Delta Loses Focus On Three Airports In Latest Vision Shakeup
They were a priority of expansion, and focus, but that was before the pandemic hit and now they have been kicked to the curb in a leaner, meaner airline. That is the long way of me saying that Delta Airlines has changed their focus at a few different airports. This was discussed at last week’s investor conference.
With the loss in revenue, and willing passengers, because of the pandemic Delta needed to shift some focus. Nashville, Cincinnati and San Jose are no longer considered focus cities. However, Austin, Texas, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina made the cut and will continue to be focus cities for Delta.
Per Wikipedia, a focus city is a destination from which an airline operates limited point-to-point routes. Ergo, a focus city primarily caters to the local market rather than to connecting passengers. That is essentially saying that isn’t quite a hub but it has more direct routes than a traditional airport.
I find Cincinnati the most interesting of the changes since it used to be a Delta hub and then was downgraded to a focus city. Now, it has even lost that status – isn’t living in Ohio bad enough!? I kid I kid my southern neighbors. Even after the changes Delta will still have the second largest airline presence in Nashville with 1.5 million passengers flying through last year. That is dwarfed by Southwest’s almost 7 million passengers though (Nashville is a Southwest hub). Having said that Nashville residents should see very little impact to Delta’s overall routing at Nashville airport per Nashville Business Journals. It is less likely that as many new route options will be added going forward though.
It is always sad to see an airline stop growing in a particular area because that means less options to local residents. Hopefully the routing stays pretty stable going forward the affected airports just won’t see as many new opportunities as they may have as a focus city.
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Could SJC really be called a Delta focus city when it only had flights to ATL, DTW, LAX, LAS, MSP, JFK, SLC and SEA? LAS is the only non Delta hub/focus city.
I am not sure if that was going to be a focus going forward and they backed out before doing much with it or what. But doesn’t seem like they had made it much of a focus as of yet that is for sure.