Delta Reveals New Transatlantic Routes For 2024: Naples, Shannon, And More

it was a given that Delta would start JFK-MUC and restart ATL-ZRH. Both are large routes and equalize the growth that LH has made in Delta hubs where Delta is strong. Not sure why it is hard to realize that every transatlantic flight has strength on two hubs. LH Group has been rather free to add routes into DL strength hubs; not sure why it is hard to see that DL would hesitate to do the same from its strength hubs.

Two notable things are missing
-New routes from Boston
- A new non-US hub route to a JV hub; BNA opens its new international terminal shortly and very much wants another flight. DL invested in a new Sky Club and is adding other domestic flights at BNA (DCA)
- their transpacific schedule. DL execs said on a recent investor call that they would grow the Pacific faster than normal for them in 2024 while transatlantic would be closer to normal. Given the growth announced here for TATL, there should be some strong new Pacific route additions coming as well.

The last time Delta serviced Shannon before the pandemic it was doing so with 757s that featured domestic first-class seats sold as premium economy. Delta was also doing this on Iceland flights and, if memory serves, Gatwick too.

I don’t know who would fly Delta in Delta One to or from Munich and Zurich. Star Alliance options are much, much better. Delta’s product and the ancient 767s aren’t competitive!

I can’t believe Detroit can support a third Paris flight and Cincinnati a second Paris flight.

I believe SNN will be 757 with domestic F, just like before

All of these are really boring and a copy off of UA mostly.

It is unclear what the service expansion are. From Delta's intended summer expansion, it appears that the airline is constrained in the amount of new plane deliveries.

It is surprising that Delta did not add Atlanta to Lisbon. While Delta already serves Lisbon from JFK and Boston, it is an increasingly popular destination.

From Delta's flight additions, they seem to prioritize routes where they will have customers flying both ways (I.e. Zurich where I am sure Swiss customers will take advantage of the Atlanta mega-hub).

It is disappointing to see that Boston didn't receive any new routes. Delta has 16 or so domestic gates plus access to the common-use international gates. While JFK is prone to runway delays, Boston is prone to delays due to gate space from other airlines, giving Delta less control. Boston is a mini hub and there will really be no way for Delta to significantly increase there presence there without more infrastructure.

Agree with you here, Ben. This is quite underwhelming and reflective of some of the commoditized, lackluster strategy on international routes that's become synonymous with Delta. Not just the feed that UA and it's Star Alliance partners will be able to support vis-a-vis Delta on some of these destinations (MUC, ZRH), in majority of these i'd foresee them to even offer an inferior, dilapidated product vs United (MUC, NAP). SNN also screams "me too". To the extent that the strong travel demand keeps all products (good and bad) afloat, I anticipate decent load factors but hard to see any competitive advantage in many of these routes.

I’m kind of surprised that routes like ATL-ZRH and JFK-MUC are only 3x weekly seasonal. Personally I’d expect to see some sort of frequency bump before they officially launch.

I think they have scheduled before (seasonally) the 3rd DTW - CDG flights. Lots of connections on both sides thanks to the Skyteam alliance. Plenty of destinations in the midwest to reach from DTW. TBH its an easy to navigate airport.

The shift from business routes to leisure routes continues. This is fine as long as people can keep affording to take trips.

Shannon has to be my favourite airport

It's a huge collection of model airplanes in both arrivals and departures

ATL-ZRH and JFK-MUC is chasing pure leisure and little else at 4x and 3x weekly. My sense is these routes won't be back post Summer 2024. The rest of the additions and expansions are no brainers. Surprised it took DL this long to start JFK-NAP.

Which makes the Delta frequent flyer changes ever more mind-boggling. It seems like their division of Delta knows that long-haul business travel isn't recovering while another division thinks it is.

Who spends $35,000 chasing diamond status if it's their own money? You're only loyal to Delta and spend $35,000 with Delta if it is with other people's money. Delta's business-class product -- let alone on the 767 -- is not competitive with the Star Alliance offerings for Zurich and Munich.

I don't know why anyone would fly Delta from Detroit to Paris. The late evening Air France flight is so much better in business-class. Both the hard and soft products. And if you're connecting to Air France in Paris, it makes sense to fly Air France.

