Delta Air Lines is about to go head-to-head with United on the Newark – Los Angeles route. Both cities are United hubs, and Delta will offer two daily flights against United’s 10 peak daily services. The service will begin April 12, 2027 using Airbus A321neos. These do not even have lie flat seats in business class.
Delta Air Lines to commence 3 new routes https://t.co/wHKjU0PcvO
• Los Angeles (LAX) to Newark (EWR) 14 weekly from April 12
• New York (LGA) to Melbourne FL (MLB) 2 weekly from December 19
• Austin (AUS) to Fort Myers (RSW) 1 weekly from December 19— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) June 26, 2026
United’s Newark – Los Angeles route is the third most lucrative in the country, based on Bureau of Transportation Statistics DB1B data for the four most recent quarters available which are Q2 2024 through Q1 2025.
| Rank | Airline | Market | Revenue | |||
| 1 | United | Newark – San Francisco | $493 million | |||
| 2 | Delta | New York JFK – Los Angeles | $449 million | |||
| 3 | United | Newark – Los Angeles | $384 million | |||
| 4 | JetBlue | New York JFK – Los Angeles | $280 million | |||
| 5 | Delta | New York JFK – San Francisco | $252 million | |||
| 6 | American | New York JFK – Los Angeles | $220 million |
Delta is not going to be competitive in the Newark market, but that’s not the point of this move.
- United has a Polaris lounge, and they’ve just extended access to business class customers flying to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Delta doesn’t have a business class Delta One lounge there to compete, just a small Sky Club at Newark, near the American Airlines Admirals Club. It’s nice enough.
- Newark is both a New York City region airport, so it competes with New York JFK for business, and it’s a separate market with its own catchment area. It’s also more convenient to parts of the city. On the one hand, adding Newark flights means competing for and offering convenience to some customers. On the other hand, it also competes against your own JFK flights. And if it’s underperforming, discounting on these flights will to some extent cannibalize your premium New York JFK – Los Angeles yields.
- To pasengers for whom Newark is a separate market, they’re already loyal to United and two Newark – LA flights a day isn’t enough to change that. United owns the rest of the Newark market and offers much greater frequency even on this route, plus the premium product will be better. And Newark is too congested an airport for Delta to really grow here to compete.
- Plus, United has connections at Newark – including premium connections – that Delta doesn’t have, making it easier for United to sell seats. People connect on from Newark to United’s transatlantic network and to other East Coast destinations. United has connectivity on both ends of the route while Delta just has Los Angeles.
What this all amounts to is that this is more a play to offer Newark as a destination for Los Angeles customers, rather than to compete with United for Newark/New York business.
In fact, Delta is even promoting the service with a quote from their Vice President of Los Angeles and West Coast sales, emphasizing that LAX “plays a central role in DElta’s network.”
The rest of the talking points are pablum about key business markets (New York and LA) and offering “more choice, comfort, and reliable connectivity between the East and West Coasts.” But the choice to highlight a LA sales in the release is not an accident.
Delta is the largest carrier at LAX by flights and seats. I wrote at the start of the month that they had plans for more transcon flights there – though it wasn’t yet clear this meant Newark. They’re also going to expand long haul Pacific flying from the city. They’re about to open a second Delta One lounge there.
To be sure, Delta has operational challenges out of Los Angeles on flights to New York, where they fly old equipment. But they have the best premium ground experience at LAX. And they’ve growing the operation – they’ve even told DOT they want to fly Los Angeles – Manila.
Delta Gate at LAX
United is hemmed in by lack of gates. Delta thinks they can make a play to ‘win LA’. And that means offering service to the places Los Angeles passengers want to go. For most of them headed to New York, JFK is the most convenient airport. But for a set of important LAX customers for whom Newark is more convenient, Delta wasn’t want to simply cede them to United.
glad you covered this quickly, Gary.
Every single point you made about DL on EWR-LAX can be said about UA on JFK-LAX – and that is precisely the reason why DL is launching the service.
DL and UA can and have played quite nicely picking off scraps from other airlines including both off of AA and WN.
AA and WN are making huge progress in retaining higher value progress and will report RASM growth that will likely beat DL and UA.
DL has a mature domestic highly profitable network on which DL carries the most corporate travel revenue in the industry and DL carries the most revenue and share on DL mainline aircraft – the most cost-efficient way to serve the US and the world.
