Delta Air Lines has plans to dominate Austin as Southwest struggles and after American Airlines pulled back its own expansion there. I believe I was first to reveal Delta’s plan to make Austin a focus city seven years ago. They’re clearly playing the long game, as they jostle with Southwest for the most gates as part of Austin’s new concourse expansion and new lease and use agreement.
They’re talking about 150 daily flights, 15 gates, two lounges and 10x’ing their staff in the Central Texas city. And according to aviation watchdog, Delta is preparing to announce a route that will “emotionally bruise” American Airlines.
in one scenario, could tend to emotionally bruise the folks that fumbled their LATAM deal
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) September 11, 2025
Jon doesn’t say the route, but he says the route.
- He adds the tweet to this thread on Delta’s expansion in Austin (where American drew down its focus city before Delta rushed in).
- He notes that the flight would be related to Delta stealing the LATAM partnership from American in fall 2019, a move that came closest to costing former American CEO Doug Parker his job. (LATAM means Miami).
Delta has a plan to expand to 29 destinations from Austin. This would be number 30.
Austin – Miami would add a spoke to Delta’s newest focus city; connect two non-hub cities where Delta has a strong presence; support their joint venture with LATAM; and offer an alternative to American in an American Airlines hub.
The route is currently served by,
- American (3 peak daily flights)
- Southwest (5 times weekly)
- Frontier (3 times weekly)
An Austin – Miami route would also help establish Delta in the market before Southwest grows, which is important for its development of Austin as Southwest considers building up even larger than Delta’s plan – as the two jockey to be the dominant carrier of Austin in the future and anchor tenants for the airport’s new use and lease agreement.
Yet no flights on DL to ORD which is a route with more demand.
after launching LAX-ORD and LAX-HKG in UA strength markets, DL clearly is willing to do what it needs to do to build its own network.
Regardless of whether it is AUS-MIA or something else, DL is going up some established competition and is pretty confident it can win.
btw, DL reports its earnings for the current quarter on October 10th which is a Friday; DL rarely reports its earnings on Friday. The following day it is holding a 100th anniversary celebration for its employees in ATL.
Look for some big announcements as part of its earnings call.
I’m reading between the lines here… I think Gary wants to visit Miami… *wink*
Whatever happened to making dallas a hub?
Always surprise what never works for AA seems to work for DL. Just look at the NYC to Florida routes (outside of Miami).
@George Nathan Romey — Speaking of JFK-MIA, specifically, sometimes American operates wide-bodies, 772/773, even with the Flagship First seats, which can be booked as Business, yet receive the bigger seats, all of which is pretty cool for the 2-3 hour flight, $500/way on-average. Delta is usually just a321 from LGA/JFK-MIA/FLL/PBI/MCO/TPA, which is ‘fine,’ but not as nice as a 777. Anyhoo…
@Tim Dunn – and they reaffirmed earnings guidance yesterday, this isn’t gonna be a Friday news dump
It speaks volumes of the connections between AUS and Florida that there is as much service on all carriers to all of S. Florida to AUS as there is to MCO. as AUS becomes more of a hub for DL, there will be more balance in number of flights to each city even though Eastern Florida traffic is heavily geared to the Eastern US.
And the real prize from MIA is LAX, something DL has flown just once per day (also FLL-LAX). When DL is ready to drop the gauntlet on AA, alot more LAX-MIA will happen.
Gary,
many companies – esp. DL – update guidance in the final weeks of the quarter. The finance and earnings piece is not a surprise.
Again, DL rarely releases earnings on a Friday – and that is true for most US airlines.
The fact that they are having a big employee celebration the next day does leave open the possibility of significant news.
I’m sure, though, that Jon will come along w/ “breaking news” and you will act like you heard it first from him.
@Tim Dunn — Bah… “drop the gauntlet,” you say? Reminds me of when Homer Simpson went around challenging everyone to duels… ‘you insulted my honor!’ *slap* (@L737, seen it?)
