DFW vs IAH

[Chris725]

I'm sure they do. And I understand that they are all huge employers, and bring in lots of money. But to be the "Airport of Choice" and have little or no choice of airlines doesn't really make sense. Very few foreign flag carriers, domestic airlines are slowly going away, ATA, Spirit, Champion, Kitty Hawk Cargo, and maybe Sun Country.....Delta/Northwest merger (resulting in fewer flights and gates?)...... JetBlue and Virgin America nowhere to be seen. Of course you will always have the Southwest at Love and not DFW, even though they can go head to head with AA any day of the week. And so can JetBlue. When DFW says airlines might expand service they never do. Just seems it's awfully one sided. Atlanta, and Houston still have more choices of carriers both Foreign and Domestic. Every airline that has been woo'd by DFW has gone to Houston. Except...KLM who already flies to Houston.

[tmoney72]

Every airline that has been woo'd by DFW has gone to Houston. Except...KLM who already flies to Houston.

AF: started HOU (yes, what is now Hobby) back in the 60s.
AM : "DITTO"
LH: began IAH ops in the 80s, actually DFW had LH service a few years before IAH
BR: (British Caledonian) later BA in the late 80s, began IAH in the late 70s.

Save for LH, I can not think of any int'l carrier that was woo'd by DFW first, that opted for IAH instead and Lufthy kept DFW.
.
DFW in it's own right has had a fairly impressive roster of carriers and aircraft over the years.

Air New Zealand
Thai
BI/BA Concorde, late 70s


Thomas

[captmidnight]

So things against DFW's favor are: geographical location (bad for int'l, good for domestic); AA; AA and AA.
Houston is closer to Central and South America (for CO, is IAH like AA's MIA?), plus they have oil/energy. What does DFW have besides having AA and oneworld?
.
.
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hope AA doesn't start AMS and ICN.

[Greg]

A few thoughts, in no particular order:

AA doesn't serve AMS at all, so I don't think KLM has to worry about any competition on the DFW-AMS run. I think they are doing pretty good so far, mostly inline with expectations on this route.

I think with the oil companies, and port, IAH will always be ahead of DFW in terms of Intl. traffic. Maybe frequencies will go up and down, but on carriers, DFW will probably always be behind.

ANY carrier at their main hub, be it AA at DFW, CO at IAH, NW at MSP etc will aggressively defend the turf and drive away new entrants or rivals, even if it means taking a short term loss. At least, from what I have seen. Examples at DFW include AA matching AirTran's pricing on their two daily LAX flights on all 40 flights to 5 L.A. area airports. AirTran dropped DFW-LAX not long after. On the other hand, I was surprised when AA launched DFW-SAN, thinking they would put TACA away. Instead, TACA stayed and AA dropped the route after a few months. So anything is possible!

I think the Delta buyout of Northwest will not have too much of an effect on combined flight ops from DFW. When America West bought out US Airways, we didn't see drastic reductions from DFW. Delta and Northwest serve different cities.

I think tmoney72 is incorrect on one thing, I don't believe Air New Zealand or Thai have ever served DFW, at least, not with their own metal. Please, correct me if I am wrong though.

AA seems content to expand their Intl. traffic from either Chicago, ie service to Moscow, or Miami, where they just launched five new routes.

[captmidnight]

AA seems content to expand their Intl. traffic from either Chicago, ie service to Moscow, or Miami, where they just launched five new routes.

Need some answers on this one: besides geography, why is AA bypassing DFW in their new int'l routes?

[captmidnight]

I think tmoney72 is incorrect on one thing, I don't believe Air New Zealand or Thai have ever served DFW, at least, not with their own metal. Please, correct me if I am wrong though.

Though i dont have the facts to back it, I'm putting my money on TG and NZ serving DFW at some point in the 80's. I've read it somewhere....

[tmoney72]

Whil I distinctly recall seeing a NZ 742 at DFW in the late 80s, while connecting on a DL flight, still I have no proof. I also recall reading in a travel magazine around the same time that TG (Thai) had a BKK-NRT-SEA-DFW run. I started a thread on A.Net asking if anyone recalls the flights. For some odd reason I can not post the link, odd, so I pasted in the thread below.......

