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US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:48 am
by USAirALB
There are 2 major US carriers at this time that do not serve mainland S.America,NW and US. Do any of these airlines have any plans to start service?
For
NW:
NW could probably fill a 747-400 for
DTW-Sau Paulo(connecting to Rio), possibly to Lima. All other US carriers do fine in S. America.(on most routes)
US could make the same routes work, but don't have sufficient aircraft at the time.
At this time US could make
GRU work with
PHL-
GRU @ 4734 Mi and
CLT-
GRU is 4623 miles. The range for the Airbus 330-300 is 5,650 mi.
US could also easily do Lima.
CLT/
PHL-
LIM is about 3300 miles.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:00 am
by xtoler
I'm not sure if we have enough of us US citizens who would want to go down there. I think it would be cool, but the way we're thought of down in that neck of the woods is not exactly friendly.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:05 am
by USAirALB
are u kidin? im savin up to go to rio on
DL!
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:17 am
by OB1504
Quoting USAirALB (Thread starter): For NW:
NW could probably fill a 747-400 for DTW-Sau Paulo(connecting to Rio), possibly to Lima. All other US carriers do fine in S. America.(on most routes)
|
A 747-400, maybe not at first (perhaps with connections on to Asia; they have an excellent Asian network), but they could certainly do well in that market with an A330.
With a 757, 767 or an A330? I think an A330 may be a little overkill, especially considering how
AA,
CO,
DL, and
LA pretty much have the
LIM-North America market snatched up already.
Quoting Xtoler (Reply 1): I'm not sure if we have enough of us US citizens who would want to go down there. I think it would be cool, but the way we're thought of down in that neck of the woods is not exactly friendly. |
Although the type of person who tends to go to South America tends not to be the stereotypical, passport-free American.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:24 am
by AlexPorter
I don't think
NW will do anything, but will instead rely on
CO. If this was pre-alliance days and
NW really wanted to start something, it would probably start on the A332 or the 787 when they get those... or maybe a 757
MEM-Columbia or Ecuador.
On a side note, does Aruba count as South America? It is REALLY close to Venezuela. I know most of the Caribbean is considered North America, but Aruba isn't by any of the other islands. Same goes for Trinidad & Tobago. US Airways does serve Aruba, and I think
NW is more likely to start flying there before anywhere else in South America, especially without any SkyTeam hubs in South America.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:10 am
by bsbisland
At least in the case of Brazil, as the bilateral restricts, there is no more frequencies available for US airlines to operate to Brazil.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:00 am
by juventus
I don't think
NW has much interest in South America, specially as a Skyteam member. They'll let
DL and
CO deal with that. US could do something out of
PHL, don't know why they haven't.
To add to your question, why are
CO and
UA absent from Santiago, Chile???
UA used to fly there, maybe it didn't work, I don't know, but what about Continental???
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:03 am
by MAH4546
Quoting Juventus (Reply 6): To add to your question, why are CO and UA absent from Santiago, Chile??? UA used to fly there, maybe it didn't work, I don't know, but what about Continental??? |
It's a small market, for whatever reason. Even Delta and
AA have to rely largely on cargo revenues most of the year. It wasn't until this year that LAN Chile flew
LAX/
JFK-
SCL non-stop, and that is only because the Peruvian government revoked some of their Peru-USA fifth freedom rights.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:31 pm
by AlexPorter
Quoting MAH4546 (Reply 7): Even Delta and AA have to rely largely on cargo revenues most of the year. |
Of course,
AA has the benefit of LAN being a oneworld partner, but I certainly don't doubt you. The fact that
AA needs cargo revs on that route part of the year despite connecting two oneworld hubs may explain why most other airlines don't serve
SCL at all.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:51 pm
by MAH4546
Quoting AlexPorter (Reply 8):
Of course, AA has the benefit of LAN being a oneworld partner, but I certainly don't doubt you. The fact that AA needs cargo revs on that route part of the year despite connecting two oneworld hubs may explain why most other airlines don't serve SCL at all.
|
I should have made more clear that it is the Dallas flight that relies heavily on cargo revenues. Miami flights perform well in both departments, with
AA operating extra frequencies during the Chilean summer.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:35 pm
by dellatorre
In the case of Brazil, only four USA airlines are allowed to fly here according to the current bilateral agreement. Even if that wasn't the case, NWA & US Airways would be shooting their own feet if they launched such service. The market is much well covered with
AA,
UA,
CO &
DL, plus
JJ &
RG (next year).