UA laid out an aggressive domestic growth strategy which has made real progress but UA still is the 4th largest domestic airline on their own metal; like AA, UA uses a much larger number of RJs to support fewer hubs than DL.
UA’s growth plan is failing as evidenced by the amount of capacity they are having to pull out of their system.
DL already has said it can and will go after UA’s primary strategic advantage – its position as the largest carrier by revenue on the west coast and across the Pacific.
DL, like all companies, needs to keep growing. They are now shifting their growth target to UA after years of successfully poaching revenue from AA, B6, NK and WN.
there is never a dull moment in the US airline industry
If the intent is to go after people that will pay for business class then this route doesn’t make much sense. If the intent is to go after coach passengers and coach passengers wanting a free upgrade then it makes sense.
Wow, TD was finally right about something. The article does a nice job of listing the challenges to which Starlink wifi and Polaris lie-flat suites can be added, but at least DL isn’t stupid enough to try EWR-SFO transcons, or are they?
As for the domestic US market United has transformed IAH with new, efficient roadways, dropoffs, upgraded inter-terminal train, security, cutting edge baggage handling, customs, 24 new gates and a Polaris Club twice as big as any current one. This will all be completed this year. Then, at IAD UA is opening a new luxurious terminal with 12 new flexible gates with customs and a massive new Polaris Club also this year. That’s 36 new gates this year alone! Next year UA’s 7 JFK-LAX/SFO transcons will start with A321 NEO ‘Coastliners’ featuring 20 lie-flat suites (not 44 recliners), lots of Premium Plus and Economy Plus seats and Starlink of course.
United is also accelerating the upgauging of its fleet by leaning into larger narrowbodies and widebodies adding 250+ aircraft between 2026 and April 2028, United is taking delivery of 47 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, 119 Boeing 737 MAX jets (primarily MAX 9s), 58 Airbus A321neos, and 28 Airbus A321XLRs all of which are accretive as a result of the smoking deal UA got by ordering when other airlines were hunkering down during Covid.
https://dwuconsulting.com/dwu-ai/united-airlines-strategy
It’s just a matter of time.
Presumably this is really about LAX POS, and not so much EWR. Delta obviously needs to make sure it reaps the benefits of its billions in investments in LAX. Good luck to them. They’ll need it. LAX is a tricky market. No one really dominates it. A lot of the TPAC stuff DL is adding there is froth and won’t work.
I give DL’s 2 x daily EWR-LAX about 4 months before they pull the plug on it.
George,
B6 is pulling the plug on EWR-LAX.
The point is not to immediately go after the Polaris/Delta One crowd. You have to win that business over time.
There is no shortage of high value economy traffic as well corporate contract revenue that flies EWR-LAX and which does not allow upgrades (at least at company expense).
If these flights are operated with domestic configured A321NEOs, those are the most cost efficient airplanes that could operate the route; they exist to win in competitive markets.
While UA uses 787s on EWR-LAX, 5 of their flights today are on 757s which have antiquated 2×2 lie flat seats – and only 16 of them; those 757 flights are not exactly cutting edge premium cabin aircraft.
and DL does use the exact same 2 daily domestic 321NEO service pattern on BOS-SFO which UA serves on domestic configured aircraft but B6 serves on Mint aircraft.
don’t forget that DL just started LAX-ORD and LAX-HKG service. early reports are that both routes are doing well; LAX-ORD is competititve with both AA and UA while LAX-HKG is only competitive against UA.
If those two routes weren’t doing well, DL certainly woudln’t have announced EWR-LAX so quickly.
and let’s not forget that UA’s labor costs could go up $1 billion this year as a result of finally settling w/ large number of workgroups.
add in that UA is receiving far more aircraft this year than its cash flow and they are adding on debt; don’t let their fans kid you about their GAAP income exceeding DL’s in the first quarter. When you do sale/leaseback transactions, it produces a gain on the income statement but adds debt to the balance sheet.
DL has UA in the perfect spot to start focusing its competitive energy on UA. The fact that this is the 3rd major UA route that DL has entered and the overwhelming belief at DL’s HDQ has to be that they have the upper hand.
Maybe Delta should brand the front cabin on LAX-EWR as DPS? Hard to argue that United *won’t* have a more compelling premium product across the entirety of the market with its forthcoming JFK entry that will, at minimum, have multiple daily flights with 3-cabin A321s and flat beds in Polaris. That’s before reaching the “worst kept secret” of a future Polaris Lounge at JFK.