Alright you DFW fans (especially you old timers), trivia time. I have a friend who says that TG and NZ never serviced DFW, I say the opposite. I am certain that these carriers serviced DFW in the 80s, but I need specific years. Sadly, there are no pics anywhere in any of the DBs or elsewhere on the web that would give solid proof of these two carriers ran DFW flights. If memory serves, TG ran BKK-NRT-SEA-DFW, I am not certain of NZ's routing but I believed that it arrived from FRA and continued on to AKL.

Thanks,

Thomas


5 replies: (all read), jump to last



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Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 6835 posts, RR: 1
Reply 1, posted Fri Nov 7 2008 15:31:01 your local time (7 hours 4 minutes 40 secs ago) and read 292 times:


According to the NZ history timeline below, their DFW service started October 28, 1987 and ended March 22, 1989. I believe the 747-200 was used. The original routing was AKL-PPT-DFW-LHR. Not sure whether that routing ever changed. If memory correct, their FRA service was via LAX, not DFW.
http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/resource ... feb_06.pdf






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ThaiAggie From United States, joined Feb 2004, 222 posts, RR: 0
Reply 2, posted Fri Nov 7 2008 16:36:25 your local time (5 hours 59 minutes 16 secs ago) and read 233 times:


I flew TG on my first time to the US: BKK-NRT-SEA-DFW in 1987 and DFW-SEA-TPE-BKK on the way back. Flight number was 740/741 for NRT stopover and 760/761 for TPE stopover. It ran may be 3 times a week. So YES THAI did fly to DFW. It was nice to see 2 TG's 747-200 at SEA parking side by side.



Barrow, Alaska in Feb. It was Cold!



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Utapao From Thailand, joined Jul 2005, 601 posts, RR: 7
Reply 3, posted Fri Nov 7 2008 17:50:26 your local time (4 hours 45 minutes 15 secs ago) and read 178 times:


I know Thai was here in mid 80's... 85/86???? They did BKK-xxx-SEA-DFW-SEA-xxx-BKK. Assume it was NRT, but could be wrong. I was able to fly the DFW-SEA-DFW flight on 3 occasions as a guest of Thai, but ironically never took the flight beyond to Thailand. The SEA-DFW-SEA did not sell as local traffic, of course. But the service was unequaled for a "domestic US flight".



Sawatdee khrab!



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AznMadSci From United States, joined Dec 2007, 635 posts, RR: 0
Reply 4, posted Fri Nov 7 2008 18:14:46 your local time (4 hours 20 minutes 55 secs ago) and read 148 times:




Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 1):
AKL-PPT-DFW-LHR.

It should be LGW not LHR.



I'm being flanked by LoxP sites!!!



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Utapao From Thailand, joined Jul 2005, 601 posts, RR: 7
Reply 5, posted Fri Nov 7 2008 19:53:45 your local time (2 hours 41 minutes 56 secs ago) and read 74 times:


Sure miss seeing TG and NZ around.

But still fun to watch the west side cargo area and see:

Cathay
Air China
China Airlines
EVA
Korean
Lufthansa
Singapore
among others

Sure breaks up the polished metal Super 80's!






Thomas

[Greg]

Here is the link to the thread you posted:

Airliners.net thread

I didn't see anything after a quick look on http://www.departedflights.com, but the link to the Air New Zealand thread proves me wrong. They did indeed serve DFW!

[ZuluLima]

Luckily weather, time off, and cheap gas conspired to get me down to IAH for the second time this year over the weekend. I'll have pics up on my photo page this Friday for anyone who's interested in what there is to see there. I highly recommend the trip. Basic rundown of what I saw Saturday and Sunday:

Lufthansa 744 x2
British Airways 744 x4
KLM 744 x2
Saudi Arabian Cargo 742F
Cargolux 744F
Southern/Cargo 360 742F
EVA Air Cargo 744F
China Airlines Cargo 744F
Emirates 772LR x2
Singapore 773ER x2
Air France 773 x2
PrivatAir BBJ2
TACA A320 x2
Aeromexico Connect E190 x4
Antonov Airlines AN-124
A-Star (DHL) 722F
Many Continental 772, 762, 764, and 753s

[TeRenCeBeN]

I have been visiting Dallas over the last 17 years of living in Texas (including living a year in Irving), frankly, there is little difference betwen Big-D and H-Town, with regards to class breakdown, but thats a personal observation.