Air travel has been booming since the U.S. opened back up, but a complete return to normal seems unlikely even as COVID numbers decline. Major airlines, including American and Southwest, have already cut thousands of flights for the spring—and it doesn't look like flight cancellations are going to let up later in the year. In fact, Delta Air Lines just confirmed that its fall schedule is already getting pared down. Read on to find out which five cities are getting routes axed by the carrier later in 2022.
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Delta is cutting flights from five different cities this fall.
ShutterstockDelta Air Lines is planning to pare down its flight schedule later this year, The Points Guy reported on April 6. According to the travel news site, the carrier is cutting routes from its Minneapolis-St. Paul hub to Providence, Rhode Island, and three different cities in New York: Albany, Rochester, and Syracuse. Providence will be the first dropped on Sept. 5, followed by Albany and Rochester on Sept. 6 and Syracuse on Sept. 12. Delta is also pulling its service from John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) in New York to Houston, Texas—a route that was scheduled to resume on Sept. 12 after it had been suspended due to the pandemic.
The carrier said these cuts are part of its routine adjustments.
ShutterstockThe flight cuts will significantly affect connectivity to upstate New York and New England from the Twin Cities, according to The Points Guy. But Delta Air Lines isn't pulling out of the four Northeast cities altogether. The travel news site said the carrier will still be serving all of these destinations from its New York hubs, and with flights from Atlanta and Detroit.
Delta confirmed that these cuts were a part of its network adjustments. "We continue to monitor and adjust our flight schedules and route network based on customer demand,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Points Guy.
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Delta is also adding flights to its service this year.
ShutterstockDelta's planned network adjustments aren't just about cuts. According to The Points Guy, the carrier is also adding two new routes to its service this year. A spokesperson for Delta confirmed to the travel news site that the airline has filed to carry out new service for flights from its New York-JFK hub to Kansas City, Missouri, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The carrier will start flying these routes daily beginning June 6, and they will be serviced by its regional affiliate Endeavor Air.
The new cities put Delta in direct competition with another U.S. airline.
iStockThe last time Delta flew the two soon-to-be-added routes was in 2013, The Points Guy reported. The airline has not operated them since, but adding them to its schedule in 2022 will put Delta in direct competition with JetBlue. According to The Points Guy, Kansas City and Milwaukee also happen to be the two newest cities JetBlue has added to its service from JFK and Boston, Massachusetts. The airline began flying to these cities on March 27.
Per The Points Guy, Delta has been working to gain a hold on the competitive Northeast airline market, especially after JetBlue and American Airlines teamed up in 2020 to create the Northeast Alliance. "To date, we’ve seen Delta respond to the competitive pressure by adding routes and bringing its most modern planes ... to its Northeast hubs," the travel site explained.
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