Delta's Trans-Atlantic Solution
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Published: October 18, 2005
Delta Air Lines, which filed for bankruptcy protection just last month, will announce a wave of new international flights today to cities including Edinburgh, Budapest and Venice, additions that Delta said would make it the biggest airline crossing the Atlantic.
The new flights will begin next year, and will allow Delta to eclipse competitors like American, British Airways and Continental, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Delta's new international flights are the latest sign of a growing revival in international service by American carriers, which significantly cut back those routes after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
At present, major airlines offer 167 international routes, the most since 2000, when they served 175 overseas routes, according to Back Aviation Solutions, a consulting firm based in New Haven.
On flights across the Atlantic, the most traveled international route, profits at domestic airlines are up 5.8 percent this year. By contrast, profits have slipped 0.8 percent on domestic routes, according to Back Aviation estimates.
That is one reason all the biggest United States airlines with overseas destinations plan to add more such flights. "International markets have had far better pricing power than domestic markets," said Michael S. Allen, Back Aviation's chief operating officer.
Delta said that by next summer it would serve a total of 11 new markets from two airports: Kennedy in New York and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Delta's home city.
Most of the service begins next spring in time for summer, the busiest season of the year for leisure travel, said Glen W. Hauenstein, a Delta executive vice president, who joined the airline earlier this year from Alitalia.
Delta's announcement comes just over a month after it filed for Chapter 11. The airline has begun clipping parts of its domestic service, and is shifting other flights to regional carriers like Comair and SkyWest to focus on its international business.
In May, Delta plans to add flights from Kennedy to Budapest; Dublin and Shannon, Ireland; and Manchester, England. Flights from Atlanta to Edinburgh; Nice, France; Venice; and Athens will also start in May. In June, Delta wants to add service from New York to Kiev, Ukraine, contingent on approval in both countries.
Delta had previously announced other new international routes from Atlanta, including Tel Aviv, beginning in March; Düsseldorf, Germany, in April; and Copenhagen in May.
Delta also said yesterday that it would add another summer-only flight from Atlanta to Shannon, and extra service from New York to Rome, giving it 11 flights a week between New York and cities in Italy.
"Ireland and Italy are the two markets where you can't have enough service in the summer," Mr. Hauenstein said.
Delta said it would shift eight of its Boeing 767-400 wide-bodied aircraft to its trans-Atlantic routes. By contrast, several domestic carriers, including American and Continental, operate narrow-bodied Boeing 757 jets on some of their international routes.
Mr. Hauenstein said the airline planned to play up that difference in an advertising campaign inviting passengers to "stretch your wings and legs." The airline has begun refurbishing the cabins of its 767 jets, adding seats with a 60-inch pitch - the distance from the front of the arm rest to the same point on the seat ahead - in business class, and other improvements. (The current pitch is about 55 inches in business class, and 32 inches in coach.) He said about one-third of the planes would be ready when the new flights begin next spring, and the rest within a year.
Other airlines that have sought bankruptcy protection have taken longer to make changes in service, focusing on cost-cutting first and routes later. But Mr. Hauenstein said Delta saw no need to wait. "There's no time like the present if you know you have to do something," he said.
Mr. Allen of Back Aviation also saw another motive. By announcing the flights this far in advance of next summer, Delta can begin collecting ticket revenue now, giving it more cash to get through the early months of its bankruptcy.
And the new routes also give passengers an incentive to keep booking tickets. "They're trying to minimize the shrinkage of their business," Mr. Allen said.
But as more airlines play the international card, the advantage any one company can claim will diminish, he added.
"This game will play itself out; everybody can't keep racing to add international service" because profits will eventually erode, Mr. Allen said.
Seems to me this international flying is just a stop gap measure to stem the flow of red ink. Either one of 2 things will happen if past practice is any indication. One, ALL the legacy carriers with international route authority will add capacity to the market, thus creating a glut like they always do. Or,two, some billionaire with money to burn will start service with a handful of cast off widebodys and undercut the existing airlines already in the market. Witness MaxJet out of IAD and I think its EOS out of JFK. Sorry guys ...same playbook different decade 
