Delta Air Lines has just announced plans to launch a new seasonal flight between the United States and United Kingdom, which will also be the carrier’s first route between Florida and London.
Delta adds Orlando to London winter route
For the upcoming winter season, Delta intends to operate a 4x weekly nonstop flight between Orlando (MCO) and London (LHR). The route will operate between October 26, 2024, and March 29, 2025, with the following schedule:
Orlando to London departing 10:35PM arriving 11:40AM (+1 day)
London to Orlando departing 4:00PM arriving 8:20PM
The 4,336-mile flight is blocked at 8hr5min eastbound and 9hr20min westbound. The service will be operated by an Airbus A330-900neo, featuring 281 seats, including 29 business class (Delta One) seats, 28 premium economy (Premium Select) seats, 56 extra legroom economy (Comfort+) seats, and 168 economy (Main Cabin) seats.
Orlando will be the eighth destination in the United States that Delta serves nonstop from London. Delta has a transatlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic, and this is a route that Virgin Atlantic already serves twice daily in winter. I’m curious if this new Delta flight is in lieu of one of Virgin Atlantic’s existing services, or in addition to it.
This seems like a logical seasonal service
As you’d expect, long haul demand is generally quite seasonal. The global US carriers profit greatly off summer seasonal demand across the Atlantic (between the United States and Europe). The challenge is figuring out where to profitably fly those wide body planes in winter.
Of course there are some destinations that are more popular in the northern winter (like the South Pacific and South America), but the demand isn’t as great as it is for routes to Europe.
It’s pretty rare to see US airlines operating winter-only routes to Europe, but in this case it makes sense. Clearly Delta is trying to tap into demand in Europe to visit warmer climates like Florida in winter, rather than this being targeted at those in the United States.
This is actually the third seasonal route that Delta is launching this winter between Florida and Europe, with the others being a resumption of the Tampa to Amsterdam route, plus an Orlando to Amsterdam route, both feeding into KLM’s network.
The only thing I find surprising here is how late this route is being announced. We’re only four months from it launching, so you would’ve assumed that the airline would have planned this route a bit earlier. I wonder if another long haul route is being pulled for winter, if the airline is just taking some wide bodies off domestic flights, or how this fits into Delta’s overall route planning.
Bottom line
Delta will be launching a new winter seasonal route between Orlando and London. The service will operate 4x weekly between late October 2024 and late March 2025. This seems like a good use of a wide body jet in winter, given the demand to travel from the UK to Florida in winter.
This will be Delta’s third winter seasonal flight between Florida and Europe, with the others being from Orlando and Tampa to Amsterdam.
What do you make of Delta adding an Orlando to London route?
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