This past summer Delta started non-stop service from Salt Lake City Intl Airport to CDG. I was all excited until I saw it's only 2 days a week and the prices !!!!

Delta's ex-TWA 757-200 with 16/158 seating have 31" pitch. Can't have that many seats with 33" pitch.

$599 one way fare--I think it needs to be a bit better than that. I can get that high season (maybe a stop) but money is money. With the economy, and the oil price, etc. it had better be better than that.

EXACTLY ...what I was thinking grandmere! sheesh...I also am in NC and read the paper this morning over my bagel and saw intro fare and then looked and it said 599 one way ...and I said holy gheesh...that is an introductory fare? Yes, I would hate to see the "real" fare then. This is NO bargain at all. If they cannot do better with the fare...the route may die a slow death I am afraid.

A flight is successful when it can get business travelers to pay high fares. Not to fill it up with budget travelers.

Anyways, most of the time when an airline place ads or advertise some "special" fares, they're seldom as cheap as fares one just find on their own at other times.

Rkkwan, on SeatGuru I checked Delta's 757-200 (Transcon), and that's what it says.

Transcon are used for E. Coast - W. Coast flights. That's what "transcon" mean in the US.

The plane they'll be using is the ex-TWA Version 2 with the BusinessElite seats.

And on the transcon version, it's also just 31" except for exit rows.

I stand corrected. So now these flights that we have all been hoping for for years will be very expensive and uncomfortable. Eh bien, c'est la vie!

yes rkkwan...just like luxury boxes in big stadiums bring in the revenue ....
yet, knowing the RDU market well, I don't think that this fare if is consistently around this intro offer will be good enough to support the RDU market in the long run.

Delta is the largest airline the world. They have lots of contracts with large multi-national businesses. Many of them are in the RDU area, and they don't only fly AA to London. Many also have contracts with DL to fly worldwide, mostly via ATL.

DL looks at how many RDU-Europe tickets they sell and what fares they're paying. They figure there's enough of them to put a RDU-CDG route on a 757 to make fly it profitably, then start the route.

Because of the newly approved DL/NW/AF/KL joint venture, we're not only talking about RDU-Paris. We're talking about RDU to anywhere that Air France flies in Europe, Central and Southern Asia, and Africa.

DL has a smart management. I don't doubt they and AF can make this work.

<i>They have lots of contracts with large multi-national businesses. Many of them are in the RDU area, and they don't only fly AA to London.</i>

I think this may be enough to keep this flight going. GSK basically bankrolls the London flight, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the other companies in the RDU area has already signed a contract for this flight. It might not be to Paris. Heck, it could be to India for all we know, but I would think there is a lot of potential traffic.

There are about 350+ passengers that travel to Europe from PIT every day.
Some of the businesses in Pittsburgh are happy to have the flights as my husband was reading that their employees must lose too much time traveling back and forth through PHL.
Now, if the plane holds less than 300, this means that it will be filled many times with business travelers and they really are not concerned with budget shoppers.
What is good about the whole thing the way I look at it is that if it is a go and successful, they may put more flights on or maybe someone else will.
Even if there are no bargain flights now, it may open up things for us.
I hate the PHL airport and really try to avoid it.

Hi, Sher! I was wondering when you and Tuscanlifeedit were going to get in on this thread! Yep, I read the same thing about the number of people flying from PIT to Europe.
I was so hoping to avoid PHL in the future, but we will have to wait and see how this works out. I was even planning to get a Delta credit card and cancel my USAirways; might be a bit early to do that!

f these flights have good results, what you're more likely see if that they will replaced by Air France's widebodies. For DL to put a widebody on a non-hub to Europe route may not be the most efficient way to do things. For a 757, it's not a big deal if they will tag on a ATL-RDU or ATL-PIT leg; but they won't do it with a 767.

Or they have to rotate the aircraft from CDG back to JFK or ATL, but that will add to the complication with aircraft utilization and rotation.

grandmere, Hi. I am thinking of cancelling my US Airways card also.
We recently flew to Memphis and used Northwest because it was non-stop from PIT (imagine that) and the same price as US Airways.

In January we are going to our house in Florida and we are flying Delta. The price was one half of the US Airways fare. Unfortunately, no one flies non-stop to West Palm from here.

I was able to get miles on Delta for the Northwest flight. So I am seriously considering the Amex Delta card as soon as I bump my US Airways miles up a little. I get a lot of miles with their dining program. But I do not seem to be having much luck flying with them lately.

I don't think I will actualy cancel my US Airways card until the renewal comes up.

$599 each way?! Yikes! How I long for the days, not so long ago (05), when I flew rt to Paris for $350. I was really hoping that the flights would be lower. Because US Airways flys ns from CLT to MUC it seems to keep all flights to Germany from CLT down; when I research Germany (MUC or FRA) is usually the cheapest country to fly to from Charlotte and usually be several hundred dollars. I was hoping for the same with Paris, but apparently that won't be the case.

Tracy

Tracy. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
I don't know if flights will be less expensive than before, but it will open up a market for us here.
If it does well, maybe Delta will increase the schedule of flights because the planes they are flying will not actually allow all of the people that now want them to be able to get tickets.
Also, maybe another carrier will jump on the band wagon.
You have actually been able to fly direct to Europe, but we have not for over four years....anywhere in Europe!

Sher, my fingers are crossed! I know how you feel about no non-stop services because I am from St. Louis and they stopped doing nonstops to Europe long ago. I moved to Charlotte 2 years ago but still have not had the opportunity to fly non-stop to Europe because my miles are with AA...although I did fly from RDU to LHR ns in April wtih AA. The more nonstop flight options the better!

Tracy