BCN aside, bet all the JFK routes are on 763s - great Y, terrible J

Delta previously used D1-config 757s on JFK-KEF but switched to domestic 757 config selling "First" as Premium Econ before switching to a 763

I’m pretty sure AA operated ORD DUS back in the day? I think it even may have been with the MD-11 but more likely a 767….

Unimpressed, to be honest. Not sure why the have such limited options to Europe out of MSP. They lose a lot of midwestern people to United and American in Chicago. I avoid Atlanta like the plague. That. Airport feels like a cattle pen at a train depot.

CVG isn’t getting a second Paris flight. It’s operating at a higher frequency vs the current 3x weekly.

Just a few comments below reflect a complete understanding of what all US airlines exist for which is to make money.

Delta has never tried to be a "sexy" airline or have a sprawling international route system. It picked up large portions of Pan Am's network which tried to do that. Like every other US airline, Delta is predominantly a domestic airline. It is precisely strength in the domestic market that allows ANY of the big 3 to serve longhaul international markets.
A lot of people don't understand that Delta generated more revenue to Europe than United in the 2nd quarter of 2023 despite UA being larger in terms of number of flights.
Delta's international network has long been the most profitable of the big 3 even in the Pacific where UA has been larger for years.
Even if DL chooses to remain #2 across the Atlantic in seat mile size, the chances are very high that it will still be the largest airline in revenue.
UA can chase small markets including w/ the A321XLR but they will make far less money per seat mile than DL.

Those that say "I don't care about finances" fail to understand that it is impossible for a company to offer a higher quality product when it makes less than a competitor when the input costs - other than fuel - are almost identical for the big 3, and on fuel, Delta has an advantage.

As much as some people don't want to hear it, the post covid revenge travel momentum across the Atlantic will slow just as it has in the US domestic market.
It simply is not worth chasing a bunch of markets that can exist economically for a half year, esp. if using new technology modern aircraft. The day that the 767s are retired will be bad news for transatlantic expansion. AA is proof that it is impossible to retire older aircraft, replace them with new generation aircraft and justify significant expansion.

as for the comments about the Midwest, DL is the largest there because of its dual hub strategy at DTW and MSP and also carries more international passengers from both airports combined than any airline carries from Chicago.

I don’t think so, these are only seasonal! The NAP one is interesting to me, I fly there regularly but no way I’m gonna take DL. Either EK connecting in MXP or ITA/AF/KL.

Tim,
You keep missing the point people are making about the Midwest, probably, to be fair to you, because the people who keep making it aren't making it very well. There's been ongoing discussions on all of the aviation-related blogs and websites about DL walking away from SMALL midwestern markets. No one is claiming (except for a few crazies, ignore them) that DL is walking away from DTW or MSP.

To settle this I pulled the data. Using the US Census Bureau definition of the Midwest but ignoring DTW, MSP, and ORD for all carriers (because lots of those seats don't actually serve the Midwest, but only connections through, and also, because no one is claiming DL is giving up anything there), it turns out that the internet is right about this one. There's no good way to format the data in the comments section and I can't post screenshots of graphs, but here are the numbers from Cirium:

ASMS (read across, the numbers are from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023)
DL: 7,265,592,575 7,671,091,892 3,729,518,509 4,666,319,057 5,373,058,136 5,697,346,735
UA: 5,178,886,034 5,695,783,577 2,782,482,580 3,651,497,530 4,621,101,730 5,509,014,313
AA: 7,173,768,803 7,596,980,143 4,852,125,894 6,482,040,632 7,408,770,602 7,931,715,254
It's hard to see here, but if you throw that in Excel and plot it you'll see that DL had a slight lead in ASMs to the Midwest in 2018 but that it's completely evaporated post-COVID with AA being the clear leader and UA only slightly behind DL.