So as you can see, the chances of both airlines coming to Brazil are close to none!!!
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:49 pm
by A388
Quoting AlexPorter (Reply 4): On a side note, does Aruba count as South America? It is REALLY close to Venezuela. I know most of the Caribbean is considered North America, but Aruba isn't by any of the other islands. Same goes for Trinidad & Tobago. |
Aruba is part of the Caribbean and not South America. The same goes for all other islands in the Caribbean, which is not North America. Since when is the Caribbean considered North America?
A388
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:32 pm
by exFATboy
Quoting USAirALB (Thread starter): There are 2 major US carriers at this time that do not serve mainland S.America,NW and US. Do any of these airlines have any plans to start service? |
Not sure I'd be seeing the point - most of the destinations are already covered by their alliance partners (SkyTeam and Star, respectively), so why bother?
Quoting A388 (Reply 11): Since when is the Caribbean considered North America? |
I'd guess it's because most of the Caribbean is at latitudes that are considered "North American"? And that much of it is English or French speaking - or in the case of Puerto Rico is politically part of the United States - and thus culturally more "north" than "south"? Not a perfect explanation, to be sure - Mexico is Spanish-speaking, yet clearly part of North America, and many of the islands are closer to South America than North America.
While on a high level of geography I guess you have to make an arbitrary assignment of islands to one of the six continents and it gets a little subjective (where do you draw the line between Australia and Asia, for example?), for travelling purposes I've always thought of the Caribbean as...well, the Caribbean, a separate entity.
A lot of subjectivity here - a lot of people consider Belize Caribbean, not Central America, because culturally it has more in common with the Commonwealth parts of the Caribbean than it does with its Spanish-speaking neighbours.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:07 am
by BigGSFO
Quoting USAirALB (Thread starter): For NW:
NW could probably fill a 747-400 for DTW-Sau Paulo(connecting to Rio), possibly to Lima. All other US carriers do fine in S. America.(on most routes) |
Is there any traffic from
DTW to
GRU? I can't imagine there's enough to sustain a non-stop, which would have to be daily to appeal to the higher yielding crowd, let alone a 747. Remember it would require two 747's in order to be competitive.
DTW-Lima traffic is non-exsistent. Chicago doesn't have
LIM service and arguably that is a much larger Midwest-South America market than Detroit.
Quoting USAirALB (Thread starter): US could make the same routes work, but don't have sufficient aircraft at the time.
At this time US could make GRU work with PHL-GRU @ 4734 Mi and CLT-GRU is 4623 miles. The range for the Airbus 330-300 is 5,650 mi.
US could also easily do Lima. CLT/PHL-LIM is about 3300 miles. |
Yeah, maybe
PHL/
CLT-
GRU, but as mentioned before, there are no slots.
USA-Lima is simply not that big of a market. Outside of South Florida and New York, and the Latin American gateways of Atlanta and Houston, Lima service probably can't be sustained. LAN offers
LAX but that flight also continues to
SCL,
GRU etc.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:20 am
by PavlovsDog
I think it's more likely that one of them buys Spirit than starts their own services from scratch.
In
NW's case they'd get rid of a pesky competitor in Detroit and get a hub in Fort Lauderdale.
Spirit's fleet would be a perfect fit for either
NW or US.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:38 am
by greggarious
Quoting BigGSFO (Reply 13): Remember it would require two 747's in order to be competitive. |
Hoping to learn more about how aIrline scheduling works, I ask: why is this?
Agreed, and I get the impression that that is the case for most of the Continent in general. Sometime in the next decade there will be ample reason to explore increased service to and from South America, but US airlines (especially
AA) have the US-South America market covered as well as they can for the time being.
Quoting PavlovsDog (Reply 14): I think it's more likely that one of them buys Spirit than starts their own services from scratch. |
An intriguing idea, but it would run into trouble for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I don't believe that
FLL has the adequate customs/immigration facilities for much more int'l flights than it receives already. Secondly (and far more importantly), there's the huge presence of
AA and
MIA 20 miles to the south. That is an enormous cliff to scale.