For real, though, if one is seeking premium options on those routes (MIA/FLL-LAX), most will prefer lie-flat, and only AA (just MIA, nice Flagship lounge opportunity) and B6 (both, Mint, but no lounges) offer it. I could see AA using XLR (new Flagship Suites) for this (@Peter?)
The very top management members of American have no emotions to bruise.
And they’re too busy running around spinning in circles saying “what do we do,
what do we do.”
@1990 Those widebodies are used in part for a/c utilization, a/c repositioning and moving connecting traffic going south through MIA. JFK and MIA are trunk routes. Yes, it’s a nice three hour ride albeit my flight to JFK tomorrow morning will be on a 737 Max. No lie flat seat for me.
@1990 – other than putting their splashy new product on splashy routes (which has value of course), I don’t really understand the point of permanently flying the XLR on transcon routes. If they are going to fly the XLR out of MIA, why not launch a splashy route to somewhere in South America and take advantage of that plane’s range? Would be nice to see AA thinking a bit more creatively instead of just viewing the XLR as a replacement for their 321T config.
Meanwhile back in reality, Delta’s FF program is a Dumpster Fire.
The arrogant clowns running Delta are the reasons I avoid Delta.
@1990 — “I demand satisfaction!” Or in this case, more DL news to get excited about
@Peter — I don’t see why not for MIA; the XLR could be nice for BOG, LIM, even SCL, GRU, EZE, if in-range, maybe providing more frequency, like 2x day rather than just a daily redeye. Or, they can go to specific destinations like Argentinian wine region, Mendoza, MDZ, or direct to Galapagos, GPS, if those countries would allow it (like, for most leisure travelers interested in those destinations, it would be nice to skip Buenos Aires or Quito/Guayaquil).
@L737 — ‘Pistols at dawn!’ Not to get too meta, but I’m 1/3 here for real talk, 1/3 here for memes, and 1/3 here to see how Tim responds to Delta comments.
@Tim Dunn,
I know you’re the Delta whisperer, but why do you say that Delta rarely issues earnings on Friday when they literally released their FY24 / Q4 2024 earnings on a Friday and their FY23 Q4 2023 earnings on a Friday. That’s literally 25% of their earnings for the last two years have been released on a Friday. They also seem to like Thursdays and sometimes Wednesdays with an odd Monday. Kinda seems like you have no idea what you’re talking about.
What is more likely is like most listed corporations you like to have big employee meetings when you can talk about your recent results (which you can’t do when they haven’t been released to the market) – so the big employee party was probably planned around when they were going to announce results rather than the other way around…
@1990 – I like your thinking! I’ve been looking at Galapagos flights recently and… they leave much to be desired. Highly doubt they’ll ever open it up to international direct flights though. Direct to Mendoza would be a cool route, maybe seasonal, feels like something United would go for. Nonstop to Lima would certainly make sense for the XLR – could challenge frequencies from Latam and also a United flight from EWR (believe they both offer lie-flat on that route).
Tim Dunn you are such a drama Queen. We know you like Delta, and you think your their ceo.
@Peter — And, for Peru, if catering to that premium leisure category, nonstops to Cusco (for Machu Picchu) or Iquitos (for the Amazon) sure would be nice, but highly doubtful.
@1990 — Yup same here, it’s a healthy meta right now w00t w00t
Speaking of healthy, that’s a really healthy looking AUS route map. Maybe DL will find a way to convince the powers that be and sneak a DCA route in there for people like Gary, inflicting more “emotional bruising”, for Southwest.
@L737 — Either that, or ‘the powers at be’ will move the US capital to Austin… (when pigs fly!)
Andy,
I’m glad you looked at DL’s earnings dates but I’m not sure there is a huge difference between 1/4 and rarely but perhaps “not often” is more appropriate.
Since this will be the 3rd quarter earnings release, I would be far more interested in you showing me any 3rd quarterly earnings on a Friday and anything significant that came out of them.
and, I do think there will be some significant news, esp. either AUS or fleet related. DL is very close to needing to convert some options or place some orders including the rumored 787 order.
and we have to figure out which of the 3 new Med cities gets announced.
1990
DL will put premium configured airplanes on the domestic system if they need to. AA has done so from MIA-LAX in the past and will do it if they need to do it as well.
