Topic of the Week: Why is American Going to Seoul?

Korean flies nonstop from DFW-ICN. Delta, Korean’s US partner, doesn’t have a large DFW presence, so I doubt that flight is about connections to the rest of the U.S. I think the DFW-ICN nonstop on Korean is indicative, then, of demand between the city pairs. If American can capitalize on that demand, plus getting connecting traffic to South American and other Texas cities, it seems like a smart move.

What interests does USAirways have in that region? Could this be a move that benefits the merged company?

With a lot of airlines wanting to fly to Japan and China, maybe AA is setting its sites on Korea. Plus it could be trying to get business in the southern/midwest region heading to Korea on AA instead of Skyteam partners KE/DL. Connections to Latin America could also be a possibility. KE does fly LAX-Sao Paulo 3x a week so AA can compete again then with one stop service in the ICN-GRU market.

Cranky: “I’m sure Latin has something to do with this – after all, the flight connects perfectly with the new Dallas-Lima flight, but DFW is far from being a huge Latin connecting point for American.”

Uh, shouldn’t that read “Latin America?”

Well, it is a sizeable local market and can draw feed from Houston as well as other Southern cities. KE maintained the DFW service after DL closed DFW and even after Continental joined Skyteam…there is a definitive reason that KE stayed in the market. For AA to devote a heavy to a route like this must mean there is some money on the table.

Makes me wonder how much UA evaluated an IAH-ICN flight. With that they would’ve connected a major and unserved US city to Seoul, grabbed alot of the Latin and Southern U.S. connections, and have a partner in ICN to boot

I think this has something to do with the new dance craze “Gangnam Style”. Kidding, honestly though, I think the Korean market has potential.

I assume that part of it has to do with military, defense contractor and other government demand. There aren’t many nonstops from the continental US to Korea on US-flag metal — only DL from DTW and UA from SFO.