Delta Replaces Northwest from Los Angeles to Las Vegas

The simple act of Delta replacing Northwest in a market is nothing special. We’ve seen this time and time again since the merger, as Delta looks to best match capacity and increase utilization of the combined fleet. But the decision to replace Northwest on the Vegas to LA route is actually a very interesting one that’s worth a closer look.

It probably goes without saying that there is a lot of demand for Asian travelers to go to Vegas. Some Asian carriers actually fly to Vegas, but others fly to gateways in LA and San Francisco and then feed domestic airlines to get people to Vegas. Northwest, not having a west coast gateway, used to do the same thing. They would fly passengers from their Tokyo hub to multiple west coast cities and then feed other airlines.

But there was a problem with this strategy. As demand increased, the other domestic airlines started charging more for the service. Northwest would collect the fare from Tokyo to Vegas and then have to give a piece to the other airline for the onward transportation. It got so bad that several years ago, Northwest decided to actually fly the route with its own metal because it made more sense. We still see that structure in place today, and it looks like this:

Northwest 2 Leave Tokyo 335p Arrive LAX 910a
Northwest 628 Leave LAX 1115a Arrive Las Vegas 1224p

Northwest 629 Leave Las Vegas 9a Arrive LAX 1013a
Northwest 1 Leave LAX 1135a Arrive Tokyo 415p (one day later)

But now, Delta is coming in and shaking it up completely. The basic idea of replacing a 148 seat Northwest aircraft with a 70 to 76 seat Delta Connection plane does make sense. Northwest only flew the A320 because it didn’t have smaller planes flying in the West, and Delta has the flexibility to do just that. But Delta has also decided to change the times to break the Tokyo connection. Yikes.

Now, the flights will be lined up to feed the new Delta Sydney flight instead as follows:

Delta 16 Leave Sydney 915a Arrive LAX 6a
Delta 4492 Leave LAX 730a Arrive Las Vegas 840a

Delta 4603 Leave Las Vegas 830p Arrive LAX 940p
Delta 17 Leave LAX 1040p Arrive Sydney 640a (two days later)

These new flights no longer get even close to connecting to the Tokyo flight, and they won’t feed the new Sao Paulo flight either. Delta has decided that it doesn’t need to feed the Tokyo flights anymore, possibly because a smaller plane is now flying the Tokyo route. I suppose it may now rely upon Alaska to get Vegas passengers to Seattle or Portland and then they can carry them on, but this still seems like a shortsighted move simply to fill up a new flight at the expense of an existing one.