I have no idea what is going to happen with DL’s 321NEO transcon product; the word I hear is that the Delta One seat they picked failed another crash test and DL is now shopping for another seat. Not sure if true but those 757s are going to have to stick around a while longer.
American is loosing Chicago for United e now Austin for delta no plans to increase anything anywhere !!!
@Tim Dunn, do we really need to explain to you that if they have issued 25% of their earnings reports on Fridays lately and random chance would suggest a 20% chance on any old weekday, then Fridays would seem to be OVER-represented here?
A 787 announcement would be awesome.
@Jim this is consistent with Tim’s troubles with simple math…
Anyway – Friday would be a terrible day to release major results/announcements that differ from market expectations because of the Monday effect – every executive and good investor relations team knows this. That said I wouldn’t call making a 787 order (something that has been leaked for months and is an order for wide body aircraft when their current order book can’t cover half the retirements they have forecast (and most analysts are forecasting in future capex for these retirements anyway) and given current delivery timeframes would not likely be delivered prior to the 2030s, very material to the share price) – so Tim might be right that they announce it then, but got to his answer from completely flawed logic.
Andy,
1. I take it that you didn’t find a Friday Q3 earnings release.
2. you also need to show us where ANY analyst is modeling for DL capex beyond its announced order book and no, analysts don’t model retirements. If they did they would be very wrong about UA which seems like it will never let go of its oldest widebodies
3. whether it has been expected or not, a 787 order from DL will be huge for DL and for Boeing and for GE if DL gets the MRO contract as is expected to be the case esp. since it needs to be for about 50 airplanes or more.
There is a lot more mileage to be had from orders of 50 widebody and 100 narrowbody orders than UA’s approach to ordering hundreds of planes that will last a decade to deliver.
I’m not sure why you need to argue so much when you said yourself upthread that DL would be announcing on Friday so they could discuss whatever they announce at the big employee event.
And if Gary thinks that DL is going to talk about “we met the upper end of our earnings guidance” at a centennial employee party, then he is more boring than anyone could have imagined.
Just wait until that Friday and if nothing other than “normal’ earnings are announced, you can say I am wrong. I doubt that will be the case.
Probably going to announce Diamonds won’t get CLEAR anymore and the AMEX statement credits getting lessened. Alan is right…clowns.
@Tim Dunn, your insistence that a Friday 3Q earnings release is somehow meaningful, vs. any other quarter, is intellectually dishonest at a level that we’re not used to from even you.
Please explain why a company would bury good news on a Friday so that it loses its punch before analysts and investors have a chance to deal with i 2+ days later on the next business day? There is a well known habit of dropping BAD news on Fridays for that very reason.
Jim,
since you TOO want to argue, the ONLY reason why I connected the DOW Of the earnings release w/ significant news is because of the 100th anniversary celebration the following day.
I don’t want to hear another word from you or anyone else on the subject other than if you believe that DL will announce something significant beyond normal earnings on the earnings day that will be discussed at the employee party.
THAT IS ALL.
and apparently the AUS-MIA flight does show up in schedule files to start in November – a fairly quick add compared to the 11 month notice for ORD-LAX.
one daily flight on a 737
@Tim Dunn, you can type in all caps all you want. You are doing your Tim Trick where you have been proven 100% wrong (as a reminder, you said they never release earnings on Fridays, which is FALSE). Then instead of conceding the error and moving on, you reframe the argument in a pointless way (ahhhh but when did they last release 3Q earnings on a Friday?). I’m just calling you on it. I’ve seen this Tim Trick before, and it didn’t work any better this time.
Lol Tim “doesn’t want to hear another word” if it doesn’t reaffirm his beliefs. Shut your mouth you fool.
Everyone’s wanted not to hear another word from you for years.
no, Jim,
all I said is that you and your ilk prove me wrong by waiting for Oct 10 and tell me then that I was wrong.
But you don’t have the patience or self-control to wait
Tired,
It is precisely because of people like you that I DO keep posting because you and others can’t stand that I am right a whole lot more often than you want to admit.
both of you and any others,
tell Gary to start an article on Oct 10 covering DL’s earnings and whatever they discuss at the employee rally in ATL the day following.
