Delta Air Strains is tweaking its schedule out west, including extra premium seats, however fewer flights, to California.
The SkyTeam alliance provider will add its fashionable premium economic system seats — Premium Select — to flights between New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) and San Francisco Worldwide Airport (SFO) from Nov. 9, a Delta spokesperson mentioned. Premium Choose can be out there on sure flights operated with Boeing 767 plane.
Moreover, Delta is canceling two California routes from Harry Reid Worldwide Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas: Sacramento Worldwide Airport (SMF) and San Jose Mineta Worldwide Airport (SJC). The airline’s final flights on the routes will function Jan. 11, 2026.
The adjustments come amid general development at Delta. The airline will develop seats by 2% within the second half of 2025 in comparison with the identical interval final yr, schedule information from aviation analytics agency Cirium reveals.
And that development comes with some thrilling new routes. In November, Delta will join Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport (AUS) and Denver Worldwide Airport (DEN) as a part of a broader expansion at AUS. In December, the airline can even debut its first-ever service to Melbourne Airport (MEL) in Australia and repair between Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) and Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM) in Lima, Peru.
Premium Choose growth
Delta’s growth of premium economic system to the JFK-SFO route comes as airways step up their sport to woo premium vacationers on transcontinental routes. The airline already provides lie-flat business-class seats and its extra-legroom Consolation+ product available in the market, and the addition of Premium Choose will give vacationers a mid-tier premium choice.
Premium Choose seats are similar to Delta’s home first-class recliner seats. They’re wider, with extra legroom and recline than customary economic system seats, however they are not as spacious or non-public as business-class suites.
Delta already provides premium economic system on select flights between JFK and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and American Airways can even start offering premium economy on choose JFK-LAX flights in October. American plans to increase its premium transcontinental choices with the debut of its first Airbus A321XLRs later this yr.
United Airways provides premium economic system on choose flights between Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport (EWR) and each LAX and SFO, its web site reveals. The provider doesn’t serve JFK however plans to return to the airport in 2027.
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Alaska Airways and JetBlue additionally fly the JFK-SFO route, however neither provides a premium economic system cabin.
Las Vegas slowdown
Delta’s growth at LAS since 2023 was opportunistic. The airport is neither a crew base nor a spotlight metropolis for the airline, and competitors to each SJC and SMF is fierce — Frontier Airways, Southwest Airways and Spirit Airways additionally fly each routes, Cirium schedules present.
The choice to chop the routes, nevertheless, could also be much less about competitors — Delta is understood for not shying away from a combat — and as an alternative extra a mirrored image of the state of Sin Metropolis tourism.
The variety of guests to Las Vegas fell 7% yr over yr to 19.6 million throughout the first half of 2025 in comparison with final yr, data from the Las Vegas Conference and Guests Authority reveals.
Courtney Miller, managing director at aviation advisers Visible Strategy Analytics, wrote in a report earlier in August that the drop could sign a broader slowdown in U.S. leisure journey.
“When the belt will get tightened as vacationers contemplate a slowdown, Vegas is among the first locations that feels the ache,” he wrote. Excluding the COVID-19 pandemic, town has not seen such a dramatic drop in customer numbers because it started amassing information in 1970, he added.
A Delta spokesperson mentioned the route cuts from LAS have been to higher “align with shopper demand.”
Delta supplied as much as three each day flights to SJC from LAS and two each day flights to SMF, Cirium schedules present. Each routes are flown with as much as 76-seat Embraer E175s.
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