Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines are the new anchor tenants at Austin airport as part of the airport use and lease agreement signed at the end of 2025. Southwest will take 18 gates on the new midfield concourse.
Delta will take 15 gates on the existing concourse, while American will grow to 9 gates and United will have 5. Alaska will have a single preferential use gate, contiguous with American’s space on the main concourse.
What struck me is that Delta took 41,206 square feet of club lounge space. This seems to be (2) separate spaces.
There’s a new 30,000 square foot club lounge space being built known internally as the “Tunnel Interface Lounge” including an outdoor terrace. This is located where the main concourse opens to the tunnel that will take passengers out to the new midfield concourse being built.
That’s the new space Delta was expected to take. There have been discussions of jetbridge boarding from the lounge, although it’s unclear whether that makes it into final design. Meanwhile, the current Delta Air Lines Sky Club is approximately 9,000 square feet.
Delta Sky Club Austin Bar
Delta Sky Club Austin Deck
Delta had discussions with the airport about keeping its current Sky Club near the international-capable gates, as well as building out this new club. I had revealed this exclusively last June.
Austin Airport East Gates
This would almost certainly be a new main Sky Club (30,000 square feet) and a separate Delta One business class lounge in place of the current Sky Club, located on the concourse near international departures. It’s anticipated that as Delta grows in Austin, they could add long haul international. KLM currently flies from Austin to Amsterdam. We might expect to see a Paris and a Seoul flight from Delta or their joint venture partners.
Delta One Lounge Dining Room, New York JFK
A Delta Air Lines spokesperson shares,
Delta is early in evaluating future use of existing spaces at Austin–Bergstrom International Airport but looks forward to bringing an enhanced premium experience to customers through a new and larger Delta Sky Club.
This won’t all come to fruition until the early 2030s, but the new lease agreement reveals what future plans for airlines look like in Austin.
Delta at AUS will follow the same track as in Boston.
Woah! Great for Gary, in-particular.
@Tim Dunn — What D1 routes would there even be from AUS? Like, at least BOS has a lot of TATL long-haul, and some transcon that could/should qualify. AUS is more domestic, regional, no? I mean, if the expansion is true, this is like a new hub. Then, TX will have one hub for each of the Big 3.
This reminds me of when Gary exclusively revealed Hyatt’s new super premium credit card a couple weeks ago. Oh, wait….
@ 1990 — This is for passengers who will have to triple connect to reach their final destination in Europe on a POS 767-300.
Very exciting! I was just in AUS earlier this month but flew United so didn’t get to check out the existing SkyClub — pictures look nice. Delta making moves.
@Gene — So, what you’re saying is, Gary’s gonna have to walk this back as a ‘hoax’ soon, too, only for it to then become ‘real’ (as far as the Hyatt devaluations were concerned, though, sheesh, I wish it was mere a new Cat 9/10, because the actual ‘peak’ 75K top rate is even more brutal than the ‘hoax’ 55K speculation).
@L737 — Niiice. Where’s @Matt to “please consider”…?! Ha-haa!
@Gene – on the contrary, I did not claim that new card rumor was even accurate let alone that it was exclusive. Go read the post, it was a thought exercise and quite clear that I had no knowledge of the changes written about on Reddit.
This is public information, paid for by the taxpayer . How is this EXCLUSIVE? Was there bribery involved? Should an investigation be opened?
@Mary – it’s exclusive because i’m the one who foia’d it
No offense . . .It’s Austin. A Big College town (horns down btw). DL is so desperate for a TX hub after they abandoned DFW. This will be a bad move long term. Austin is like KC or STL of INDY, not worthy of a hub or that level of support. I’d be pissed if I was a DL shareholder. . .what a waste of resources.
@1990 — Hopefully having an elevated and thoughtful experience somewhere!
sunviking
DL is the legacy carrier that has managed to build not just one but two hubs in other carrier strength markets; AA and UA and even AS have been able to build anything like BOS and SEA.
and let’s also not forget that DL pulled down its DFW hub but deployed those assets to build NYC where it has more flights than any other airline at 2 of the 3 airports in the area, again overtaking UA in total NYC flights which pulled out of JFK and is still trying to figure out how to challenge DL’s presence at all THREE NYC airports.
DL at AUS will very likely see a strong presence into Latin America and a strong southern US network and a few longhaul international flgihts using a combination of aircraft types and partnerships including joint ventures that WN simply does not have – just as is the case in BOS and SEA
Sunviking no offense but Austin is a burgeoning tech hub that also happens to have a college with a top engineering school to funnel tech talent. Have you not read anything on Austin in the last ten years? Before then I would agree with you but Austin’s tech industry is exploding. Samsung is here with a massive plant (Seoul). Korean Air is likely the first DL partner to start long haul flights to Austin from Asia if DL doesn’t want to use its own metal.