The stories for seats and total flights are very similar, with DL leading AA slightly in 2018 and AA taking a clear lead the past few years with UA coming close to catching DL. The reasons for this should be pretty clear. DL has been, as you have correctly pointed out many times, winding down 50-seater operations much more quickly than UA and AA. They've replaced those planes with larger planes in many places, but have clearly not seen the value in replacing the seats or the frequencies in the Midwest. Meanwhile, AA continues to add longer stage-length flights to the Midwest, choosing to overfly ORD (another discussion worth having) in favor of flights to DFW and CLT, causing their ASMs to pop.

To be honest, I've been skeptical of the "DL is abandoning small Midwestern towns" claims too, but it turns out they're correct.

Along with just a lack of basic business acumen - launching routes with an inferior product without a first mover's advantage with even fewer avenues for connecting feed is just a copycat move. So this generic irrelevant backward looking garbage thrown about largest revenue in so and so year which is bigger than X and smaller than Y doesn't matter when the basic principles of competitive market positioning are off in these forward looking examples. "Higher quality product" because a baby wants to sleep better at night, not because any technical substantiation. My business school professor would cringe.

I wouldn't do KLM because I don't think KLM's product is any better than Delta. Their lounges at Amsterdam are worse, actually. Air France is a better product. I'm really hoping Air France/KLM buy TAP Air Portugal.

you do realize that the purpose of business is to generate revenue and profits and not to fly airplanes around?

Delta most certainly has been and still is the largest airline by revenue to/from the Midwest.

If you have FULL access to DOT data, including international revenue, you could see that what I said is true

since Delta is not getting any more 767s, then clearly some flights are being moved from the 767s this year to something else, right?

Shall we find and list all of those flights?

you do realize that the vast majority of passengers don't fly in J regardless of carrier?

Totally agree. Airlines exist to make money. I'm not disputing that DL is the most profitable in the Midwest nor that profitability is the most important metric, but that's not the question that you keep responding to. The question that others are bringing up revolves around the amount of service, plain and simple, without reference to revenue. By those metrics DL has lost ground in the Midwest, outside of its hubs. While I agree that it certainly isn't the most important question, that doesn't make it an uninteresting one.

While DL did make more money than UA in Q2, their substantial fare premium gap over many years continues to narrow. United’s newer aircraft deliveries will continue to narrow it further with lower costs. They can’t sit back and follow on route creativity.

But the fare premiums are from J. Hopefully just a medium term handicap until fleet replacements begin in bulk.

All of the big three launching service to Naples is WILD. Unless you're ready to splurge for a private transfer, FCO is a way easier gateway to the Amalfi Coast despite being much further away. NAP is a dump with limited other options if something goes wrong.

The absence of Pacific routes tells me it will be a W24 announcement on its own as you suggest. They won’t backtrack on those comments you cite.

+1, Gull Air Ack. Past performance has no bearing on how 2024 routes are going to perform. If anything, some of these proposed moves risk exacerbating the trend you highlighted.

American had non-stop Chicago-Dusseldorf within the last 10 years or so. So Delta not the only US airline for that route as stated in article.

I didn’t say Delta is the most profitable in the Midwest. I did say they are the highest revenue because they are. Revenue is not driven by a bunch of regional jets flown by other carriers

Adjusted for the size of small regional jets UA flights they do not have any more narrow bodies on order than DL has in order and option
Aside from the old large 777 fleet UA has, Delta is not behind UA in widebody orders. DL simply does not plan to operate as large of an international route system. Delta’s international system generates more profit

I am very proud that Delta is announcing existing service to popular European destinations. I just wish Delta restarts routes that had been lost due to the pandemic. Here is my short of routes that the airline should add.

Atlanta to Brussels
Atlanta to Lisbon
Atlanta to Reykjavik

Any routes that I missed, add them to the list.

Oh my…I was recently in Naples for the first time and fell in love with it! Sure, if you want to be among the gawking tourists Rome is always easy, but Naples is for more authentic and the food much better/local. And how in the heck can you say getting to the Almafi Coast is easier from Rome - that’s ludicrous. Not to mention Vesuvius and Capri.

I really don’t understand why no real airline is willing to fly BOS-BCN. For years the only airline flying the route is the low cost Level , three times a week.

Not really an absence.

So far, it's been confirmed that they're going to go daily to Auckland, add a second Sydney, increase frequency to existing Shanghai flights, and resume both Shanghai from LAX and Tokyo to Honolulu...

