Delta has plans to dominate Austin. They’re in talks for a non-stop flight to Seoul. They’ve committed to two lounges – one of which will presumably be a Delta One business class lounge. They will have 15 preferential use gates once the airport’s new concourse opens, and 30 ticket positions.
Already, Delta has added a flight attendant base in Austin. They’re talking about offering up to 150 daily flights from the city. In the fall, on an earnings call, Delta explained that Austin growth comes because it’s such a great market for them to sign up customers for their American Express cards.
It struck me that they added Austin – Miami. That’s a route straight into an American Airlines hub. Miami is a place where Delta would like to grow, now that they own a stake in LATAM (a partnership they stole out from under American). American didn’t respond to the add, opening the door to more of an offensive against them from Delta.
- I expected that growth to come at Miami
- But so far it’s coming in Austin to another American Airlines hub
Delta will fly Austin – Phoenix twice daily, a route currently operated by American, Southwest, and Frontier.
Beginning Nov. 9, 2026, Delta will launch twice-daily nonstop service between Austin and Phoenix (PHX) operated by Delta Connection using an Embraer 175 aircraft. The new route connects Central Texas with Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, known for its vibrant culinary scene, championship golf courses, desert hiking and easy access to destinations like Scottsdale and Sedona.
Delta will anchor the current airport concourse. Southwest will anchor the new concourse once it opens. And Southwest operates a major presence in Phoenix as well. But it’s one that Delta will almost certainly need to serve as it grows non-stop flights from the city. They aren’t adding Phoenix because it’s a route that’s underserved. They’re adding it because it’s a place their customers will go, and they want to keep those customers inside their ecosystem. Incidentally, it connects two cities with chip plants (TSMC and Samsung) as well.
American is currently fighting a war with United over Chicago. American has pulled back significantly in Austin, but hasn’t been in a position to respond to Delta at Miami or now Phoenix. And American does have plans to roughly double its Austin footprint in the coming years. They may find themselves with a two-front war on their hands.
“ American has pulled back significantly in Austin, but hasn’t been in a position to respond to Delta at Miami or now Phoenix.”
Help me understand, Gary
American was the biggest they’ve ever been in Miami in 2025 — even bigger than that in 2026 — and they are, I guess, not responding?
Meanwhile, delta promised a “global gateway” in Miami and hasn’t done anything there in years. Their size is basically stagnant since 2023-2024. Their austin adds were at the expense of other flights.
Phx? AA was the biggest they’ve been there since the merger in 2025 and even bigger in 2026
I’m all about a clickbait article, but where the beef to support this?
Given AA will have to retrench resources from ORD to use elsewhere with the FAA restrictions, couldn’t this growth easily be siphoned off to AUS or elsewhere (e.g., MIA, PHL)?
Those planes have to fly somewhere, and ORD will no longer be an option.
Similar story for UA albeit much bigger – we’re looking at ~150+ daily flights from ORD that will have to be sent elsewhere.
DL doesn’t get into market share piu8ong contests but it does very strategically think through where it wants to grow.
DL identified AUS as a focus city almost 10 years ago and allowed AA to burn out there and then DL moved in post-covid.
Some people will never get it but DL measures the success of its strategies compared to the quarters that others use for success or failure of strategies.
DL’s existing hubs are largely built out or require incremental growth. AUS is a nice 5 year project for DL.
connecting DL’s strategies in AUS and MIA is a stretch but LA is on par w/ or ahead of AA in several of the markets that AA/LA jointly serve from MIA.
MIA was only ever needed to connect Florida markets to S. America on LA. DL already has fairly high share from Central Florida and TPA and north to Latin America via ATL.
DL clearly decided LA doesn’t need the feed and DL can better use resources other than for intra-Florida routes or in markets that DL can and does flow over ATL.
The real opportunity for DL in MIA as well as from AUS is to central America and the southern tier of S. America, all of which can be done by narrowbodies. AUS will become a gateway similar to what UA has at IAH – heavily RJ and narrowbody focused with perhaps a flight to GRU or SCL in the future.
