most of the times) in those body shopping companies. This cycle is not helping business travel to HYD which in turn affects the yields. This is precisely why, despite the burgeoning volume, HYD has not attracted many EU carriers.

This is a thread about LAX and India. Sorry for veering off topic.

Im not doubting you (although by 8 times seems a bit much). That said, I would caution a bit - the way Indians socialize, it can seem that their community is all there is. Here in NYC or in LA where I am from I hardly even notice Telugu speakers. It’s the usual Gujarati/Punjabi crowd with others thrown in the mix (I am neither). Not saying that is the actual fact of representation mix just saying things can be deceptive. The other thing i see especially after people have been here awhile is they want to stop in say BOM for shopping (especially wedding) or DEL on their way to ATQ. Many people going to BLR are actually not Kanada speakers just as most BOM travelers aren’t Marathi speakers…

Having lived in Dallas, it is completely believable that Telegu dominates the Indian community there. The numbers do suggest it. DFW has the largest Telugu speaking population in the US and Telegu speakers represent the largest dialect in DFW which is unique to every other place in the US. The numbers show completely why DFW-HYD is the largest DFW-India city pair. Not only this but DFW has the 2nd largest Malayalam, Nepali and Tamil speaking populations in the country. This has all happened in a small period of time. 20 years ago, DFW barely cracked the top 10 largest Indian population in the US. Right now its only behind NYC and the Bay Area as it has passed Chicago in the foreign born category.

Below are the populations of Indian Dialect speakers by metro area. I am only including the cities brought up in this metro area, but other than Punjabi where much of the largest speaking communities are in the Central Valley of California, these are pretty much the lists. As a side note, most of the Urdu speakers are going to be from Pakistan and most of the Bengali speakers are going to be from Bangladesh, but I have included them anyway:

Hindi
New York City: 121,837
San Francisco: 68,236
San Jose: 43,863
Dallas/Fort Worth: 38,849
Los Angeles: 35,827
Seattle: 34,896
Washington DC: 34,341
Chicago: 33,245
Houston: 28,136
Atlanta: 27,860
Philadelphia: 27,100
Boston: 22,421
Detroit: 15,029

Gujarati
New York City: 87,212
Chicago: 42,152
Philadelphia: 20,847
Los Angeles: 16,524
Houston: 16,255
San Francisco: 15,336
Atlanta: 14,317
Dallas/Fort Worth: 14,296
Boston: 11,891
Washington DC: 10,317
Detroit: 8,928
San Jose: 8,512
Seattle: 3,412

Urdu
New York City: 98,146
Chicago: 50,118
Houston: 48,512
Washington DC: 40,412
Dallas/Fort Worth: 25,177
Los Angeles: 18,141
San Francisco: 13,896
Atlanta: 11,231
Philadelphia: 10,793
Detroit: 10,157
Boston: 9,288
Seattle: 7,971
San Jose: 4,319

Punjabi
New York City: 43,829
San Francisco: 23,729
Seattle: 13,974
San Jose: 13,666
Los Angeles: 11,884
Dallas/Fort Worth: 7,678
Washington DC: 7,144
Philadelphia: 5,902
Houston: 5,881
Chicago: 5,363
Detroit: 4,816
Boston: 4,159
Atlanta: 938

Bengali
New York City: 156,749
Detroit: 33,057
Washington DC: 20,343
Philadelphia: 15,719
Dallas/Fort Worth: 13,879
Los Angeles: 11,840
San Francisco: 10,739
Atlanta: 9,069
Houston: 8,951
Boston: 6,369
Chicago: 5,557
Seattle: 4,749
San Jose: 4,756

Nepali/Marathi
New York City: 45,460
Dallas/Fort Worth: 30,502
Washington DC: 22,460
Los Angeles: 15,417
San Jose: 15,188
Houston: 13,868
San Francisco: 13,517
Chicago: 12,901
Atlanta: 12,860
Boston: 12,032
Seattle: 9,373
Detroit: 5,135
Philadelphia: 4,729

Telugu
Dallas/Fort Worth: 39,943
New York City: 36,424
Washington DC: 28,835
Chicago: 21,340
San Jose: 20,948
Atlanta: 19,700
Seattle: 18,262
San Francisco: 15,908
Houston: 14,523
Philadelphia: 12,840
Los Angeles: 10,437
Boston: 10,222
Detroit: 9,663

Tamil
New York City: 31,314
Dallas/Fort Worth: 25,222
San Jose: 21,799
San Francisco: 19,480
Chicago: 16,258
Washington DC: 15,974
Seattle: 13,801
Atlanta: 11,922
Houston: 9,719
Philadelphia: 9,320
Boston: 8,544
Los Angeles: 7,946
Detroit: 5,398

Malayalam
New York City: 40,164
Dallas/Fort Worth: 28,147
Houston: 24,829
Philadelphia: 21,523
Chicago: 16,281
Atlanta: 11,921
San Jose: 11,682
Washington DC: 9,121
Seattle: 9,108
San Francisco: 9,035
Boston: 8,544
Los Angeles: 6,348
Detroit: 4,833

Some of these numbers seem not correct on first glance. As a Punjabi in Chicagoland who has lived here for more than 25 years I can guarantee you there are many more than 5k Punjabi speakers here.

CHI787ORD wrote:

Some of these numbers seem not correct on first glance. As a Punjabi in Chicagoland who has lived here for more than 25 years I can guarantee you there are many more than 5k Punjabi speakers here.