If it is a nothing burger, I am more than happy to admit that it was a nothing burger.
I just don’t believe they are going to have nothing forward looking and financially significant to say.
Again, prove me wrong AFTER the fact. Not argue incessantly now because you can’t stand that I just might be wrong and you don’t have the self-control to wait.
@Tim Dunn, you are re-reframing the argument – a Derivative Tim Trick. You wrote “DL rarely reports its earnings on Friday.” Thanks to Andy for doing some actual primary research, we have been able to definitively correct your inaccurate statement. This isn’t about whether or not Delta will report good news. This is about the fact that your facts were incorrect. Try to re-spin the argument all you want. It won’t work.
as I said, Jim, you don’t have the self-control to wait until Oct 11 to prove me wrong so you want to argue about whether 1/4 is “rarely” but it sure as heck is not “often”
and neither you or he has yet to find a Friday Q3 release date.
Do you think you could get off your high horse long enough to answer THAT question?
what are you so damn afraid of? that DL really might announce something significant or that maybe I will be wrong (for the first time) and you finally win some kind of big emotional award?
If Gary’s thesis was that DL’s announcement would be some emotional bruise to AA, you clearly want to deliver the bruising yourself.
Suppose Jon has been invited to the party – or whose feed he will repost?
@Tim Dunn, now we are back to the Reheated Tim Trick of restating disproven arguments. 20-25% is about what you would expect in a world with five business days in a week. It certainly doesn’t help support your original statement that they never report on Fridays. 25%>0%.
I’m not afraid of what they may or may not announce, Tim. What may or may not be announced in October isn’t my point. I’m simply calling you out for being wrong. If you are going to write so often and with such an attempted authoritative tone, you owe it to yourself and us to get your facts straight. And if you get something wrong, admit it and move on. Yet here we are, still debating 20% vs. 25% vs. 0% and coming back to the red herring of “but they haven’t reported 3Q earnings on a Friday lately,” which wasn’t even your original argument.
Tim, I dont care if youre right or wrong, or if the USA changes its name to the United States of Delta, I’m not wanting to argue with you, I’m wanting you to shut up because youre an a-hole. The only reason you haven’t been banned from vftw is because you generate clicks with your unhinged responses. Anywhere else that doesn’t rely on clicks, you’ve been banned with prejudice.
You don’t add anything but hot air.
Jim
It is perfectly obvious that you want to argue w/ some faceless person on the internet because YOU are incapable of exercising the self-control to wait until Oct 10.
And YOU are the hypocrite in first arguing that DL did report on Fridays 25% of the time, can’t answer the question of how many 3rd quarter Fridays DL has reported on, and now you expand the argument to 20-25% and STILL argue?
Seriously, what is wrong w/ you that you are so committed to arguing w/ someone you don’t even know?
Tired,
Gary and I discuss items and HE has the self-control to wait. I hope he does do a story about DL’s 3Q2025 earnings AND the DL employee party; he has to get his feed from somewhere since he isn’t invited and neither is Jon. It should be quite the story – the first US airline to reach 100.
I expect AA and UA will do the same.
Scott Kirby will undoubtedly officially proclaim that every other airline is dead and UA is the undisputed champion of air travel. THAT should be quite the story to cover.
If you don’t want to see me responding, then have the common sense to stop arguing w/ me.
and DL HAS loaded another AUS flight in what should be a bruising to AA. I personally think that is a stretch but that is what Gary wrote because Jon told him to.
@Tim Dunn, this is incredible. You are re-re-reheating the argument about whether they have reported 3Q earnings on a Friday – which wasn’t even your original point. It’s a Double Derivative Tim Trick.
Also +1 for the Tim Trick of calling me a hypocrite and using the word “ilk”.
And the Tim Trick of trying to distract by mentioning that they have loaded another flight.
We’ve seen it all before. It’s not working.