AA doesn’t have anywhere near the ability to fight multiple strategic battles which ALSO include their 66,000th time trying to be relevant in NYC.
DL is slowly building a hub in AUS and is making it a global hub, something that WN cannot do. DL has picked off routes from UA and made them an also-ran in AUS and will do the same to AA.
“ DL is slowly building a hub in AUS and is making it a global hub, something that WN cannot do.”
With 15 gates into the long term foreseeable future and less gates than southwest.
I admire your optimism 😉
Nice analysis, Gary ! Good comments as well, although I’m curious about @MaxPower’s remark about Southwest. Tim Dunn appears to be bang on when he states that Southwest can’t counter Delta globally, given that Southwest has literally zero widebody aircraft. Is MaxPower aware of some new technology that will allow a 737 to fly to Tokyo ?
Not sure why you dragged American into this topic. AUS-PHX is dominated by Southwest, up to 8 flights per day. How many flights is Delta going to have? TWO???
@TJ
BA and oneworld are double daily to LHR (seasonally?)
Delta and VS canceled LHR (before delta grew but long after the austin focus city announcement so it clearly wasn’t deemed a strategic investment) and KLM can’t even sustain daily service to Austin.
KE is talking to delta about an austin flight but still codeshares with American to DFW because of how weak delta is in this region (it’s a specific carve out in the delta/KE JV ). But talking about flights to Asia vs announcing it are two different things. Samsung will be footing a big bill just to avoid a connection to austin.
If there’s another “global hub” anywhere made up of 15 gates, I’d love to hear where it is. The future concourse gate allotment is done. Delta’s future size is known for some time.
Don’t think I ever said southwest would start a global hub in Austin, but delta has yet to beat southwest in an announced focus city when Southwest was the incumbent large carrier
The latest gate announcements from AUS only cement that long term second place for delta vs Southwest.
Oh please – a “two front war??” Enough of the dramatic click bait already.
DL is adding two measly E175s to a route that AA operates four mainline flights daily on (and WN operates seven daily rotations, obviously with 737s.
Even MIA is hardly a big deal in the “two front war” – AA operates five flights to DL’s one – albeit on a 737.
A real story would be DL adding DFW-AUS with 767s.
Friday yawn….
@Tim Dunn – I am not sure you recall, but prior to the pandemic, DL declared MIA a focus city, along with AUS, RDU and BOS. After the pandemic DL quietly backed away from referring to MIA as a focus city.
MIA as a focus city never really made sense to me anyway. ATL makes a perfectly fine gateway for DL and LATAM without the competition from an entrenches AA and a loyal customer base. Seems DL is better off to offer O+D between Miami and South America while using ATL as the main gateway to the US.
see above for why DL likely did not go ahead w/ more MIA domestic flights- LA didn’t need the feed. DL connects everything from MLB-TPA and north via ATL.
15 DOMESTIC gates is more than enough to feed several international flights going east- west-and south
PHX is just one more route from AUS where DL has taken on entrenched competitors including to their hubs and is doing fine – SFO, MIA etc.
nobody builds hubs like Delta
“nobody builds hubs like Delta”
by securing 15 gates for the long term. noted lol. You forget those international ones are shared and BA is the biggest longhaul user of them right now. that isn’t changing any time soon, partner.
You keep being you. Your hub definition is much more basic than mine
“see above for why DL likely did not go ahead w/ more MIA domestic flights- LA didn’t need the feed. DL connects everything from MLB-TPA and north via ATL.”
The absolutism from you with no shame or logic… that’s what I admire.
Delta gave up on MIA “gateway”? Tim dunn: “well, it turns out LATAM doesn’t care about their passengers going anywhere else in the US from MIA nonstop” lol. They don’t need feed and what Delta “thought” LATAM needed in 2019 was just bad analysis lol
you are amusing.