...that's a considerable amount of Pacific capacity right there.

We might see some more China resumptions if the governments continue to open up, or Delta-metal additions to Korea; but honestly, I doubt we'll see any wildly-unexpected routes, like reintroducing Hong Kong, Singapore, and/or Bangkok.

Would be nice though.

The ATL to ZRH route is a resumption of a seasonal pre-covid route- I flew that on Delta in 2019. So they’ve got a certain amount of data on how well they think it will work.

AA had Chicago to Dusseldorf in the 1980s- was supposed to take it for a youth group trip to West Germany but there was some sort of screw up between travel agent and airline so my group did the GRR to ORD flight and then it was discovered that half the group didn’t actually have correct tickets for the transatlantic leg. Full flight and the group was offered $800 each in vouchers if they could reroute us ORD-MAN-DUS instead. The group voted heck yeah. My Dad was chaperoning the trip and with our 2x$800 in vouchers, we covered airfare for a family trip to St. Croix the following Spring Break.

DUS seeing the same fate with US service as BHX a while ago. Birmingham (BHX) is the 2nd largest city in the UK at 1.1 million proper and 2.4 million metro area (making it larger than a good number of the US cities served from Europe) yet has no direct service to the US any more except TUI flying charter flights to Florida. At one time AA flew to JFK & UA to EWR, and a long time ago AA to ORD & BA to JFK and a number of Canadian services too. Now nothing, despite a strong presence in the other direction (2x daily to DXB - one on A380, services to DOH, JED, DEL, ISB). It would be nice to see one of the US carriers return. DL pulled down some of its service at MAN a while ago too (though VS has largely filled the gap). I'm guessing DL haven't announced any return to LGW after a very short stint this year (B6 must be pleased)?

they have been back and forth on the 2nd SYD during the summer... so yes there is a significant amount of new capacity w/ PVG.
I still wouldn't be surprised if LAX-ICN is announced.

You’d obviously expect DL to have a massive structural and revenue advantage in the Midwest given it’s the location of the Delta’s two LARGEST airport hubs excluding Atlanta.

The previous commenters are correct and they provide the numbers to prove it. DTW and MSP are the only two hubs for DL that are seeing double digit percentages in negative growth compared to pre-COVID. DTW is down nearly 20% of seats in Q3 then in the same quarter for 2019. MSP is down a bit over 10% by seats.

It’s impressive then to see AA maintaining its position in the Midwest given nearly a 30% decline at ORD by seats in Q3 2023 vs. Q3 2019 which was partially offset by shifting Midwest service to DFW and CLT. UA is the only carrier to see less than a 5% decline for its Midwest hub.

DL was the most profitable international carrier easily precovid. Now? They were the least profitable legacy in 2023Q1 for international and trailed in profitability the two consecutive quarters before that. Funny how you have full access to DOT’s international revenue and seem to have missed that from your comment. DL also trailed 2 of the last 4 quarters domestically. You always use cite precovid income because that’s where DL’s advantage lies, precovid.

UA has around 3x as many wide body seats on orders vs. DL, around 6x that if you include 787 options. That doesn’t even include UA’s A350 order that presently exists unlike DL’s A35K which you announce every day. The gap between DL and the competing legacies continue to decline.

Making arguments without including data but saying data is available is Tim’s forte.

No, LAX-ICN won’t be announced because DL execs have stated multiple times that they expect approval of the KE/OZ JV venture given that is was “done right” and any additional routes from ICN will jeopardize that. DL execs are expected to be traveling to Korea to drink soju, eat BBQ and increase their ownership stakes.

Huh? United ordered *700* planes, 500 of them narrowbody. They’ve already received close to 200 of them between 2022-2023. How can you say they don’t have more deliveries than DL?

Also, what is with you saying DL is more profitable than UA in the Pacific? Is this you referring to 2017 figures again, which still don’t even prove anything since airlines report regional revenue differently and your only proof is just your word, even when you give references that don’t back up what you say.

DL flies a handful of routes to Asia. They have closed several stations in the region and only fly to three Asian destinations from their “Pacific gateway” in SEA. They are getting ready to shrink more as they give up another Asian route to HND.

