Delta drops all flights from Ontario (CA) to Dallas

[question everything]

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Delta drops all flights from Ontario to Dallas

Friday, October 01, 2004 - ONTARIO -- All three daily nonstop Delta Air Lines flights from Ontario International Airport to Dallas/Ft. Worth will be discontinued and an additional flight will be added to Salt Lake City starting Jan. 31, a Delta official said Friday.

The change is part of a significant restructuring recently announced by the airline in which Dallas will no longer be a Delta hub or have Delta regional jet operations, said spokesman Anthony Black.

The airline is eliminating flights to Dallas except those from its hubs in Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Cincinnati because of financial reasons.

(snip)

The airline was unable to compete in the Dallas market because it was not the largest carrier -- which was American Airlines -- or the lowest cost carrier, which was Southwest Airlines, Black said.

(snip)

http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21482~2440281,00.html#

[punpirate]

1. It wasn't able to compete in Dallas...

... because they ran it as a shoestring operation off Atlanta. Never went through Dallas on Delta without significant delays.

The airlines begged for deregulation, and unfortunately, Carter gave it to them (it was one of his bigger mistakes). It's gone from the best airline system in the world to one of the worst--the seating's gone from way past cramped to downright tortuous, the service generally stinks and smaller airports are getting the shaft on flights, delays are commonplace, ticket prices are completely unpredictable (and at times downright rapacious), there are mothballed aircraft stored all over the country, and everyone on Wall Street is waiting for the day when there's just two carriers slugging it out to become the only one--and when that happens, it can only get worse.

Ever since 1977, it's been a race to the bottom. This is just another example.