I love to see more competition at EWR, but Alaska’s FC product on EWR-LAX (for example) is priced more closely to United’s Premium Plus than it is Polaris. Delta is not going to offer a competitive product for the local premium market, unless DL has something up its sleeve for the A321 fleet, such as installing an off-the-shelf, certified lieflat product given the delays with its more customized LOPA.
from the carrier that can’t even run LAX-LHR on their own metal after multiple failures, color me skeptical. That betrays VERY weak LA point of sale when you need to give one of the biggest LAX O&D routes to your London partner.
Or the 1 gate at Love Field for Delta that sTD told us would transform DFW loyalty then LAX-DAL barely lasted more than the blink of an eye. Or the carrier that started LAX-PPT then couldn’t compete with United or TN despite a JV that covered PPT… Or the carrier that whined to DOT about how they overbid on HND slots and couldn’t possibly keep them all as they bid — “please… nobody flies Delta to Haneda despite our chutzpah when we bid for all these HND slots — give us some slack!”…
It’s akin to Delta starting MIA-LAX 1x daily and their fanboys (sTD) acting like the competitive dynamic has suddenly shifted.
Good luck, Delta.
I love how much traction and life energy sTD has gotten from an internal Delta memo saying “Hey, AA won’t have more gates than us for about two years” but that’s about it… Delta has no plan or contract in place to be bigger than AA (completely leaving Alaska to the side for loyalty dynamics) in the long-run, much less any worthwhile JV/domestic partners at LAX.
For years we were told by sTD that SEA was the next big thing and nothing could stop Delta in Seattle… until Alaska stopped Delta dead in their tracks (even confirmed by sTD’s fellow fired Delta buddy, Jetlanta)… so now we get the LAX hubris for about two years until reality also sets in that no, nothing about LAWA has changed and LAWA still doesn’t want to establish a “winner” in LAX.
But hey. I’m always happy to be wrong. Maybe Delta has an ace up their sleeve regarding LAX gates though they certainly haven’t said it– they’ve tacitly admitted that SEA can’t be it (which anyone with a brain tried to tell the Delta fanboys since they didn’t seem to believe how gates work) so they’re now turning to LAX just like AA did before them because there’s truly no other option than being the latest “Win LAX” Johnny come lately…
well the TD bashers and the UA fan club finally woke up.
I have said for years that UA’s domestic growth plan was unsustainable because they would dilute revenue in their own hubs and would not steal share in medium and small markets where AA, DL and WN are stronger. THAT is absolutely proving true, confirmed by UA’s cutting of 5% of domestic capacity for the heart of the summer. IAH included. IAH-HSV included.
and I also said that DL and UA have feasted on the revenue which AA and WN have not been able to retain. WN has reduced ATL to a fraction of itself; DL and WN have minimal hub overlap now. AA and WN are seeing significantly improved revenue and that will continue. AA and WN overlap with UA far more than with DL.
DL has succeeded for 20 years building NYC, then SEA, then BOS and is now shifting its competitive efforts on LAX.
and, no, Max, I never said that DL would push AS out of SEA. and DL has JVs for LAX-LHR and PPT. You know, real JVs, not alliance marketing agreements like AA and AS have.
When you can’t win the conversation, you resort to telling lies. It happens all the time.
and DL has said they will be back in LAX-LHR on their own metal
I said long before DL announced EWR-LAX that DL’s opportunity to grow its position at LAX was to fly to other airline hubs where there is actually very little competition between the big 3.
DL has the gates and also is taking on LAX-HKG, a market that only UA flies. anecdotal evidence is that DL is filing seats well on that route as well as to ORD.
NK is gone; they had the greatest overlap with DL.
B6 is getting weaker by the day; DL is their largest direct competitor. DL’s position at LGA and JFK has never been stronger.
UA stupidly left JFK years ago but DL (like AA and B6) never closed the door to any airport and certainly not in NYC. UA is begging to get back into JFK; DL just announced EWR-LAX.
Doesn’t matter what UA intends to do at JFK; they don’t have slots and certainly haven’t loaded any schedules.
DL would love to force UA to panic and spend billions on slots at JFK just as UA is watching its labor costs soar and its cash flow shrink as their massive orders are now being delivered – right as they cut capacity.