Normally I'm not one to nitpick, but the correct spelling of this particular country is "Colombia", whether in English or Spanish. Just a heads-up.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:49 am
by DAL767400ER
Quoting Dellatorre (Reply 10): In the case of Brazil, only four USA airlines are allowed to fly here according to the current bilateral agreement. |
It's not the number of airlines limited, it's the number of weekly frequencies. If, say,
AA or
DL were to give up 3 weekly frequencies,
NW or US could come in and start service if they are being allocated the slots. But none of the carriers currently flying to Brazil will give up flights. Besides, if the bilateral was restricted by airlines and not flights, you'd see
AA all over the place flying to
REC,
FOR,
BSB and perhaps other cities from
MIA, instead of focusing solely on
GRU and
GIG.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:56 am
by BigGSFO
Quoting Greggarious (Reply 15): Quoting BigGSFO (Reply 13):
Remember it would require two 747's in order to be competitive.
Hoping to learn more about how aIrline scheduling works, I ask: why is this? |
The higher yielding crowd demands red eye non-stops from the USA to deep South America (
GRU,
EZE,
GIG, etc). Airlines leave the USA at night arrive early morning in South America. The plane sits around all day until it comes back at night arriving in the USA early morning. As inefficient as this sounds, the yields justify this type of operation. If
NW were to ever launch such a route - and assuming there was traffic to support it - they would have to dedicate two aircraft.
There are some exceptions to this rule mostly from from
MIA (and
ATL too?) where the traffic can warrant daylight operations..
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 1:07 am
by FLY2LIM
Quoting Xtoler (Reply 1): I'm not sure if we have enough of us US citizens who would want to go down there. I think it would be cool, but the way we're thought of down in that neck of the woods is not exactly friendly. |
Not sure which South America you are talking about. Where I come from, US citizens (and their money) are more than welcome.
Quoting OB1504 (Reply 3): With a 757, 767 or an A330? I think an A330 may be a little overkill, especially considering how AA, CO, DL, and LA pretty much have the LIM-North America market snatched up already. |
Don't forget Spirit and Taca.
Quoting AlexPorter (Reply 4): On a side note, does Aruba count as South America? It is REALLY close to Venezuela. I know most of the Caribbean is considered North America, but Aruba isn't by any of the other islands. Same goes for Trinidad & Tobago. US Airways does serve Aruba, and I think NW is more likely to start flying there before anywhere else in South America, especially without any SkyTeam hubs in South America. |
While it's already been pointed out that
AUA is the Caribbean, being 19 miles off the coast of Venezuela sure helps your argument.
As for it not being by any other islands, Aruba is part of the ABC islands, the other two being Curacao and Bonaire. I believe that they are about 30 miles apart from each other.
FLY2LIM
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 1:18 am
by 2travel2know
Quoting BSBIsland (Reply 5): At least in the case of Brazil, as the bilateral restricts, there is no more frequencies available for US airlines to operate to Brazil. |
I would think that if any U.S. airline wants to fly to
FOR,
REC or
SSA; ANAC and INFRAERO would welcome that service.
Quoting Juventus (Reply 6): To add to your question, why are CO and UA absent from Santiago, Chile??? UA used to fly there, maybe it didn't work, I don't know, but what about Continental??? |
CO currently code-shares with
CM the
PTY-
SCL-
PTY flight, so if someone wants to fly
CO to
SCL, that would be the only option. I don't see
CO starting
IAH-
SCL anytime soon,
CO better use its B767 on its
EWR-Europe routes.
US to Southamerica? Lets face it, US hubs aren't magnets for U.S. - Southamerica traffic and US might not have enough planes with the range needed for those routes.
I Could imagine some very limited success, only if awesome connections provided, for
PHL-
BOG,
CLT-
CCS,
CLT-
BOG and
CLT-
LIM.
PHX-
LIM? I don''t think so. If US is into leisure routes, then 1-2 weekly red-eyes
PHL-
FOR (with or without
REC/
SSA) would be very interesting.
NW to Southamerica?
