This must be some kind of a new record in terms of how fast an airline announced a route as a competitive response.
In this post:
Delta adds Minneapolis to Dublin flights in summer 2024
As of May 9, 2024, Delta will launch a new 5x weekly seasonal flight between Minneapolis (MSP) and Dublin (DUB). The flight will operate with the following schedule:
DL114 Minneapolis to Dublin departing 9:20PM arriving 10:50AM (+1 day)
DL115 Dublin to Minneapolis departing 12:00PM arriving 2:25PM
The service will cover a distance of 3,735 miles, and is blocked at 7hr30min eastbound and 8hr35min westbound. The flight will operate eastbound every day except Mondays and Wednesdays, and westbound every day except Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Delta will use a Boeing 767-300 for the route, featuring 216 seats. This includes 26 business class seats, 18 premium economy seats, and 172 economy class seats.
This complements Delta’s service to Dublin from three other gateways — the airline flies year-round from New York (JFK), and seasonally from Atlanta (ATL) and Boston (BOS).
Aer Lingus is also launching this route
If the concept of an airline launching a route between Minneapolis and Dublin sounds familiar, it’s for good reason. Earlier today, Aer Lingus announced it would add service between the two cities as of next summer as well. So you’ve gotta love the fact that Delta is announcing a similar route just hours later.
It goes without saying that the timing of this announcement is no coincidence. Airlines typically announce several new summer routes at once, so Delta choosing to announce just one route the same day that another airline is announcing the same route is intentional.
Now, it’s anyone’s guess if Delta was going to launch this route anyway and just moved forward the announcement due to Aer Lingus’ plans, or if this is being added at the last minute for competitive reasons. Both are possible. Regardless, it can’t help but make me laugh. We see airlines make competitive responses like this all the time, but I don’t ever remember it being within hours.
I’m curious to see if there’s enough room in the market for both airlines to maintain service. In fairness, Aer Lingus is committing to year-round service, while Delta is only planning on adding a seasonal flight. Aer Lingus has the advantage of having connectivity to destinations across Europe, while Delta has the advantage of having connectivity across the United States.
Bottom line
As of summer 2024, Delta will launch a new seasonal flight between Minneapolis and Dublin. This announcement comes just hours after Aer Lingus revealed that it would launch the same route. You’ve gotta love airlines, eh?
What do you make of Delta’s Dublin plans? Do you think the airline was planning this route anyway, or was this just planned at the last minute as a competitive response?
Delta's launch of Minneapolis/Dublin at the same time as Aerlingus is more to do with Skyteam launching at the same time as IAG. Dublin is the 5th largest transatlantic hub in Europe, DUB also has US CBP facilities. So it has more to do with hub/transfer traffic on the TA routes than local traffic
When do these actually start showing on Delta's website?
Delta ate amoral, disgusting slimeballs with inferior service in the air and on the ground. Why am I the only one who sees this?
Compared to whom? Certainly no other domestic U.S. airlines.
Because you are
Domestically, the big 3 are all the same in terms of service to me. Not one stands out significantly. Internationally, I think UA is probably the better. Obviously, DL knew about this route months prior & was just doing tit for tat like they all do.
A retaliatory flight at MSP is straight out of the Northwest playbook. I remember when they announced LGA-DFW after AA announced LGA-MSP. The joke was always that if AA launched LAX-MSP there would be hourly 747s flying LAX-DFW.
As a Dublin-born Irish citizen living in Minneapolis, who flies to Dublin four times a year, this is the best news I’ve heard all summer!
A one-hour turn in DUB seems a little optimistic.
I thought the same, but they're probably utilizing aircraft coming in from their international services for the turnaround.
I have been told by JFK-based Flight Attendants that Delta commonly swaps planes from Boston and JFK in Europe to keep their JFK operation on time.
European operations run more timely than the US overall and Delta's operations are very constrained at JFK. Therefore, using a Boston based plane on the Europe - JFK side helps Delta mitigate a domino effect of delays at JFK
I can confirm this. Delta did this at BRU when they operated JFK and ATL: often the planes swapped at BRU, but not always. And if there was a delay on departure at BRU, it was usualy the ATL flight. My guess is that they are more flexible at ATL and the longer flight makes it easier to make up some time in the air.
Just to be clear, Air Lingus had announced this flight before the pandemic and placed it in standby due to the pandemic.
Has Delta announced if it's keeping Detroit-Iceland next year? That was also announced because of Icelandair.
It will also be interesting to see if Delta launches flights to Turkey or somewhere else in the Middle East from Detroit in response to Turkish.
At the end of the day, I'm pleased to see Minneapolis get a new route even if it's seasonal. Detroit and Minneapolis are too ignored by Delta, which only seems interested in Boston,...
Has Delta announced if it's keeping Detroit-Iceland next year? That was also announced because of Icelandair.
It will also be interesting to see if Delta launches flights to Turkey or somewhere else in the Middle East from Detroit in response to Turkish.
At the end of the day, I'm pleased to see Minneapolis get a new route even if it's seasonal. Detroit and Minneapolis are too ignored by Delta, which only seems interested in Boston, New York and other more competitive markets.
Well, if Minneapolis or Detroit had a growing business community, then maybe Delta (and others) would invest more.
The Detroit and Minneapolis markets are plenty big, both for business and leisure routes. It's especially absurd that there aren't more Caribbean and tropical routes in the winter. It's crazy that Delta passengers in the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest have to double-connect through MSP or DTW and then Atlanta before continuing onwards to somewhere warm. Likewise, it's crazy to see the number of international flights that Delta pushes through New York JFK and Boston...
The Detroit and Minneapolis markets are plenty big, both for business and leisure routes. It's especially absurd that there aren't more Caribbean and tropical routes in the winter. It's crazy that Delta passengers in the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest have to double-connect through MSP or DTW and then Atlanta before continuing onwards to somewhere warm. Likewise, it's crazy to see the number of international flights that Delta pushes through New York JFK and Boston given the chronic delays and issues at those airports.
Both cities have strong business communities.
which only seems interested in Boston, New York and other more competitive markets.
So then you understand why MSP/DTW are second fiddle, but just wish to cry about it?
I agree that Delta is interested in New York, but they’ve just cut service from Boston to Rochester and Buffalo and are planning to cut service to HPN and are cancelling their route to MEX which is supposed to begin in December, so they really haven’t been investing in Boston very much.
Do you think Aer Lingus will eventually drop the route, or is there enough demand for both airlines to operate their services side by side?
For it to be year round, AerLingus HAS to be getting subsidies. Minneapolis isn't known as an Irish diaspora hub, amd isn't really growing in the business community. I think as long as the flow of money continues: They will keep it. Delta is only doing this to keep up.
Yeah… BenGutt… research before you post. Aer Lingus has the best hub in Europe if you want to connect to the rest of it with no backtrack. And they’re a part of the aa/ba/ib/Finn JV so they have a LOT of data to go off beyond a couple Irish people that immigrated 150 years ago yearning to go “home”
Seriously…
The Twin Cities has a decent Irish population, but more so has a number of business connections with Ireland, specifically in the medical device industry.
Aer Lingus has the connecting traffic in DUB, and Delta has the connecting traffic at MSP. This is not just about O/D traffic at DUB and MSP.