Delta Bumps Up Los Angeles - Las Vegas Flying Again

(MoneyWatch)  I don't often feel the need to write about an airline's changes on a single domestic route TWICE, but the Delta/Northwest changes in Los Angeles to Las Vegas have captured my attention yet again.

Back in February, I wrote about how Delta had replaced Northwest's one daily flight with one of its own and retimed it to connect with Australia instead of the traditional Tokyo market. I wondered about that move, and now apparently, Delta has done the same.

In an interesting move, Delta has kept Northwest airplanes on the route and now bumped it up to three flights a day. So it will connect to both Australia and Tokyo now, right? Nope.

I'm very surprised to see that while Australia flights still connect, the Tokyo ones still don't, at least one way. The Tokyo flight arrives LAX now at 925a but the next flight to Vegas isn't until 5p. The flight out to Tokyo does connect, but I still find it to be strange. So why are they doing this? Are they really trying to capture the local market? I can pretty much guarantee that won't happen.

Maybe they're doing this as the most efficient way to schedule their aircraft, but to be honest, it doesn't make much sense without better timing for connections.