Delta soon to expand hub service from MSP

Despite bad economic times, Delta Air Lines will increase its flight capacity from the Twin Cities to Atlanta and New York in January.

Delta, which acquired Northwest Airlines last month, now has the largest route network in the world, and it wants to funnel more passengers through its seven domestic hubs. Consequently, the number of seats for daily travel between the Twin Cities and Atlanta will rise 26 percent to 1,932 in January. That percentage compares the number of seats that were in the market a year earlier, when the U.S. and global economies were on much sounder footing.

Glen Hauenstein, a Delta executive vice president, referred to the "ever mounting daily bad news on the economy" when he announced service expansions on Wednesday. But he said a key element of Delta's business strategy is maximizing the use of its hubs to channel passengers across the United States and into Delta's growing international markets.

At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the number of daily flights to Atlanta, on Delta and Northwest planes, will actually drop from 13 to 12. But the carriers are replacing some regional jets with larger, mainline aircraft on the route.

Delta executives also decided to increase the number of Twin Cities seats to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York by 26 percent.

Atlanta is the world's largest airline hub and New York is the world's largest business market. In addition to those two cities, Delta also has hubs in Salt Lake City and Cincinnati. Northwest's Northern hubs are in the Twin Cities and Detroit and its Southern domestic hub is in Memphis.

Overall, Delta plans to boost its seat capacity for hub-to-hub flying by 14.5 percent beginning next year.

Delta is bolstering its international service with 15 new routes in the summer of 2009. The Twin Cities was not on Delta's list.

"We're very confident that the places we are expanding to are still seeing incredible growth rates, particularly in Africa," said Bob Cortelyou, Delta's senior vice president of network planning.

In its new schedule, Delta is adding a second daily flight between Atlanta and Tokyo on May 4, which will be operated by Northwest pilots flying a Northwest 747.

Hauenstein said in a recent interview that Delta would be swapping Northwest and Delta planes to better match plane sizes to routes.

In June, Delta plans to launch service between its Salt Lake City hub and Tokyo, and that flight will be flown by Northwest Airbus A330 pilots.

In 2009, Delta's international flying will be somewhat larger than this year, while domestic capacity will be smaller, Hauenstein said. But the carrier intends to wait until December to give specific numbers on the size of its operations.

Cortelyou said that Northwest's daily service between the Twin Cities and Paris will be restored in the spring. That route, inaugurated this year, was suspended in the fall after oil prices and fares shot up.

Twin Cities passengers who fly to Delta's Atlanta hub will be able to travel to several new cities in Africa that are being added in June. Those include Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya, and Monrovia, Liberia.

Also in June, Delta plans added service between New York's JFK Airport and Gothenburg, Sweden; Prague, Czech Republic; Valencia, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland.