Over the last few years, many airlines have been reworking their network coverage to both major cities (in the summer of 2024, the London-New York route is expected to reach a peak of 27 flights per day through various airlines) and smaller regional centers in which they can ease out competition.
The goal is always to reduce the number of flights that are flying half-full and maximize both staff time and airline resources on flights that are proving most popular.
Related: A budget airline just cut 16 flights (including popular ones)
As first reported by travel website the Points Guy, Delta Air Lines (DAL) just announced that it will cut four of its flights in the coming weeks. The affected routes include a flight between Los Angeles's LAX and London's Heathrow Airport (LHR) as well as two routes between New York's Westchester County Airport (HPN) and Florida's Orlando and West Palm Beach.
These are the other routes that Delta is cutting this spring
The latter was an experiment that the airline embarked on last year in order to reach suburban New York City residents (Westchester County is about an hour away from the city and a common place for affluent professionals moving away from the city to start families) who want to fly out to vacation destination from a closer airport.
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But ultimately, the flights failed to attract enough travelers to justify keeping the routes. Launched in November 2023, the Orlando and West Palm Beach routes will officially stop running on May 6, a spokesperson confirmed.
"JetBlue Airways (JBLU) has long been the market leader for flights from Westchester to Florida, and Delta's once-daily service went head-to-head against JetBlue's existing flights on both routes," writes The Points Guy's Zach Griff. "Perhaps Delta couldn't disrupt JetBlue's dominance in the market or it found a better use for the Boeing 717 (BA) that it flew from Westchester County."
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These are the flights that bring airlines the most traffic
Along with cutting the two Westchester routes, Delta will also cut a flight between LAX and Dallas Love Field Airport (DAL) on May 6. The smaller airport is closer to downtown Dallas than the larger Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport (DFW) and was part of a recent Delta expansion that ultimately proved less successful than the airline had anticipated.
The airline has already cut its New York-DAL route and, after cutting the LAX one, will only fly to the smaller Dallas airport from its hub in Atlanta. Delta has not been commenting on the route changes but, in the past, has talked of the need to optimize flights for maximum traffic.
"This year, we're strengthening our roots with well-positioned U.S. hubs to match increased demand," Delta's Senior Vice President of Network Planning Joe Esposito said in a statement after the airline announced new flights to Hawaii and Florida from Salt Lake City in February 2024.
While sunny destinations such as Orlando and Miami see heavy traffic from many parts of the country, they can also be overserved by every airline that exists. Last month, Frontier Airlines (FRON) named growth "disproportionate" to "demand and capacity" as the reason for cutting flights to Orlando and Las Vegas.
