Delta Air Lines is planning to announce Los Angeles – Hong Kong service in the coming weeks. This has been confirmed by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
Delta to announce LAX-HKG
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Delta last served Hong Kong out of Seattle in 2018. They’ve previously failed with Hong Kong service out of both Detroit and (in the distant past) Los Angeles.
United operates two flights a day on the LA – Hong Kong route already, and Cathay Pacific flies it three times daily. A sixth Los Angeles – Hong Kong non-stop seems rough.
American got killed on its Los Angeles – Hong Kong service. Admittedly it was poorly timed, but
- this was before the pandemic, when Hong Kong was a stronger destination
- given American’s Dallas service which used two planes and had a long ground time, they only needed one plane for the route
- they had connectivity beyond Hong Kong to offer via their oneworld partnershp with Cathay Pacific.
Delta lacks these advantages. Still, it’s a large market for both passengers and cargo and Delta has connectivity in Los Angeles with around 150 peak daily departures.
The airline’s A350-900 can easily make the journey (and it could be announced as a -1000 route for when those are delivered). However those planes will trade off with other service – it’s not yet clear what will fund pulling A350s for Hong Kong. The A330‑900neo would be at or near the limit and likely have to be weight restricted.
Ultimately I’m surprised to see the service added to Los Angeles. Much of their Asia flying is via Seoul connections in conjunction with their joint venture partner Korean Air. And they could have chosen to grow the money-losing Seattle where they’re in fierce competiton with Alaska Airlines (whch partners with Cathay).
And Hong Kong, while still a good sized market, is much less relevant for premium traffic than it was before mainland China asserted control there, ended democracy, and began retroactively enforcing laws against dissent. If Delta couldn’t make Hong Kond work before mid-2019, will they be able to do so now?
DTW is only 600 miles further to HKG than LAX and would offer a better straight line connection from almost every point of origin in the USA other than Southern California, without direct competition that can offer a vastly better schedule and onward connections from HKG.
The Asian hub at Narita that Delta inherited from Pan Am really worked well, and the foreign crews that flew between NRT and other Asian destinations were the best I’ve ever had on any US carrier by a substantial margin.
you forgot to mention that AA is the carrier that failed at LAX and it was directly attributable to dismantling its sales force. International is the one area where sales teams matter. LAX is just like NYC in being highly competitive between the big 3.
and UA only added LAX to HKG because it can’t fly from EWR due to Russian airspace restrictions
and UA has no partner at HKG. It is no more risky for DL than it is for DL.
UA “tagged” its 2 of its 4 HKG flights onto SE Asia so they clearly were not doing well enough to be able to put 2 more destinations behind HKG.
and the A350 carries more people and cargo.
This is likely as much about DL putting a stake in the ground in the LAX int’l market w/ UA as they did in the domestic market with AA.
And DL is starting LAX-MEL -which UA and QF/AA fly and has extended the season even before the 1st flight operates.
No, it doesn’t.
not only did sea-hkg fail but also nrt-sin.
Delta cannot simply compete with Asian airliners, which are cheaper and have better services. More importantly, long haul flight might get effected easier than short haul flights
@ Gary — This is simply the latest example of Delta following the #1 airline, United. Follow the leader!
Delta aims to be a global carrier – it needs to fly to Hong Kong directly from the US (and eventually Singapore, etc) regardless of competitive considerations. It is getting a bunch of new A350s. By process of elimination, LAX probably makes the most sense. Biggest hub with O/D demand to Hong Kong, and it has the most premium domestic connections at this time. Brand new lounges and facilities at LAX, good transcon connectivity. DTW, even ATL have less O/D demand and don’t have the lounge facilities. SLC and SEA probably don’t have the domestic markets either.
Maybe they should be flying from SFO instead of LAX. Then they would possibly have enough range with the A339. The flying distance is not a straight forward calculation. The jet stream generally moves from west to east but where it is the strongest varies and it’s location varies even more due to the season. So the diversion off of the great circle route and some lesser headwinds there can add up to a significantly extra amount of fuel burned. They do have an airport to get extra fuel from if needed on Taiwan, like the Canadian Pacific DC-10 flight I took almost 40 years ago out of Vancouver.
@Tim Dunn “you forgot to mention that AA is the carrier that failed at LAX”
I literally wrote “American got killed on its Los Angeles – Hong Kong service. ”
@Tim Dunn “and it was directly attributable to dismantling its sales force.”
No, American dropped this service in March 2020 and it never returned. They had not yet dismantled their sales force.
Maybe more A350s and trying this from LAX will work better. The SEA service was first on a weight-restricted A332 and then the 777 and CX was starting it in Spring 2019. Maybe the combination of LAX and the A350 is more appealing this go around.
Though unlikely, this could be the start of a Delta attempt to build a hub at LAX.
HND and PVG already. HKG starting.
Later, Taipei/Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Singapore, Manila, Clark/Angeles, Osaka/Kansai, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Seoul/Incheon, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Jakarta, Bangkok. Tim Dunn will be appointed brand ambassador.
Gene,
NW was the largest TPAC airline long before CO or UA was – and DL inherited that rank and kept it for a short time.
Gary,
AA didn’t suddenly decide to stop competing via corporate sales during covid. AA’s failure from LAX to PVG can be seen in its much lower onboard revenue on flights that competed directly against DL and UA.
DL gets more corporate revenue than any other US airline. that is a huge advantage.
derek,
DL will grow its TPAC network from multiple hubs. Whether all of these cities get added, let alone from LAX, remains to be seen but the A350 can do all kinds of things from JFK that UA cannot do from EWR even if Russia airspace restrictions are lifted.
DL watched the TPAC market for years post covid and positioned itself to regrow the network it once had to Asia.
India is coming, the Arab Middle East is coming, more Israel is coming.
As I have repeatedly said, if UA can make money via its large global network, DL can make even more with its stronger corporate revenue and stronger domestic route system (including NYC now) and more capable and efficient widebody fleet.
Brand ambassador? no. fan that is even more confident that I saw this round of growth coming? absolutely
Two factors regarding the DL plan. One is a history lesson and the other is a current financial one:
History. DL failed in its initial LAX to HKG service because it used the wrong plane: the MD-11. That plane simply was marginally in its range for that route. More often than not, the plane had to stop for fuel and stranded pax because crews got illegal. DL also operated a fleet of MD11s out of PDX and Taipei in the 90s. MD11 was a DL mistake. Lost big $$.
Financial. By establishing a presence in HKG, DL can accept delivery of new A350s in HKG and use those new planes on Asia to US routes. Doing so avoid tariffs. Serious $$ involved there.
The fact delta is trying lax-hkg yet it didn’t bother to apply for JFK-HND 2 years ago when American did (delta would have likely won over American due to adding a skyteam carrier from jfk-Tokyo more connectivity to jfk than American and jfk-Tokyo would likely have performed better than lax-hkg).
Finally! Been waiting years for this.