@Tim, you’re thinking of Broker reports which usually only cover the next 3 years but as Delta is so late to the game with this order I’ll be quite shocked if they can nab a delivery slot within 3 years – I’m meaning equity analysts in funds who cover aviation (for which I am one) and built into my 10-year model is additional capex for unnannounced widebody replacements for the years 2030-35 – I did this while also talking to my peers and many who do have long-term models have replacements built in – we do this for all airlines, its not a Delta special and not a criticism of Delta, all I’m saying is unless this 787 order is really growing the fleet (possible of course but I’d say unlikely) then the market already expects it – not a good thing, not a bad thing, just an expected thing.
Also it is usually bad practice for corporations to make unexpected announcements on Fridays, because it creates outsized share price action (which in turn increases their share volatility, beta and associated risk levels) come Monday – sure they may want to do this for their weirdly timed employee celebration but it is not a prudent investor relations/management choice.
what is incredible is how consumed you are at trying to prove someone on the internet – NOT AN IDEA – wrong.
Changing the standard from one in a year for the 4th quarter report to 20-25% and still unable to answer the question of 3rd quarter earnings is the height of hypocrisy. (+1.7).
walk away, Jim.
The entire article IS ABOUT AUS-MIA. You have been so consumed in arguing to prove me wrong that you aren’t even aware of what GARY titled the article.
AA is using premium planes on MIALAX. There is almost always at least one daily lie flat flight and by November there are three.
@Tim Dunn, you are the one who changed the standard. You said Delta never reports on Friday. That was proven incorrect. Then you decided that 3Q was the new standard. YOU did that. 3Q became your backup argument when your main argument was proven wrong.
The Reverse Tim Trick of criticizing someone else for losing sight of the original point is interesting, since trying to distract from the original point with irrelevant facts is a longtime Tim Trick.
no, Jim,
I did not say “Delta never reports on Friday.”
The mere fact that YOU are changing the definition in every post says volumes about you.
The ORIGINAL point is about AUS-MIA. You jumped on my comment about the earnings with both feet and came out swinging determined you would bloody me.
Just walk away. Your arguments are childish and I specifically said it isn’t worth arguing about.
Andy,
I’m actually shocked to hear that you as a supposed equity analyst bothers to argue w/ a faceless person on the internet.
But I am intrigued by your comments about modeling fleet plans and spending.
First, I have said here that, if DL does order the 787 it is for delivery in the late 2020s and into 2030 and will likely be for 40-60 aircraft. Despite what some UA fans think, DL will get its first 787, if it wants it, right in the middle of UA’s orders.
second, DL has 20 A350-1000s and 20 options for 20 Airbus widebodies that will easily replace the remaining 767-300ER fleet which DL says will take place before 2030.
third, DL is still growing its network as evidenced by LAX-HKG and the expected ATL-DEL and ATL-DEL on top of ATL-TLV so they need more than just pure replacement.
and any announcements after Thursday market close are fair game for a Friday earnings report. In fact, most major news events are not done during trading hours and they certainly won’t be made after market close on Friday.
again, all I raised is that I THINK that DL will be announcing something significant by the time its employees gather on that Saturday.
this is social media and not an SEC filing. It really is ok for you or anyone else to say “cling to it, dude, but I think there will just be a bunch of CFA sandwiches at DL’s bash and not much else?
“If you don’t want to see me responding, then have the common sense to stop arguing w/ me.”
Yet here you are yapping away hours later. Just walk away from the computer tim. You’re an a-hole in the way you talk to others, so I’m responding in kind. Just walk away man.
no way in God’s green earth I am walking away.
There are a few gems to be found in the discussion. You just aren’t one of them.
Just walk away Tim. Do some good for yourself and “your wife” and walk away.
for someone whose internet identity is tied to someone else, it is you that are worn out and fatigued
And DL is still starting an AUS-MIA route on pretty short notice.
Suppose you could opine on what motivated them to do that on such a short notice after giving UA almost a year warning on ORD-LAX and LAX-HKG?
“Suppose you could opine on what motivated them to do that on such a short notice after giving UA almost a year warning on ORD-LAX and LAX-HKG?”
