It’s fascinating to see Delta’s big new focus on Boston. Just a couple of weeks ago the airline announced a new route between Boston and Lisbon, while now the airline is announcing yet another transatlantic route out of Boston.
Delta’s new Boston to Edinburgh flight
Delta will be adding seasonal daily nonstop flights between Boston and Edinburgh as of May 23, 2019. The route will operate with the following schedule:
Boston to Edinburgh departing 10:15PM arriving 9:25AM (+1 day)
Edinburgh to Boston departing 10:55AM arriving 1:02PM
Delta will be using a Boeing 757-200 for the route, featuring 16 fully flat business class seats, 44 extra legroom economy seats, 108 economy seats. Every seat will have Wi-Fi, seatback entertainment, and power ports.
The aircraft choice is interesting given that on their recently announced Lisbon route, Delta is using a 757-200 in a domestic configuration, featuring domestic first class seats that will be sold as premium economy.
So while this is also a leisure route (given that it’s a seasonal summer service), clearly they see more premium demand here, or else they’d also use a domestically configured plane.
This will be Delta’s second flight to Edinburgh, as the airline also operates a flight between New York JFK and Edinburgh.
The exact flight times haven’t yet been published for this flight, and as of the time of this post, the flight isn’t yet ons ale.
Is Boston Delta’s new Seattle?
For years Delta was building up Seattle as a hub, though the growth there has slowed down a bit. It sure seems to me like Delta’s new focus is Boston.
In their summer 2019 schedule, the airline will have transatlantic flights from Boston to six cities — Amsterdam, Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, and Paris.
Boston in general is a logical transatlantic gateway. It’s one of the closest major US cities to Europe, Boston doesn’t have quite the level of congestion that JFK has, and it’s also a hub out of which they can fly 757s, which are easier to fill than some of their bigger planes.
One has to wonder if another motivating factor here is fighting off any JetBlue transatlantic flights. For years JetBlue has been considering transatlantic flights, and if they do so, I think it’s almost certain that they would choose to operate these out of Boston to major business cities in Europe.
So while there’s merit to transatlantic flights out of Boston in general, it sure seems to me like this might be a strategic move on Delta’s part to try and protect the market from JetBlue.
Then again, I question how serious JetBlue even is about transatlantic flights, since they’ve been talking about it for years…
Bottom line
This transatlantic growth for Delta out of Boston is great news for those in the Northeast. Previously they just operated flights to Amsterdam, London, and Paris, so seeing this expansion to other cities is pretty cool.
What do you make of Delta’s new route between Boston and Edinburgh?
Make sense. I used to live in Edinburgh and it is a relatively wealthy and monied city so can see there being premium demand. There are also a significant expat American population, signified by there being a consulate there...
@chub
For terminal I agree, these are relics from the old days. Same goes for JFK, LGA, LAX to name a few.
For runway design, ORD is actually much less confusing and better utilized in poor weather. At BOS under poor weather, the runways overlap and can only operate only one rather than three.
@jeff
Yah aehpoht is wicked.
I'm very happy to hear this as a Boston-based flyer, though the real breakthrough for me will be when more than one airline (British Airways) flies east during the day. I shy away from the word "hate", but geez, I hate flying overnight on what I consider such (relatively) short flights. Also, while I can't speak for pilots' experience with the runways, I can say that DRIVING into and around Logan is a horror show....
I'm very happy to hear this as a Boston-based flyer, though the real breakthrough for me will be when more than one airline (British Airways) flies east during the day. I shy away from the word "hate", but geez, I hate flying overnight on what I consider such (relatively) short flights. Also, while I can't speak for pilots' experience with the runways, I can say that DRIVING into and around Logan is a horror show. One "wrong" move and around you go...again...and if you're unfamiliar with the airport, just getting out of it can drive one (pardon the pun) mad...
How old are these 757s?????
Good news! We just got back from Ireland and Scotland on Aer Lingus through Orlando. I would be willing to fly in and out of Boston for a direct flight on Delta (my preferred airline). Hoping to go back next year so will keep a watch on this.
@eskimo WN is moving to B when the B renovation for a consolidated AA operation is complete. There is no terminal D was absorbed into C and E during a renovation years ago. Its an easy airport to navigate and will be easier once the post security connections are all finished
@eskimo
Really? I thought ORD has the most messed up terminal and runway layout.
Boston-Lisbon is being upgauged to 767-300er per Delta News Hub
They're using a domestically configured plen (that was a typo but it made me laugh so it's staying) to Lisbon??? ewwww
Ahh BOS, the most messed up airport design in USA.
Lucky Delta has A, the better ones in Logan (but still limited widebody infrastructure).
Messed up runway layout, messed up terminal layout. Missing terminal D?????, Until recently, a North-South terminal B?????
I would bet DL will kick WN out of this terminal, as there is no more room for expansion. And maybe make a private curbside on the satellite concourse.
Any idea when this will be bookable? Just went on to search some dates for next summer and nothing came up.
Also probably picking up some of the demand from all of the cancelled Norwegian flights from Edinburgh to the Northeast.
Delta has been growing rapidly here in Boston, and they recently gave me Gold status for 6 months (extend after 3 RTs). I haven't flown Delta in over a decade and have only had my account open for a year or two.
They built terminal A in Boston about 15 years ago specifically for Delta! Seems to me they want to keep expanding here !
Having relocated from San Francisco to New England, I am super happy about DL's focus on BOS. I've been flying them more and more often. While I find their domestic F hard product to be not as good as UA's, soft product and customer service (and all around attitude) are a huge improvement. Looking forward to trying out a DL One route next year.