I am not quite sure that ATL has nearly the exact same amount of Tamils and Malayalis either....

I take language with a huge grain of salt. On the US census only those that get the extended census list language so its hard to extrapolate for smaller languages. Plus, unlike India, many in the US view this as literally the language spoken at home (which I believe is the way the question is phrased) and not what ethnic group are you (which is how many in India view the language question). Hence many people that speak English in their house would not fill this in (same thing happens with other groups - ticking say Spanish literally means you primarily speak Spanish in the home). The vast majority of Indians born here would also not tick this as they probably speak English. So, while directionally interesting, this doesn’t capture the total. Anyway my takeaway is Telugu speakers are sizable but in no way a dominant group by any means. In the end it is the traffic to HYD or MAA or DEL from a US city that matters not ethnic group. To be honest who cares which ethnic group one is from. Growing up in the US one thing was very clear - to those born here, we were all Indians and to our American friends we were Americans of Indian dissent - the details mattered little to 99% of the people - and that’s a great thing (IMHO)

A few things:

1) This is language spoken at home. I speak Japanese but I do not speak it at home because no one else in my home does.

2) The source is data.census.gov. There is a 7% margin of error. So the actual numbers may be slightly higher but it can be rejected that the census lists it as 5,000 and there’s really 20,000.

3) The “I think there are”, “I can guarantee you”, and “there are way more” statements are personal biases. Unless you’ve done a detailed study, these numbers are going to be far more accurate than whatever number is in your head.

If Russian airspace issues resolve sooner rather than later, then of the US3 from the SoCal airport, I think I'm most likely to see United Airlines launch flights from Los Angeles to Delhi as a compliment to the Delhi flight from San Francisco.

LAXdude1023 wrote:

A few things:

1) This is language spoken at home. I speak Japanese but I do not speak it at home because no one else in my home does.

2) The source is data.census.gov. There is a 7% margin of error. So the actual numbers may be slightly higher but it can be rejected that the census lists it as 5,000 and there’s really 20,000.

3) The “I think there are”, “I can guarantee you”, and “there are way more” statements are personal biases. Unless you’ve done a detailed study, these numbers are going to be far more accurate than whatever number is in your head.

I am not questioning the numbers but what is the logic of clubbing Marathi and Nepali together? Genuine question.

Philippine333 wrote:

If Russian airspace issues resolve sooner rather than later, then of the US3 from the SoCal airport, I think I'm most likely to see United Airlines launch flights from Los Angeles to Delhi as a compliment to the Delhi flight from San Francisco.

As another poster already mentioned, UA isn't going to start LAX-India when it doesn't even fly the low-hanging fruit of other major overseas destinations.

VTORD wrote:

LAXdude1023 wrote:

A few things:

1) This is language spoken at home. I speak Japanese but I do not speak it at home because no one else in my home does.

2) The source is data.census.gov. There is a 7% margin of error. So the actual numbers may be slightly higher but it can be rejected that the census lists it as 5,000 and there’s really 20,000.

3) The “I think there are”, “I can guarantee you”, and “there are way more” statements are personal biases. Unless you’ve done a detailed study, these numbers are going to be far more accurate than whatever number is in your head.

I am not questioning the numbers but what is the logic of clubbing Marathi and Nepali together? Genuine question.

I understand that too since neither are from similar regions of India, that’s just the way the census had it laid out.

hl8208 wrote:

Philippine333 wrote:

If Russian airspace issues resolve sooner rather than later, then of the US3 from the SoCal airport, I think I'm most likely to see United Airlines launch flights from Los Angeles to Delhi as a compliment to the Delhi flight from San Francisco.

As another poster already mentioned, UA isn't going to start LAX-India when it doesn't even fly the low-hanging fruit of other major overseas destinations.

Who knows, T9 coming online would be a game changer for UA at LAX. I think we will see FRA/MUC/SIN instantly with DEL coming online later.

portola2727 wrote:

hl8208 wrote:

Philippine333 wrote:

If Russian airspace issues resolve sooner rather than later, then of the US3 from the SoCal airport, I think I'm most likely to see United Airlines launch flights from Los Angeles to Delhi as a compliment to the Delhi flight from San Francisco.

As another poster already mentioned, UA isn't going to start LAX-India when it doesn't even fly the low-hanging fruit of other major overseas destinations.

Who knows, T9 coming online would be a game changer for UA at LAX. I think we will see FRA/MUC/SIN instantly with DEL coming online later.

The odds of UA flying from LAX to India are near zero.

hohd wrote:

It has a relatively poor relationship with AI and sees it as a direct competitor

....because it is.

UA and AI do not have anti-trust immunity and thus are direct competitors, from multiple stateside hubs to multiple Indian gateways. That they belong to the loosely-organized mass FFP marketing agreement that is Star Alliance, doesn't really change that.

Philippine333 wrote:

If Russian airspace issues resolve sooner rather than later, then of the US3 from the SoCal airport, I think I'm most likely to see United Airlines launch flights from Los Angeles to Delhi as a compliment to the Delhi flight from San Francisco.

Definitely not. No US3 is going to attempt LAX-India non stop in the near future. US3 non stops are going to be limited to - SFO,SEA,ORD,JFK,EWR,ATL at the maximum to start with by the US3. LAX-DEL/BOM may be attempted by AI that's about it.
UA might just launch DEL+BOM+BLR non stops from both SFO & EWR and be happy with that. May be ORD-DEL to add to that. I think they will then just use connections to connect people from rest of the country.