Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
Does anyone know why the major flag carriers of the big Southeast Asian countries (other than Singapore and Philippine Airlines) have almost no presence in North America?
Like there are no flights for Thai Airways International, Malaysia Airlines and Garuda International, and Vietnam Airlines only flies to SFO.
JFK may be too far (although SQ and PR both fly there), but LAX is within easy range.
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The simple answer is distance makes it too difficult to make money on these routes. Malaysia Airlines, Thai and Garuda actually used to fly to LAX back in the
80s and
90s. The economics of the airline industry have changed to a degree that these routes don't make sense anymore. This would be things like a more liberalized aviation market in most of the world and the hub and spoke model (a lot of these airlines used to do long multi-stop routes with lower frequencies, sometimes like 1x per week to certain airports). The Gulf airlines like Emirates which barely existed 30 years ago and have taken a lot of this traffic. And there probably isn't enough high-yield business-class and frequent flyer demand either (these passengers also won't tolerate a flight from LA to Jakarta that runs twice a week and makes 3 or 4 stops either).
In the days before neoliberalism and when airline routes and fares were pretty strictly regulated there was prestige in a developing country buying a few 747s (with help from the Exim Bank) for it's state owned flag airline and flying them to LAX, JFK, or LHR a few days a week which doesn't really happen anymore, post 9/11 when planes pretty much always have to be full.
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