Delta has steadily added more and more flights out of Boston (BOS), and now the airline is making it official: The Massachusetts capital is one of its hubs.
Delta executives spilled the beans Monday at an airline industry conference in Nashville, FlightGlobal reports. Amy Martin, the airline's managing director of domestic network planning, said Delta has focused on adding more flights to expand its presence at BOS.
“We've been making significant investments in Boston this year… this has really enabled us to graduate Boston from what we consider a focus city to our newest coastal hub,” Martin said.
And Delta's additions at BOS bear that out. The airline has added many flights in and out of the airport just since 2018, from Lisbon (LIS) and Edinburgh (EDI) to upcoming flights to Chicago-O'Hare (ORD), Newark (EWR), and Washington, D.C.-Reagan (DCA). The airline's number of daily flights out of BOS is up nearly 30 percent compared to last year.
Boston joins Delta's other hubs in Seattle (SEA), Los Angeles (LAX), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Detroit (DTW), New York City-JFK (JFK), and Atlanta (ATL).
After its massive operation at JFK, Martin said BOS will be a secondary hub to shuffle passengers across the Atlantic ocean.
“Boston is actually very well positioned geographically to be a connecting point for US passengers going transatlantic,” she said. “As we're getting to kind of our maximum capacity at JFK, using Boston as a secondary transatlantic gateway makes a lot of sense.”
Bottom Line
As FlightGlobal notes, airlines rarely announce new hubs. But Delta is ready to make a serious run at JetBlue, the major carrier at Boston.
Delta seems to relish challenging the non-global, mid-market share carriers in their established domains: Alaska Airlines in Seattle, and now JetBlue in Boston. As a passenger (who doesn’t reside in either city), I can’t think it’s a great thing for one airline to seek to cripple a weaker one. I know “it’s a business,” but a weakened Alaska or JetBlue is ultimately going to make life worse for everyone: either the battered carrier will reduce its service and/or amenities, charge more (baggage fees, seat assignments), be forced into a merger (reducing overall competition), etc. Why can’t Delta mine new markets or improve its service in ones where it already competes, like LA, Tampa, or Kansas City? Just as I’ve been rooting for Alaska in Seattle, I’ll be rooting for JetBlue in Boston. For those of you who think Delta is so wonderful, check in with me in 5 to 10 years and see if you feel the same way.
Boston likely has been intended as at minimum a large focus city. The current structure of Terminal A was built entirely for Delta (financed by Massport bonds and intended to be paid by gate fees from Delta), but as soon as it was completed 2005 Delta entered bankruptcy and had to cede gates back.