True David. The BIG 3 would the 1st to know about it. American is consistantly adjust ing their 'on again-off again' LAX-CDG 763 service pure only market demand and yield. If they can't make a commentment in that market (as Air France does twice daily -sometimes 3 a day) it speaks volumes about Italy. Alitalia flew the route with 747s then MD11s and as a biz assoc. who used it quite often said 'It's crowded up front....but not so crowded in the back. But the numbers really fell after 9/11. Personally, I think if normal traffic levels reappear...then so will AZ in the LAX-Italy market. It seems they enjoyed having that market all to themselves. Greg "David W. Levine" wrote: > At 01:41 PM 5/7/2003 -0400, you wrote: > >DEmocrat2n@xxxxxxx writes: > > > > > not having a single carrier in the LAX-Italy market is idiotic and a > > > waste of a money-making oppertunity > > > > > > >I had heard that the market to Europe in general (and Italy in particular) > >from LAX was 99% low fare tourist traffic. Little or no high yield tkts sold > >and little new traffic generated. AZ probably gets the same passengers now > >via Chicago or NewYork that it carried on the LAX flights yaers ago. > >Like it's been said--if there was a buck to be made---someone would fly the > >route. > >Dennis > > In particular, LAX isn't an airport with constrained landing rights, > horribly constrained slots > at the customs and immigration facility, or anything like that. You've got AMR > and UAL who both have substantial presences, coupled with fairly decent feeder > networks and plenty of O+D traffic. You've got DL, which has plenty of > business to > Europe, you've got lots of possible players and... nobody wants to do it. > The airlines > have a fair selection of plausible equipment, and plenty of them have 777 > capacity > at hand. If this was an open and closed case with obvious traffic, someone > would fly > it. Further, in these days of alliances, code-shares and the like, the > major players > like UAL and AMR and CO and DL can all see what the connecting traffic from LAX > to Italy looks like, and see if the yields and loads are there. > > - David