NW already code-shares on
CO and
CM flights. Maybe due to SkyTeam cooperation, a
DTW-
PTY or even
MEM-
PTY could be in the drawing board. Other than that, I don't see
NW trying
DTW-
GRU DTW-
BOG or
DTW-
LIM, much less Southamerican flights out of
MEM, unless it's
BOG w/CO,
DL P5 codeshare but
MEM must have the best and cheapest connections they can offer (reckon it could be easier for
NW to find an aircraft on its fleet capable of flying
MEM-
BOG than to other deep Southamerican destiantions).
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:20 am
by airtran717
Quoting USAirALB (Thread starter): There are 2 major US carriers at this time that do not serve mainland S.America,NW and US. |
Actually, unless I misunderstand the thread.... AirTran is also considered a major airline these days... they do not serve South America either...
717
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:27 am
by MAH4546
Quoting 2travel2know (Reply 19): I would think that if any U.S. airline wants to fly to FOR, REC or SSA; ANAC and INFRAERO would welcome that service. |
No, they don't.
AA has been asking for access to Salvador and Recife for years to absolutely no results.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:33 am
by greggarious
Quoting AirTran717 (Reply 20): Actually, unless I misunderstand the thread.... AirTran is also considered a major airline these days... they do not serve South America either... |
I think it's safe to assume that the OP was referring to "major US carriers with significant international (read: longhaul) operations." Note how other major US airlines such as Southwest, JetBlue, Alaska, et. al haven't made their way into the discussion, either.
Thanks for the help!
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:34 am
by Cubsrule
I think it's just a question of the market being saturated. Sure, Chile is one of the richest countries in the region (while copper prices are high, anyway), but Santiago is only about 1/3 the size of Buenos Aires and Chile is only about half the size of Argentina. The market can only support so much service, and outside of NYC/So.Cal/
MIA, O&D is almost nonexistent.
Quoting 2travel2know (Reply 19):
CO currently code-shares with CM the PTY-SCL-PTY flight, so if someone wants to fly CO to SCL, that would be the only option. |
CO also codeshares on
DL 146/147. Flight numbers, for the moment anyway, are
CO 4242/4078.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:36 am
by EXAAUADL
Quoting USAirALB (Thread starter): For NW:
NW could probably fill a 747-400 for DTW-Sau Paulo(connecting to Rio), possibly to Lima. All other US carriers do fine in S. America.(on most routes) |
A330 to
GRU would be the obvious, not 744. They dont have 2 free ones sitting around.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:39 am
by Cubsrule
One thing to keep in mind is that
NW has a mind-boggling amount of widebody capacity coming on-line in the next 5 years. While some of it will no doubt replace 744s converted to cargo operations, I think with respect to
NW, after 40 or so 787s have been delivered, we have a much more realistic shot of seeing them expand into Latin America. For now, it's simply not a priority.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 6:01 am
by Viscount724
Quoting Cubsrule (Reply 23): Quoting MAH4546 (Reply 7):
It's a small market, for whatever reason.
I think it's just a question of the market being saturated. Sure, Chile is one of the richest countries in the region (while copper prices are high, anyway), but Santiago is only about 1/3 the size of Buenos Aires and Chile is only about half the size of Argentina. The market can only support so much service, and outside of NYC/So.Cal/MIA, O&D is almost nonexistent. |
Which is no doubt why both
UA and
CO eliminated their service to Chile a few years ago. There was too much capacity, and with
LA and
AA having antitrust immunity they have a big advantage in being able to coordinate their schedules, pricing, codesharing etc.
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:01 am
by Cubsrule
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 26):
Which is no doubt why both UA and CO eliminated their service to Chile a few years ago. |
If
UA hadn't abandoned
MIA (which, arguably,
AA forced them to do), they could have kept
SCL. But there is simply not a good hub in the
UA system right now for service to
SCL (or really anywhere in South America outside of Brazil,
EZE, and perhaps
LIM and
BOG).
RE: US Carriers Without Service To S.America
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:49 pm
by LipeGIG
Even with available frequencies, bilateral Brazil-US is also restricted in terms of number of players.
4 US airlines flies nowadays because in 1994, there are 4 Brazilian Airlines (Varig, TAM, Vasp and Transbrasil).
Now with only 1 (should be 2 in the near future with Varig, and may be 3 with Ocean Air), it's IMPOSSIBLE to see a new US airline flying to Brazil, even to North, Northeast or
GIG, and IMPOSSIBLE to
GRU because of CONAC/ANAC restrictions, now in force.
Felipe