Delta Air Lines is not straying from the pack with its confidence that Europe will be one of the strongest long-haul international markets next year. However, with some of the recent headlines and changes to travel policies in Europe, the overall environment has reminded the industry that the path out of the crisis is not linear and that there will be some uncertainty. Speaking on the strategy this week to investors, Delta Air Lines executives indicated they would be watching the market closely and making adjustments where possible.

How Delta Air Lines is thinking about international travel

When asked about the ongoing international recovery, President Glen Hauenstein stated the following:

"We have a schedule out there which is about 85% recovered, and we could go several points over that if we see the demands coming in stronger than that, and we can pull significant amounts out and redeploy our ground. So, we've got an incredible amount of flexibility. When we get to May and it's – and we're talking about June, we have a lot less flexibility than we do if we can see the booking trends in the first quarter. And that's really what we'll be paying very close attention to because that's really the peak European booking curve and gives us plenty of time to make those adjustments."

He later clarified that transatlantic travel in the summer 2022 schedule was roughly 85% recovered. Meanwhile, Delta is still in the 30-40% recovered range in the transpacific market, largely due to ongoing travel restrictions and a lack of visibility on when markets will open there.

Europe is typically Delta's strongest transatlantic market. The airline has consistently operated to destinations in the continent from multiple hubs. Next summer, it will be boosting capacity to several cities, especially in Italy, and partner hubs.

Delta is doubling down in major markets with a strong brand presence, but it has also added more opportunistic routes to secondary destinations. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

While Delta has published its summer 2022 transatlantic schedule for a couple of months now, it recently added a new route to Stockholm from New York. However, overall, the schedule has been relatively stable for the reasons described above. It is too early to tell how bookings will look for the summer. Traditionally, the largest set of bookings comes between January and March, with some of the remaining capacity available sold late this year and into the early summer.

Delta's transatlantic exposure

New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) is the airline's primary transatlantic gateway. The airline has scheduled services, thus far, to 20 destinations across the pond next summer:

Delta's transatlantic schedule from JFK next summer. Photo: Cirium

JFK is a major hub for Delta Air Lines. While it will sell connections as they arise through New York, the network also appeals to the sizeable originating traffic in the city. This is why Delta has made some smaller transatlantic destinations work, like Prague.

A second major area of exposure is service from Delta's partner hubs. This includes London, Amsterdam, and Paris. Amsterdam will get service to eight airports in the US next summer. Paris will see service to nine US airports on Delta. London will see service to six US airports. While this includes the airline's key hubs (Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, New York, Minneapolis, and Seattle), it also includes some secondary cities that are key for Delta, like Cincinnati, Portland, and Raleigh.

Delta has a strong set of operations to and from its partner hubs. Photo: Cirium

According to data from Cirium, Delta will fly up to 34 nonstop per day from the United States to London (LHR), Paris (CDG), and Amsterdam (AMS). While some of these destinations are larger destination markets for Americans, such as London, Delta's operations to Amsterdam and Paris carrier a higher volume of travelers connecting to a partner on flights to destinations within Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and especially India.

While there is always a risk to long-haul operations, Delta's operations to London, Amsterdam, and Paris are a little safer. The largest reason for this is because Delta benefits from onward connections to help keep its planes full. A destination like Nice (NCE) or Venice (VCE) relies almost entirely on traffic from the United States ending their travel in those cities.

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Delta leaves room to tweak schedules

One of the key takeaways from Mr. Hauenstein's statement is that Delta remains positioned to be as flexible as needed. A large part of that is because of Delta's moves on the fleet and deployment opportunities. One of the strategies Delta employed in the early days of the crisis when traffic to Asia shut down was to redeploy widebody aircraft into the domestic market. It has continued to fly a relatively hefty schedule of domestic widebody routes.

Next summer, Delta thus far is selling a far more limited domestic widebody schedule. These are the only domestic routes that will see widebody operations if the current schedule holds, according to data from Cirium:

  • Atlanta (ATL) to Honolulu (HNL)
  • Atlanta (ATL) to Anchorage (ANC)
  • New York (JFK) to San Francisco (SFO)
  • New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX)
  • Minneapolis (MSP) to Honolulu (HNL)
  • Salt Lake City (SLC) to Honolulu (HNL)

Excluding the longer domestic routes to Hawaii and Alaska, the only mainland domestic routes with widebody offerings scheduled next year are the airline's transcontinental routes to San Francisco and Los Angeles from New York. Los Angeles has typically received widebody service on flights to New York.

The Boeing 767-300ER will be a key part of Delta's international fleet. It can either deploy more to add some excess capacity to Europe or pull them out and fly them domestically if demand does not materialize. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

Delta also has a flex fleet: the Boeing 767-300ERs. While they are slated for retirement over the next few years, Delta has made it clear that it is not so much of a hard deadline as it may seem. The planes are relatively cheap for Delta, given that they are owned and largely depreciated, meaning Delta can be a little more opportunistic with how it can deploy them. If international long-haul services do not look promising, the airline can pull them out and put them in the domestic market.

Much of how Delta works with its schedules depends on what demand looks like. The end of the first quarter will give a lot of indication of what Delta sees. It is possible that Delta could add some capacity relatively late in the schedule to its key partner hubs to supplement its long-haul operations, it may be too late for Delta to decide to add some new capacity.