Delta Air Lines announced on Monday that they will be adding almost 1,000 flights system-wide as the carrier continues its industry-leading safety measures. Delta’s schedule will focus on popular summer destinations and leading business markets.
On Monday, Delta Air Lines announced that they will operate nearly 1,000 flights in July offering nonstop connectivity to popular summer destinations and leading business markets. Delta will continue to offer industry-leading safety measures to ensure the health and wellbeing of their guests including capping cabin capacity seating at 60 percent in the main cabin and 50 percent in First Class. Additionally, the carrier will continue to block middle seats through September 30, 2020, to ensure a certain level of social distancing. Delta customers will also enjoy more flexibility, with the ability to change their travel plans for a year without a fee, for all flights booked through June 30, 2020. In Monday’s announcement, Delta’s SVP – Network Planning, Joe Esposito said,
“Confidence in a safe travel experience is key to a successful recovery. While we’re rebuilding our network at home and abroad, it’s even more critical that we provide the highest industry standard of safety, space and clean so when our customers are ready to travel, we’re ready for them.”
With the modest growth in demand, Delta’s July schedule will still be around 70 percent smaller compared to July 2019, with reductions of about 65 percent in their domestic and 75 percent in their international schedules. The carrier will continue to add seat capacity throughout the summer season as travel restrictions are eased. Domestically, Delta will add more flights between their hubs in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City and top markets as well as connectivity to leisure destinations in Florida and across the West Coast. Delta will also add more transcontinental flights for the convenience of both business and leisure travelers. Since non-essential transborder travel restrictions between the U.S. and Canada have been extended into July, Delta will continue operating a limited number of critical flights primarily between Minneapolis, Detroit and New York-JFK and Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Winnipeg. The carrier will also maintain service between Seattle and Vancouver.
For July, Delta will increase capacity to Latin America and the Caribbean from around 10 percent in June to 25 percent in July as compared to last year. Flight additions to the region will focus on popular vacation destinations such as Cancun, Los Cabos, Montego Bay, Nassau, St. Thomas and Punta Cana. From Atlanta, the carrier will also serve São Paulo, Costa Rica, St, Maarten and Aruba.
Subject to an expected lift in certain travel restrictions, Delta plans on resuming long-haul flights in July to popular European destinations including four times weekly flights between New York-JFK and Lisbon as well as daily service between JFK and Athens. The carrier will also offer four weekly flights between Boston and Amsterdam, daily service between Seattle and Amsterdam and will restart service between Detroit and Paris-CDG. Pending government approval, Delta also plans on resuming service to Africa with flights between JFK and Accra as well as Atlanta and Lagos.
Finally, the airline will continue to operate a reduced schedule to the Asia-Pacific region in July including the restart of weekly service between Los Angeles and Sydney as well as the addition of flights between Atlanta and Seoul-Incheon (complementing existing service from Detroit and Seattle). In July, the airline will also continue operating flights to Tokyo-Haneda from Detroit and Seattle. Also, pending government approval, Delta plans on offering up to seven weekly flights to Shanghai via Seoul-Incheon.
Source: Delta Air Lines