DL doesn’t need to take on UA in the premium lie flat market on EWR-LAX; they will fill a whole lot of seats just by replacing B6. AS is down to a single flight/day and DL would love to knock them out of the market. THEN DL can use the passengers it has gained and the corporate traffic it has won to put premium cabin aircraft on EWR-LAX at some point in the future.
AS’ margins continue to sink as they cut more and more of their network to shore up their HA merger – and they haven’t even settled w/ labor.
DL has a very strong track record of winning in other carrier strength markets.
They have shifted their competitive focus to UA markets and the UA fan club is shreaking because they know that there is very little UA can do.
We can expect a whole lot of smoke coming out of the heads of some people but the only light and energy will be as DL does on the west coast what it has achieved in NYC, BOS and SEA.
My guess is that DL might have run some of the narrowbody lie-flats here, but that project went sideways.
April…almost a year away, barely dipping a toe.
Wonder if they’ll always slot the 44 seat first class, that would be the bold move to pick off mid-yield traffic.
And BTW what is the galley plan for the 44 seat first class? Can they really fit the proper first class meal service in that galley?
Enilria interpreted this as DL retaliating against UA for UA’s upcoming JFK flights, which is how I interpreted it too.
But two domestically-configured flights a day against the 10-ish (TBD) JFK flights with Polaris and premium economy seating doesn’t seem like much of a retaliation.
Maybe DL really is just trying to take the place of B6, versus trying to make a big impact in EWR-LAX.
Mark,
Enilria is probably right on his assessment.
It is a shot across the bow. UA has been yapping for years about getting back to JFK but they don’t have slots; DL doesn’t need them for EWR and has published the schedule so they can work w/ the FAA to coordinate schedules.
DL doesn’t need to fly EWR transcons but it most certainly will if UA decides to cross the river and set up a transcon operation at JFK.
I have said for years that it will be far easier for DL to grow into UA’s strength markets – the west coast and TPAC – than it is or will be for UA to grow at JFK or LGA. It is simply a matter of the number of competitors involved.
DL has a very long track record of building hubs in competitor strength markets and in adding routes that are strategically necessary to DL.
DL’s growth at BOS has slowed after building up SEA pre-covid and LAX since covid. This is their opportunity to place all of their strategic focus on LAX and other airline hubs are part of the plan.
PHL, CLT and an increase in MIA as well as IAD is certainly on the agenda for DL at LAX.
DL can start by taking the place of B6 and push AS out but I am certain that they can put their transcon 321NEOs in about a year after the route starts.
and, once again, DL still has transcon 757s just like UA’s and UA uses those planes on 5 of their EWR-LAX flights.
this will be fun to watch for those of us that competition and even more so watching UA getting knocked down a couple notches.
LAX-ORD, HKG and now EWR…. UA is most definitely in DL’s crosshairs.
TD says, “I have said for years that UA’s domestic growth plan was unsustainable”
And you have been wrong for the last ten years and will be wrong again as fuel prices normalize. All of the big three cut capacity growth plans as a result of the oil shock. Leave it to you to take it out of context to try and extrapolate your tortured wishful thinking
TD says, “I have said for years that it will be far easier for DL to grow into UA’s strength markets – the west coast and TPAC – than it is or will be for UA to grow at JFK or LGA.”
Not sure anyone other than you cares what you claim you have been saying for years especially when it is non-sensical. UA is not trying to takeover JFK dominance or even grow at LGA in any significant way. UA merely wants to restore the valuable JFK-LAX/SFO transcons that CEO Jeff Smisek stupidly scuttled and doing so makes infinitely more sense than DL’s twice daily planned EWR-LAX transcons. I am confident the UA network guys are having a good chuckle about that along with DL’s lawyer president suggesting DL becoming the leading US carrier across the Pacific.
TO no surprise, you are in full defense mode as DL does what I said they would do – turn their competitive focus from AA and WN to UA.
UA tried to dump capacity into their network and RASM catered.
This year, fuel prices went up and they have had no choice but to cut capacity.
But you cannot deny that UA has been unsuccessful in stealing share from AA, DL and WN in scores of second and third tier markets throughout the US.
UA has managed to upgrade capacity at its own hubs but has not moved their position out of 4th place in most non-hub markets.
and I also said that DL would come after UA’s TPAC strength. that is exactly what is happening.
and no matter how much you want to keep a stiff upper lip, there are people in Chicago that are very much aware that DL can and very well might match or exceed UA’s size in the Pacific – and make far more money doing it, in part by using superior aircraft and getting more corporate revenue – just as DL does in other markets.
