Everyone knows that Atlanta is the world's busiest airport and is by far Delta's largest hub. But what about Delta's top ten airports? Based on June 2022 data, I explore them and see that Boston is the only airport to have grown.
If the top ten are combined, they have over 75,000 departing flights this month, based on the latest Cirium data. That's just 82% of what they had in June 2019 – a loss of over 16,000 flights – showing how much ground still must be made up. It is probably also somewhat influenced by cuts made from staff shortages, although in late May, Delta said it'd proactively reduce schedules from July.
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Delta's top ten airports: June 2022
Delta's leading airports are shown below. Note that Orlando, in last place, wasn't in the top ten in June 2019. That was Raleigh Durham, which has fallen to 12th, switching with Orlando.
Atlanta has almost 23,000 departing flights this month, two and a half as many as Detroit and Minneapolis, but each is down significantly. Interestingly, Salt Lake City, which was the poster child of the recovery, is also down, albeit far less than the leading three, temporarily closing the gap with Minneapolis and Detroit. 'Only' about 60 daily outbound flights now separate them.
|
Delta's top airports (departing flights) |
June 2022 |
June 2019 |
% change |
Actual change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Atlanta |
22,944 |
30,135 |
-24% |
-7,191 |
|
Detroit |
9,043 |
12,533 |
-28% |
-3,490 |
|
Minneapolis |
9,015 |
12,158 |
-26% |
-3,143 |
|
Salt Lake City |
7,285 |
7,925 |
-8% |
-640 |
|
New York LaGuardia |
7,029 |
7,328 |
-4% |
-299 |
|
New York JFK |
6,191 |
6,904 |
-10% |
-713 |
|
Seattle |
4,345 |
4,972 |
-13% |
-627 |
|
Los Angeles |
4,189 |
4,638 |
-10% |
-449 |
|
Boston |
4,042 |
3,501 |
15% |
541 |
|
Orlando |
1,592 |
1,661 |
-4% |
-69 |
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LaGuardia: the least bad
Notice that LaGuardia, which was enormously badly hit earlier as business travel plummeted, is now recovering relatively well by this measure. There are 7,029 flights, down by just 4%, a loss of around ten a day if split equally across the month. Of course, many markets, especially business-focused, remain down.
LaGuardia has been helped by more Delta flights to Asheville, Burlington, Charleston, Key West, Myrtle Beach, and more, obviously leisure-driven. Example route additions include Oklahoma City, which took off this week, Pensacola, which launched in June last year, and – in what is surely at least partly for slot-sitting reasons – Albany and Providence in January this year.
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Boston is up by 15%
The standout is Boston, Delta's ninth-busiest hub and increasingly important for transatlantic travel. Flights are up by 15% and 541 this month, meaning it's within a stone's throw of Los Angeles.
Delta has challenged the JetBlue-American Northeast Alliance with multiple new Boston routes. These include the following, joining Dallas Fort Worth and Charlotte – American's top two hubs – that took off last year.
- Boston to Athens: launched May 27th, 3x weekly
- Boston to Baltimore: taking off July 11th, up to 4x daily
- Boston to Denver: beginning July 11th, 1x daily
- Boston to San Diego: starting July 11th, 1x daily
- Boston to Tel Aviv: took off May 26th, 3x weekly
Delta is Boston's #1 carrier
Cirium indicates that Delta is Boston's largest airline by flights this June, partly influenced by its growth and also temporary cuts by JetBlue. Indeed, JetBlue was top until last month, as it usually is of course, but its Boston services have been cut by 7% month-on-month.
What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments.