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Direct Flight to Asia from Charlotte


monsoon

Direct Flight to Asia from Charlotte  

81 members have voted

  1. 1. Could Charlotte's Hub support a direct flight to an Asian City?

    • No - USAir and Charlotte are not ready for it
      27
    • Yes - Charlotte is USAir's largest hub
      46
    • Not sure
      8
  2. 2. What is the most important city?

    • Tokyo
      36
    • HongKong
      37
    • Seoul
      3
    • Singapore
      0
    • other
      5


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This question was inspired by a similar topic in the Nashville forum. Why doesn't Charlotte have a direct flight from its very large hub here in Charlotte to a city in Asia? Say Tokyo, HongKong or Singapore. Today if you book a flight to one of these places on USAir, they will code share it onto United and you have to make a connection in another city. Charlotte has had a lot of successes over the past few years ranging from skyscrapers to mass transit, to museums, to growth, etc. A direct connection to Asia seems to be one of the missing elements in this city. What do you think? Could Charlotte support a direct airline flight to Asia?

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This question was inspired by a similar topic in the Nashville forum. Why doesn't Charlotte have a direct flight from its very large hub here in Charlotte to a city in Asia? Say Tokyo, HongKong or Singapore. Today if you book a flight to one of these places on USAir, they will code share it onto United and you have to make a connection in another city. Charlotte has had a lot of successes over the past few years ranging from skyscrapers to mass transit, to museums, to growth, etc. A direct connection to Asia seems to be one of the missing elements in this city. What do you think? Could Charlotte support a direct airline flight to Asia?

I'm not sure there are any jets that go that far without having to stop to refuel.

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I voted Hong Kong in regards to its banking center. The flights going over there would be nearly all business travelers and hardly anything else. It would be very beneficial to the future of uptown to expand its banking operations. Tokyo, one of the top 5 largest cities in the world does have banking but not at Hong Kongs level. Charlotte does not support a large enough population to serve flights to/from Tokyo (or any other aforementioned Asian cities in the list) for non-business travel.

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Both Wachovia and BofA are expanding the HK presence correct? While I agree that there is probably not a lot of daily travel for either company, as they run up again national anti-trust laws that cap their deposit limits, they will be forced to acquire internationally.....China seems to be the hot market for everything else, so why not full service banking.....if both banks go full service in Asia, I see a HK flight as a possibility.

Edit. If United had successfully merged with USAir, then I think a Tokyo flight would have been realistic, as they wanted to compete with Delta on many of the international routes flown out of Atlanta. If USAir can stay afloat and stay in the Star Alliance, then it might make sense to have future Asia connections originate in Charlotte, though only in cases where there is more than enough demand to also serve the destination from Dulles.

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Connecting traffic would go a long way to filling such a flight, and to me HKG seems the most logical choice, however... USAirways (nee America West) has no plans to expand service to Asia. They are focused on Europe pretty excusively in terms of international growth. Since that'd mean another Star Alliance member would be the next best choice (selling continuing domestic USAirways flights as their own, or offering their transpacific flight as a USAirways codeshare), then that pretty much leaves Asiana, which flies to Incheon (Seoul), so that may be the more realistic choice.

You can forget about United, which offers tons of service to most Asian gateways from O'Hare from setting up such service. They wouldn't establish a direct transpacific flight in a non-United hub location. The local market would have to be so lucrative that a complete outsider like Cathay Pacific would have to throw it's hat into the ring, which I doubt. They could codeshare with their Oneworld partner, American Airlines, but AA would most likely want that traffic routed via Dallas.

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Well as far as Star Alliance....why not Singapore Airlines or ANA?

Regardless, I think we are still 15 years away from either.

The Charlotte area is going to have to recruit a lot more Asian businesses within a 100 mile radius. Getting a couple of car manufactures or high-tech R&D labs would help.....the NC Bio-Research Center is Nap-town sent a contingency to an Asian bio-research trade show to recruite businesses.

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I voted Singapore..had too, its where I was born :thumbsup: Singapore would be a good first start for Charlotte. They share many similarities: both benevolent dictatorships :lol: very clean and green..ultramodern and constantly building skyscrapers. Although in Singapore its illegal to chew gum in certain areas, they hang you if you are caught with drugs, monitor web surfing, have CCTV everywhere... but its very safe,you can walk the streets 24/7 without worry. Finally, you have not flown until you experience Singapore Airlines, the service is so stellar that you don't want to get off when arriving at your final destination.