As Cranky Flier explained in his analysis, UA is now up to two international departure banks from SFO, significantly bigger to Japan, double daily to SIN, three flights to HKG, increased flying to TPE, the only US service to MNL, all before taking into account service to Oceania that dwarfs DL.

And you expect us to believe DL is more successful to Asia just because you say so? I’ve looked at your references and see no supporting evidence. All I see is DL shrinking and closing stations while losing a key partner in Australia while UA grows, gains a partner, and adds new stations.

Again, all while adding hundreds of planes, likely going up to almost 300 Dreamliners, and maintaining profit margins extremely close to DL and improving revenue and yield each quarter.

The UK is a weird market. It's really unfortunate that Virgin Atlantic doesn't operate a small regional service connecting London with Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. Even if it were just 2 flights a day.

I don't know if it's still the case but years ago, KLM used to dominate the secondary cities in the UK. It served them all via Amsterdam. It was easier from the US to fly to Amsterdam and connect to Newcastle or Birmingham than fly there directly from the US or through London.

I know Newcastle had United to/from Newark but that ended around or before the pandemic. 7 or 8 years ago, I used to see really good Delta airfares into Manchester. But even though Virgin Atlantic had substantial operations at Manchester, it lacked a lounge and the premium feel of the Clubhouse at Heathrow. For $200 savings it wasn't really worth flying into Manchester.

At the end of the day, England (not the whole UK) is, geographically speaking, the size of Alabama.

My problem with most of the Western Europe routes from Boston is the short flight time. I have a hard time buying first-class for a flight of 5 1/2 or 6 hours.

Short flight time is great if you are in the BOS area. But if connecting then much better to connect through another airport for a longer TATL leg to allow for more sleep.

A colleague of mine from DUS used to do legal work for AA, so he always flew that flight to the US, no matter where he was going - even East Coast. Made his client happy.

Size it is small but population is 56 million. I guess the point maybe you were making there is it isn't far too travel to other cities. Newcastle is only a small city so I can see why a US route may not work, but BHX is a large city with a large tech market in the city or within an hour's catchment (mainly around the automotive and aerospace industry) and an increasing financial sector (several banking HQs there now) and had the largest exhibition space in the UK right next to the airport. The main issue is being equidistant from LHR & MAN pretty much. I fly to the US a few times a year and generally I end up having to go to LHR. The better option if connecting is to fly via DUB as it's "on the way" and pre-clearing in Dublin saves some time at the other end plus the connection times are pretty good. Flying to AMS feels like going backwards.

Delta is keeping JFK-LGW next summer; so far it has an even better departure slot (730pm) from JFK than the current late one (1130pm).

JFK-MUC will be on the 764. And JFK-SNN will be using the domestic 757.

And nothing in Asia, where Delta is entirely dependent on its lousy partner in Seoul.

Super Boring Route Expansion

Delta has all but ceded Asia and the Pacific to United, irrespective of whatever Tim Dunn claims.

All routes easily bookable with 3.5 million skymiles in Y 🙂

Yes, by comparing the size of England to Alabama I was referring to distance. It's around a 2 hour drive from Cardiff in Wales to Heathrow.

Worth mentioning that the GDP of the whole UK is now poorer than Mississippi. There aren't too many British customers outside London who are paying $5,000 or $7,000 for business-class airfares to New York.

If you go back to 2019 data, Birmingham only saw 12.6 million passengers. Manchester had 29.3 million. By contrast, Heathrow had 80.8 million and Edinburgh 14.7 million. That puts Manchester somewhere between Baltimore and LaGuardia and Birmingham not even at a San Jose or St. Louis level of passengers.

I wish they added Istanbul,Amman and Cairo !!!! Then it would have been truly largest expansion!!!!!!

Assuming that all US carriers get what they have want, Delta will be adding 10 flights/week to Shanghai, enough to take SEA-PVG to daily, restart LAX-PVG at 4x/week and add one more flight/week to DTW-PVG.
if that all happens, Delta will be the largest US carrier to Shanghai while AA and UA split their Chinese routes w/ Beijing. DL will also be the only US carrier flying LAX to China and will have the most easterly US carrier route from the US to China.

and Delta will still start several routes to Seoul as soon as KE sorts out its merger w/ Asiana; either with or without the merger, DL will start more service to ICN.

