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 – 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).