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I just got back from a trip to Seoul, and I'm not sure I would want a direct flight from CLT. When travelling to Asia, I actually avoid flying out of Atlanta b/c the longer flights. I prefer to chill out in California or Hawaii for a few hours to stretch out. With that in mind, I wonder if people from outside the CLT market would want to connect in CLT for a trip to Asia.

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Here's another way to think about it: Except for HKG, I think any Asian city stands an equal chance of having new air service established between them and any mid-tier US city. That chance being 0.0%. The markets for Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, etc are already well served by the network already in place. The only dynamic that will (and is) changing this is the explosive growth in China. That is what will justify any new routing from here to there. HKG is the entryway into China with thousands of flights every day to cities like Shenzhen, Changchun, Hangzhou, etc. With more and more US companies establishing operations (manufacturing plants mostly) in these recently opened areas, that, in my opinion, is the only thing that's gonna get something like a CLT - Far East flight even close to being realized.

Well, you could say why not just fly from Charlotte to Tokyo (or Incheon or Singapore) and then to Hangzhou or Shenzhen on one of these other airlines that has a hub in those cities. The simple answer is you can't. The Chinese gov't forbids it. Any flight into China has to stop in one of three airports: HKG, Shanghai, and Beijing before one can connect to an intra-China flight. And HKG has TONS more direct flights to these far-flung places than the other two. So, that is why I believe Hong Kong is the only choice, and a far-fetched one at that.

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Indeed. One would be surprised by the number of Japanese firms operating in the Metrolina area. For example one would never know this operation is owned by a Japanese firm and they have a contingent here to operate this rather large manufacturing plant. And there many other places like that that are served by Douglas.

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Both Wachovia and BofA are expanding the HK presence correct? While I agree that there is probably not a lot of daily travel for either company, as they run up again national anti-trust laws that cap their deposit limits, they will be forced to acquire internationally.....China seems to be the hot market for everything else, so why not full service banking.....if both banks go full service in Asia, I see a HK flight as a possibility.

That is correct about expansion. I can answer that from the Wachovia side. Right now, Wach has over 500+ employees between two buildings and they adding staff it seems like every day.

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While Hong Kong does seem the obvious choice, I would also like to bypass LA on trips to Sydney if I could. It's the 17th largest city in the world. Seems there is also a good bit of banking there as it is Australia's banking capital. But that's just wishful thinking on my part.

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I am not completely sure, but I believe that Sydney from Charlotte may be out of range of most of today's planes.

Yea, you're right. If you go by coordinates, Sydney is practically on the exact opposite side of the world from Charlotte, given you went straight through the core of course.

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US Airways has B767s and A330s for its international flights. UA has B777s, B747s and B767s. Not sure of the ranges of US's planes but maybe the 777 and 747 are the only ones that could do an Asia trip?

As a very frequent US Airways flier, I don't see that the airline has any plans at all for any Asian service, let alone expanded West Coast service. United would probably balk at any such expansion.

And US being US, the "low cost carrier" that flies to Europe on domestic-configuration 757s (with even seats in First being cramped), I'd hate to see what type of cattle car US would send to Asia. As a frequent flier, I'd rather do the trip on United- with First (lie-flat seats), Business, Economy Plus and coach, meaning a very slim chance of being stuck in a cramped seat.

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US Airways has B767s and A330s for its international flights. UA has B777s, B747s and B767s. Not sure of the ranges of US's planes but maybe the 777 and 747 are the only ones that could do an Asia trip?

As a very frequent US Airways flier, I don't see that the airline has any plans at all for any Asian service, let alone expanded West Coast service. United would probably balk at any such expansion.

And US being US, the "low cost carrier" that flies to Europe on domestic-configuration 757s (with even seats in First being cramped), I'd hate to see what type of cattle car US would send to Asia. As a frequent flier, I'd rather do the trip on United- with First (lie-flat seats), Business, Economy Plus and coach, meaning a very slim chance of being stuck in a cramped seat.

Something like United p.s. across the pond would be brilliant.

US domestic configured 757's? Yuck.

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The Southeast needs a flight to Hong Kong for sure, don't forget about all the textiles and apparel. The companies that used to make ini the South are now sourcing from China and to get there you have to either connect through JFK, Chicago or LA/San Fran. Atlanta was up for the last opening on flights to Charlotte but instead of giving the Southeast some flights, the FAA decided to grant American flights out of Chicago, they didn't seem to consider that United already has 10 flights a week to Hong Kong. Completely rediculous. So yes, I would love to see Charlotte with some flights. The new Boeings and the A360 Airbus can all make this flight.

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