Delta Air Lines expanded into Austin as American Airlines pulled back there. Delta is ‘squatting on gates’ since the airport is full and won’t see new capacity come online until the 2030s.
Their strategy has been to:
- Operate cheap regional jets
- On very short flights
- So it doesn’t cost much to fly. Still they’re losing money.
Some of the routes Delta has been running have been ‘intra-Texas’ flights that seemingly make no sense, other than they are short flights using cheap outsourced planes. Cities include Harlingen, McAllen, and Midland, Texas. Harlingen and McAllen seemed like super-strange choices at first, since they’re just 45 minutes apart from each other by car.
As if to underscore just how little Delta cared actually cared about flying to Midland, they didn’t even tell Midland’s airport they were doing it until 48 hours before announcing it, let alone discussing any of the logistics like ticket counter space.
Still, even though Delta is doing ‘strategic flying’ (as opposed to profitable flying) they picked smart cities. They weren’t flying empty planes back and forth between Austin and Killeen, a mere 61 mile flight. McAllen and Harlingen are border cities.
And these flights were pretty lightly booked from Austin to the U.S.-Mexico border, but much more full in the other direction and at high last minute fares, too. A year ago up to 1 in 5 passengers flying out of airports at the border were migrants. Migrants were being flown out – but not back.
The economics of these flights had a monkey wrench thrown in them by the Trump administration. There’s no longer an open checkbook to fly migrants, and without ID the TSA has stopped letting them fly. So it’s not surprising that Austin – Harlingen is no longer a great gate squat route for Delta and they’re dropping it.
Delta Air Lines adds 2 routes:
• New York (LGA) to Panama City, FL (ECP) 1x weekly starting June 14 with CRJ-900
• Detroit (DTW) to Bangor (BGR) 1x weekly starting June 14 with CRJ-9001 route canceled:
• Austin (AUS) to Harlingen (HRL) ends after June 7 pic.twitter.com/9PDh6KEGvf
— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) March 1, 2025
Delta’s Austin play continues, however, and the airline is even expected to build a new Sky Club as part of the terminal’s expansion – even though their current club is already the best at the airport.
Sometimes you gotta spend money to make money, even if you run a loss for a while. Look no further than Amazon. Anyway, glad to see Delta is trying its best in Austin. I’m sure Gary is pleased with the second SkyClub. And I’m confident Mr. Dunn will be excited, too. Keep Climbing, as they say.
Interesting that Midland is a “border” city given that it is 262 miles from the Texas/Mexico border.
McAllen and Harlingen are border cities
That makes more sense….McAllen and Harlingen are border cities…not Midland 🙂
@Gary Leff — Nice embedded image in the comments. It’s compelling. Like, you brought the receipts, sir. As if Bret was gonna school you on Texas geography. ‘Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma’am!’
Awww no more of that sweet, laundered taxpayer money (via NGOs) to ferry illegal aliens around the country. Boo hoo.
@CHRIS — Time to crash the economy so the oligarchs can buy it all up on the cheap! (They’ll still convince many to blame immigrants, trans, and DEI, anyway. Speaking of, can someone check-up on Andy S and Mike P–like, did their handlers finally pull the plug on their right-wing psy-op here?)
DL carried a small percentage of traffic from those “border” airports. DL’s existence there might end but there have been tens of thousands of passengers moved from those airports on other airlines -and they will feel an impact as well.
Also, DL is adding more service from AUS, just not until the fall and winter.
DL knows, just as it did with AA in NYC and LAX and B6 at JFK and BOS that when a competitor is weak, there is opportunity for DL to grow but unlike all of the examples above, DL slowly adds far less than what competitors cut. that is DL’s play for AUS.
AA and WN don’t have the resources to put up an extensive fight for AUS. and DL as well as other big 3 airlines does quite well competing with WN even if WN decides to fight.
latest DOT data shows that AA and DL are pretty much at parity at AUS.
Midland Odess airport is closer to the border of New Mexico than to old Mexico — how do you consider it a “border city?”
You often make claims that are nonsense — is this one of those instances here?
How did they get American Airlines attention?
I have been trying all their online sources and phone numbers for months with no response to a written customer complaint about leaving handicapped individuals stranded at the airport outside DFW in freezing weather. They did provide a hotel but it had no handicapped wheelchair access to or from the hotel nor within the hotel. They insisted the wheelchair bound person climb onto a shuttle that had no wheelchair access, (an impossible task) so no way to use the hotel voucher for motel 6. When the handicapped person was incapable of getting in the shuttle to go to the motel they assigned they just left her outside and have ignored her protests and complaints.
@Derek McGillicuddy — Don’t you mean New (America) and old (America). We cannot refer to the neighbor to the south by name anymore. It’s the Gulf of (America), remember? Otherwise, we’ll have to ‘banish’ you, like the Associated Press. /s
Gulf of America is silly. It’s not even as romantic as Gulf of Mexico.
@1990 — I am anxiously awaiting the crash to scoop up lots of S&P 500 index fund. Warren Buffet is sitting on his biggest cash hoard ever for a resaon…Let’s just hope the crash is handled as incompetently as the prior one!
@ Joanie — I like Gulf of Patriots. We can bury all the MAGAts there.
@Gene — Mah man! Me too, brother. Things are waaaay overpriced right now. Since this is the way the world is going, I too have had to learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Charles -Biden is the one who got the the groceries prices went )& let the border open til his last 6-8 months in office Reminder President Trump gotthe groceries down& the economy improved in his first turn till covid happened & that’s wasn’t president doing this time right now he’s only been in only for ! Full month, give him a chance.,of course I don’t with everything he’s doing but I do agree with a. Lot
This is my response to the author.
What are you smoking! The drive between Austin and McAllen is about 5 hours; not 45 minutes. And, there are 3 dally flights between both cities at about 80% percent capacity. You are f*** crazy. Who are you!
@Buddy Garcia – please re-read, “Harlingen and McAllen seemed like super-strange choices at first, since they’re just 45 minutes apart from each other by car.”
@Charles Barr — How many years in will you still be blaming others? It’s going to be laughable. Like, it’ll be 2030, He’ll be half-way through his 3rd term, and still blaming Brandon’s inflation. I mean, by then, it won’t really matter, because, you know, no more voting, but, still, it’ll be wild for those who still actually follow along and remember when reality mattered. TDS?!