And DL could well be able to succeed in applying for JFK-HND and start its first post-covid route from JFK to Asia.

Didn't Virgin try this with Little Red after BMI was bought by BA. It didn't work out.

Also, KLM benefits from not having the huge UK departure tax on the long-haul segment. Makes the flight cheaper (or allows the airline to keep more of the gross fare since less is going to taxes)

So PVG and ICN is all what Asia is all about according to Delta?

Meh. The SkyMiles program changes way overshadow these route announcements.

I disagree. Some people fly for the miles and points, and that's fine. For such folks, using Skymiles to fly Delta was never terribly attractive. Maybe this article doesn't resonate with you for that reason, and that's okay.

Other people fly because we love to fly. Some of these routes are interesting from that perspective and thank you Ben for reporting them.

I agree! I live in the Birmingham Metropolitan Area and it sucks we don’t have any US carriers flying here!

nope.. but that is what Delta is focusing on this year. Perhaps there will be more in time but becoming the largest US carrier to PVG post-covid is a big thing.
SYD is seeing increased service, AKL is being retained beyond the US winter.
An additional ICN route may come.
And the icing will be if DL retains the HND frequency and is able to redeploy it elsewhere. Since the route case hasn't even been opened, it is all speculative but I think they will go for and win JFK-HND.

And the TATL routes do add several cities while increasing capacity on established routes and directly competing against LH Group in several key markets

And the chances are by this time next year DL will have achieved the highest profit among US carriers for the 2nd quarter of 2024 just as it did for the 2nd quarter of 2023.

this would be a good time to report net income for the big 3 US carriers plus HA for the 2nd quarter of 2023

AA - Latin America $336 million, Atlantic $52 million, Pacific $52 million loss
DL - Latin $124M, Atlantic - $530M, Pacific - $104M
HA - Pacific - $5.5 million loss
UA - Latin - $74M, Atlantic - $305M, Pacific, $116M

in other words, Delta was more profitable than United flying both to Latin America and the Atlantic.
United's profit on the Pacific was just 10% larger than Delta even though United's Pacific revenue was almost exactly twice as much as Delta.

American still loses money flying to Asia and is barely profitable compared to DL and UA flying to Europe.
Latin America is all that keeps AA's Latin America system profitable.

Why does OMAAT allow one person to have ten or more individual replies to one post?
The password is Delta.

As others said, ATL-ZRH is a restart after pandemic. I'm rather surprised it took so long and then only comes 4 times per week. I flew this route many times and it was always full in J, with very few upgrades clearing. I therefore also never quite understood, why it went to seasonal in the first place.

It's also illegal in several jurisdictions to not disclose a paid relationship when it comes to the sale of goods and services.

Ben, you have Delta PR undisclosed in the comments and you're even making comments to get them to respond. I'd suggest at least making that poster post under a disclosure name.

You seem to think it's some kind of mind-boggling fact that KLM flies to cities.

You should probably know that I wrote under my same real name across multiple platforms, one of which is on an investment site that requires a disclosure.
If you want a disclosure, go there.
I'll make it easier for you in saying that I am not an employee of or consultant or paid service provider to any company about which I speak and occasionally do own stock in various airlines.

I have tracked the business of the airline industry for 45 years - since the US airline was deregulated in 1978. I have a wealth of knowledge about the business of the airline industry that far exceeds anyone that isn't a direct employee of any airline.

It should be noted that in all of the discussion about loyalty program changes, many of the authors of blogs are compensated by airlines and/or credit card companies. Changes that make loyalty programs less financial lucrative do customers will have an impact on blog operators.

"I have a wealth of knowledge about the business of the airline industry that far exceeds anyone that isn't a direct employee of any airline."

And an ego that far exceeds your knowledge, no matter how much you think you have.

DL (DELTA) used to fly from ATL too ZRH but somehow it stopped the route way before the pandemic.
Happy to see the route will restart . Swiss used to fly to ATLANTA from ZRH as well .