In mid-March,Delta announced that they planned to operate daily nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Beijing as of December 16, 2016. precisely two weeks later, or American announced that they planned to operate daily nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Beijing as of December 16,2016.
I'm certain I'm not the only one who thought that two airlines launching daily nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Beijing on the same day seemed like an overkill. But as it turns out there's a reason for that. It's because there's only one slot available for the flight, so only one airline will be granted the authority to operate the route.
Based on the timing of the announcement, or it seems pretty clear what happened. Delta decided they wanted to operate the route,and then American realized that Delta starting the route would prevent them from doing so. Since American is trying to turn Los Angeles into their gateway to Asia and establish a competitive advantage, they probably didn't want to lose out, and so filed for the authority to operate the same route.
Now the two airlines are left filing petitions with the Department of Transportation to obtain their respective cases,and they're quite amusing. This isn't the first time that American and Delta are fighting over slots -- they had the same argument over a Tokyo Haneda slot recently. The post American And Delta Battle Over Beijing appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
Source: boardingarea.com