It’s funny you retreat to completely unrelated markets. Especially given Delta’s Asian history of not starting routes in Asia. And Markets few expect Delta to last on.
Perhaps ORD-LAX but not profitably. Delta is the absolute lowest loyalty carrier in SoCal. The worst alliance at LAX and SoCal, but temporarily the biggest metal which every delta fanboy (tim) goes nuts about since they’re that dumb.
It’s funny seeing the usual tim defensive maneuvers. It’s like he doesn’t know aviation.
Oh wait. he doesn’t. He assumes nouveau riche means “awesome”. it just doesn’t especially with Delta’s absolute crap LAX partners.
confused again, you are.
THAT refers to AUS-MIA which IS the route we are talking about here.
and DL IS starting LAX-HKG right on top of CX and UA’s flights.
I kind of like the new bolder “Get out of my way” approach to route planning taking on down there in ATL esp. on 45 days notice for AA.
saying someone doesn’t know aviation while posting completely made up BS about loyalty is laughable.
DL has the most valuable loyalty program in the US and you think that as the largest airline at LAX, they have no loyalty?
Lay off the hard drugs, girlfriend.
Wow, this thread really took off since I last checked in. So much spice! ‘girlfriend…’ bah! I’ll never ‘tire’ of this! Feels like Halloween came early, but I see few ‘tricks’ above, just treats! Yum.
@Tim Dunn — I still think the 757 is a beast of an aircraft, so those 2-2 lie-flat on the 75S is not a deal-breaker for me; far better than a mere recliner for the 5-6 hours journeys.
More generally, (admittedly, a quick tangent) I wish Boeing had kept the 757 airframe alive, and instead of the 737, had enhanced engines for efficiency on the 757, because they probably would not have had the same issues with the MCAS, since there was more clearance to fit larger engines. Then Boeing could actually compete with the a321XLR. (Or they can start a 797 new line… aren’t we supposed to be bringing back more manufacturing anyways?)
As for the a321NEO DeltaOne seat search, the 2-2, 1-1, 2-2, etc. configuration on B6 older Mint and on other airlines like TAP’s a321NEO, Singapore’s 737MAX, etc., is a decent product, especially the ‘throne’ seats. I presume those already passed safety tests since they’re flying.
@Tim Dunn, I stand corrected. Apparently you did say rarely not never.
Which didn’t stop you from re-re-re-heating your Tim Trick of ignoring your own mistake. “You jumped on my comment about the earnings with both feet and came out swinging determined you would bloody me.” Tim, you can deflect and distract as much as you want. Your statement was wrong and your math was incorrect. You have demonstrated everything that is wrong about your style here. Incorrect statement. Unwillingness to correct. Tenuous math. Juvenile insults. Distraction. Delta defensiveness. Throwing in unrelated facts. It’s all here. And it didn’t work.
@Jim, @Tim Dunn — So… October 10, fellas? Set your calendars. It’s a date!
Jim,
you could have stopped here
@Tim Dunn, I stand corrected. Apparently you did say rarely not never.
all kinds of wasted bandwidth. All heat and no light from you.
I would far rather hear from Andy than you.
1990
there are clearly multiple seat suppliers and DL apparently chose a dud. Not sure who it is but that seems to be what happened.
the “drill baby drill” mantra is keeping fuel prices down but airplanes still have life limits
Yes, I think DL will be announcing a thing or two well beyond “we were at the upper end of our guidance, We are starting LAX-HKG and aren’t blabbing about being part of UA’s game of kill the competition, and AUS is DL’s new thing.
tim
“it is you that are worn out and fatigued”
Not just me, but everyone who reads these types of sites.
I leave on a Friday night and yet here you are, wasting your night being an a-hole. No one wants to hear from you except Gary so he can generate clicks. Other than that, your input is worthless drivel.
Just walk away form the computer dude, I’m sure your “wife” will appreciate it. Just walk away.
About 99% of the comments are from the biggest pack of drama queens I’ve seen since I saw the late Lady Chablis in Savannah. You should all grow up.
Yes, Jerry, some people are hellbent on trashing the credibility of some faceless person on the internet instead of discussing and debating ideas.