TAP Portugal announces Chicago and Washington DC

TAP Portugal has officially announced that it will be expanding its presence in the U.S. market by launching 2 new destinations from June 2019 as it looks to capitalize on flying to major Star Alliance hubs to feed its EU and African network. 

ORD - new 5 weekly nonstop flights to be launched effective 01JUN-19 using an A330-900Neo (A339)

IAD - new 5 weekly nonstop flights to be launched effective 016JUN-19 using an A339

The P2P market demand between these two above cities and LIS in 2017 versus 2016 were as follows:

IAD - 29,000 pax in 2017 versus 21,000 in 2016
ORD - 23,000 pax in 2017 versus 17,000 in 2016

my analysis - is LAX-DEL feasible for Air India?

Qatar Airways increases Montreal

Qatar Airways has officially been granted an additional weekly service into Canada by Transport Canada and hence has opened for sale across all major GDS systems this new flight effective 17DEC-18.

The additional frequency shall be operated on Mondays using the same schedule and aircraft (B77W) as the other 3 days of the week (WED FRI SUN).   

Philippine Airlines increases Toronto and USA flights

Due to rising demand for its flights into North America, Philippine Airlines has officially announced that it will be boosting its presence in the marketplace from the on set of the IATA S19 season (31Mar-19):

YYZ - frequencies increased from 5 weekly to daily nonstop using an A359

JFK - frequencies increased from 5 weekly to daily nonstop using an A359

SFO - frequencies increased from daily to double daily nonstop using a B77W exclusively

LAX - frequencies increased from double daily to 17 weekly nonstop using a B77W exclusively

P2P demand from the above 3 markets in 2017 versus 2016 were as follows:

SFO - 326,000 vs 292,000

YYZ - 164,000 vs 136,000
JFK - 223,000 vs 218,000 (includes EWR)
LAX - 469,000 vs 431,000

my review of growing Seattle-Asia demand

Seattle to Southeast Asia demand has been rapidly increasing during this decade with more Orient carriers looking to take advantage of the city's economic boom as well as migration of skilled labor especially in the I-T sector hailing from India, China, South Korea and Japan. Year over year alone itself, demand to India + Southeast Asia to/from Seattle has increased by 24%. 

This demand is bound to increase by another 30% in 2019 as 3 Asian mega carriers launch their own dedicated nonstop flights into the city from April. Those 3 are as follows:

Cathay Pacific - 4 weekly flights using an A359

Japan Airlines - new daily flights using a B788

Singapore Airlines - 4 weekly flights using an A359

In addition to the above, Taiwan's Eva Air has too announced that it will be boosting its Seattle-Taipei services from daily to 10 weekly nonstop using a Boeing 777-300ER. 

To Hong Kong and Singapore, one can easily expect P2P demand to get a simulation boost of up to 40% whilst for Tokyo, it is expected to be around 25%-30% maximum only.

CX and SQ due to their geographical position will also be aggressively targeting passengers originating from India who supply the core of Emirates's feed on their daily DXB-SEA B77W operated service. No doubt that with the introduction of SQ and CX along with BR increasing its own operation, they will poach away a reasonable share of EK's on this route especially out of BOM, DEL, MAA and BLR.

Airlines such as EK, SQ and CX which do not work with DL out of SEA, are also attracted to the city due to their close business relationship with AS-Alaskan Airlines who has its largest hub at this very airport. AS will no doubt be responsible to supply CX, JL and SQ in particular with value able feed obtained from YVR, LAS, PDX, MSP, SJC, DEN, ANC, SLC etc in order to boost revenue and flight seat factor in turn. The feed provided by AS allows new airlines at SEA to diversify their passenger portfolio by not only be dependent on SEA ending demand but also on beyond transfer traffic hence spreading their eggs across many baskets.        

Mentioned below is the annual P2P market demand comparison to/from SEA (round trip passengers):

Route	2017	2016
ICN	156,000	141,000
NRT	125,000	122,00
KIX	12,000	10,000
PEK	98,000	96,000
PVG	97,000	88,000
CAN	12,000	11,000
MNL	71,000	63,000
TPE	61,000	58,000
HKG	69,000	62,000
SGN	49,000	44,000
HAN	7,000	6,000
BKK	39,000	34,000
KUL	7,000	6,000
SIN	26,000	25,000
CGK	16,000	13,000
DEL	54,000	51,000
BOM	32,000	29,000
BLR	30,000	28,000
MAA	24,000	22,000
HYD	33,000	31,000
DAC	3,000	2,000
CMB	2,000	2,000
Total	1,023,000	822,000

Another key player to watch out for from 2020 onwards on the SEA-Asia routing front is Delta Airlines. It has on order 25 A330-900NEOs which will start to get delivered from 2019 onwards. Over the past five years, it has scaled upwards its Asia foot print out of SEA with the one blemish being its recently suspended HKG-SEA service. 

The A339 can fly up to 12 hours nonstop hence can access mainland China, ICN and Japan with a full payload unlike a normal A330-300 on Chinese routes in particular. The A339s will be used by DL on SEA-Asia along side SEA-EU bound services. The aircraft cabin layout configuration sees it having 281 seats spread across the board to be 29 business class + 40 premium economy + 212 economy class. It will initially be used to replace the oldest Boeing 767-300ER aircraft on many routes.