Delta is doing in Austin what they did in Seattle (successfully) but instead of going up against Alaska (and succeeding) it’s Southwest (and they will also succeed). I much prefer flying delta out of Austin and love their lounge over cattle car Southwest. Many other flyers I know in Austin feel the same. Southwest will now inconveniently be located across a large underground tunnel whereas delta will be conveniently located in the OG terminal right as you walk out of security. Flyers will realize this over time.
With Delta building another lounge three times larger in Austin, it will be a larger hub than Seattle, its central location compared to Seattle making Austin even more conducive for success than a geographically limited west coast hub location. I’m excited to what delta do what it does best, usurp airlines with at have had the largest market share at an airport for decades simply because their predecessor can’t compete with their product e.g. Alaska/Southwest.
Tim
I must say Delta has a great advantage in the international arena
Having no international network to speak of, they are not impacted by international disruptions as in the recent ME situation.
Those 550K redemptions are helping out!
as usual, you are clueless
DL does fly to TLV and you do realize their service their is interrupted?
none of which has anything to do with DL’s buildup in AUS
@Tim
As usual, you seem to think Deltas miniscule international network is a plus. Its only a plus, when travel is disrupted, which is not normal.
My comment was a response to your usual fanboyish comments about Delta and its international network. Sure, its 500K redemptions are great deals.
Delta frequent flyers who claim that Delta “succeeded” in “winning” SEA amaze and amuse me. Delta announced SEA as a new hub 12 years ago. Since then, their share has grown from 15% to ~24%. The main competitor, which was much smaller then vs. now, has grown from ~48% to ~51%. If “winning” means the underresourced carrier you’re competing with has grown its network vastly, maintained dominance at that hub, acquired two smaller national carriers, joined a global alliance, and added five widebodies and intercontinental routes in the last year, then yes, I suppose Delta is winning. But given that T-100 numbers show SEA as the lowest-performing hub for domestic yields, I suspect Delta executives aren’t too happy with their “win.”
This has no bearing on whether AUS will go the way of BOS or not, but I think commenters impressed by DL’s SEA performance are generally either myopic or biased
Ezmon,
SEA was gate constrained when DL started its SEA hub and at no time did DL ever say it intended to become the largest carrier at SEA, the only hub where DL is not the largest.
You can throw any stat out you want but the simple fact is that DL manages to support SEA along w/ its other hubs and make more money than any other airline – including AS even on a margin basis.
AS thought it had to grow again after the disastrous acquisition of Virgin America so is going through the process again with Hawaiian. AS will spend profits from its traditional network just trying to integrate operations and add a few international flights that might succeed.
The US airline industry was deregulated at the same time for DL as it was for AS, AA, UA and WN. DL clearly has built its network better and more strategically than any other airline.
and DL sees opportunity in AUS; DL might or might not be the largest airline but, as we have seen w/ endless discussions with UA’s internet tag team, DL is focused on attracting the highest fare passengers and being profitable.
Feel free to make size comparisons including at SEA.
As long as DL has a hub in SEA and keeps growing AUS and leading the industry in profits, DL will have achieved what no other airline has tried or succeeding at doing.
@Jon F — Bahaha. Cold-blooded! (Don’t worry, @Tim Dunn, we know Delta flies plenty overseas, and just happened to get lucky this time-around. Phew!) @Benjamin Craig’s right; if Delta pulls this off, it’ll be a huge win for them, as was/is SEA. Seems like a worthwhile strategy. Hope it works out.
@Tim Dunn
I don’t disagree with any of what you’re saying, of course Delta is making money in unfathomable quantities and leading the airline industry through this decade. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Delta has been the most successful since deregulation, given that it had a failed hostile takeover bid and a bankruptcy in the middle there, but since 2010 it’s obviously been the airline to beat in operations and finances. However, I don’t think that means that every single one of its moves has been an unmitigated success. My point is that an airline with Delta’s resources should easily have been able to squeeze out a minor player like Alaska, which in 2014 had a fleet size of just 130 aircraft. Even if its stated goal was not to become #1, having a total of four transpacific routes from your new transpacific hub 12 years later doesn’t seem like a great payoff. Overall, while Delta is very likely to be successful in its endeavors, that success isn’t guaranteed, and I think you and I are measuring it with different yardsticks