It isn’t DL’s problem that Smisek walked away from JFK. It also isn’t DL’s problem that EWR is no longer slot controlled and DL can very well add flights with FAA coordination.
UA might or might not get back into JFK but it is beyond comical for anyone to think that DL will struggle as the second of the big 4 in EWR-LAX but UA will succeed as the 4th carrier on JFK-LAX and SFO.
DL has no intention of ceding anything at JFK to UA while it intends to use its greater profits to grow in UA’s top markets.
AA and WN have been the focus of DL’s competitive efforts for the past 10 years; now the focus is UA.
no matter how badly you don’t like it, DL’s track record of growing into other airline strength markets is quite strong.
Yes I agree, that’s why I was surprised they’re not entering the market with more of a splash, along the lines of what UA will do at JFK.
But I guess they can always deploy a more premium product there if they get traction.
I’m looking forward to this and will use these flights often. EWR is my home airport and Delta is my airline. I travel to Socal frequently. United Terminal C ground ops are terrible – delay, delay, delay. Delta/Terminal A/go direct to LAX. Perfect. n of 1 but this is good news. Despite Delta’s decline, United still has a long way to go to catch them.
TD says, “UA tried to dump capacity into their network and RASM catered.”
UAL Q1 ASM: +3.4%, PRASM: +7.4%, Domestic ASM: +2.2%, PRASM: +7.9% all of which was better than DAL.
Sorry, wrong yet again. Do you ever tire of being proven wrong?
rebel,
absolutely nowhere did I say 1Q2026.
Do you get tired of hunting for cherrypicked data to try to prove me wrong when the facts are clearly contrary to what you wrote.
UA’s RASM performance has trailed the industry and DL’s on multiple occassions post covid at the same time its capacity growth has exceeded the industry.
It was an absolute given when fuel prices increased and fares had to increase – which they did – that the carriers that added so much capacity would have to pull back.
The irony is that it was AA that had higher capacity growth than UA before fuel prices soared and yet it is UA that has pulled back its capacity the most of the big 4.
according to aeroroutes, not my data, UA’s domestic capacity for the 2nd half of the summer is down 5% on 7% fewer flights.
UA can pick whether it wants higher fares or more capaciyt but it clearly cannot have both.
UA has added alot of capacity but has largely done so to its hubs without moving itself out of the 4th place position among US carriers in competitive small and medium sized markets.
UA’s domestic growth strategy is simply not working.
and specific to this discussion, DL is targeting UA’s largest markets – first LAX-ORD and HKG and now -EWR. after years of competitive focus on AA, AS, B6, NK and WN, DL’s competitive focus is shifting to UA.
you can vomit up all the data you want but it is clear that DL is locked and loaded on UA and there is very little UA can do to stop DL from doing in UA strength markets what DL has done in other airline strength markets over the past 20 years.
After years of arrogance from UA and its execs and fans including you about what UA would achieve, it is pure delight to see DL taking on UA itself.
“absolutely nowhere did I say 1Q2026.” You said, ““UA tried to dump capacity into their network and RASM catered (sic).”
That’s obviously wrong based on the last quarter and the last ten years which have clearly demonstrated what you “have been saying for years” is blatantly incorrect. Poor thing. Why bless your little heart.
I am not searching for the year but it is post Covid when UA dumped capacity and their system RASM tanked
You try so hard to discredit me when it is obvious that I have been spot on about DL and UA’s strategies
Delta is going head on against United. Wake me up when United comes close to matching DL’s moves rather than just typical hot air including from you.
Wow, your arguments defeat themselves. Thanks.
Gary just posted another article confirming what I Have said which is that legacy airline hubs is where DL will expand from LAX and that is happening.
Good news is that LAX-IAD and PHL are next up.
UA’s strategy of off the wall international destinations doesn’t matter.
neither does AA’s strategy of trying to fly 40X/day to 3 hubs from every secondary and tertiary city on RJs
DL has proven once again why it outsmarts the industry
I guess when you’re weak out west you’ve got to get whatever passengers from wherever you can to try and fill up the oversized aircraft that are coming in 2027? Sloppy seconds from hubs your competitors dominate? Sounds a bit desperate.