Delta Air Lines has drastically reduced their flying schedule due to the COVD-19 pandemic, however the question is the airline too slow in adding back flights? Keep in mind Delta’s current revised flight schedule is accurate through July 31, 2020, so anything further out has yet to be adjusted.
Delta shared they’re capping seating at 50 percent in First Class and 60 percent in Main Cabin, Delta Comfort +, and Delta Premium Select to reduce the overall number of customers in every cabin across the fleet.
However, after several reports and doing our own research it appears that many routes on multiple days are completely sold out based on these seating restrictions for next month already.
We decided to do our own search and the results speak for themselves on the number of routes that are already full.
Here’s a small sampling of some routes that are full, however there’s dozens more:
Los Angeles (LAX) – New York (JFK) May 31, 2020:
Phoenix (PHX) – Atlanta (ATL) May 31, 2020:
Atlanta (ATL) – Las Vegas (LAS) June 4, 2020:
New York (LGA) – Atlanta (ATL) June 4, 2020:
Atlanta (ATL) - Orlando (MCO) June 12, 2020:
Los Angeles (LAX) – Honolulu (HNL) June 26, 2020:
Bottom Line
It’s great that Delta is limiting seating capacity to allow for social distancing in every cabin across the flee. Delta has said they’d be adding more flights once the flights are booked to the respective 50%/60% mark, however that does not appear to be true.
It does not appear that additional flights are being added in June or July once the current revised schedule has been published. Instead, the airline will likely add more flights for future months, meaning we’ll need to wait for August to see additional flights based on this demand.
Other airlines haven’t been as aggressive with the cuts to summer flying. For context, American Airlines is planning to fly its New York (JFK)- Los Angeles route 10x a day in July, whereas Delta is flying only 3x-4x a day. Additionally, TSA checkpoint travel numbers are steadily increasing each day.
Current cabin capacity limits are in place until the end of June, however it’s yet to be announced if Delta will continue with such restrictions. It was rumored, they’d be continued in the Comfort Plus cabin, however should Delta extend the current restrictions, it will be in its best interest to add more frequencies.
Have you noticed any Delta flights you’re trying to book sold out? Feel free to share any specific routes/dates in the comments below.
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I’ve run into this too lately. Was supposed to be flying…. this week, and they cancelled by original route, and everything else PDX-MSP was ‘sold out’ for days.
They are my preferred carrier, but, I really hope they get more planes flying soon as demand builds, or people like myself will have to fly other carriers, as… we can’t buy seats on Delta!
Completely agree. Delta cut their CVG-MCO flight through June and then just recently cut it for July as well. Frontier and Allegiant continue to service the route. Very surprised by the overly conservative approach. Aside from carrying over status and MQM’s, I think Delta has whiffed big time on their reaction to the pandemic. There’s no incentive for customers to fly Delta this year because they’ll be unable to reach higher status levels. United and American both reduced requirements. We’ll see how it works out for DL.
That’s true . Delta is very hesitant in adding more flights. It’s good that they have social distancing on flight ..same time give your loyal pax enough option to fly rather than pushing them away to competitors. I was appalled with customer service telling me off for asking when they are adding more flights…she replied you know there is virus out there ….LOL
I flew with American 7 segments and had comfortable flights eventhough all those flights were super busy . #Deltaaddmoreflights
Hell yes. They just basically “terminated” all of our flights to the beach in July and redeposited the miles and reversed the fees.
And never told me.
All that is great except we have no way to get to our vacation now.
Used to be 5 flights/day to ATL. We now have one. Looks like two in July and all are all “sold out”. These flights were rarely 100% full. 95% usually, but not two months out on every flight.
Delta might want to consider speeding this process up. They are now leaving money on the table.
Southwest has been terrible at this too. I can’t find basic flights from major coties two weeks out. Seems ridiculous that they are complaining but have no seats to sell.
they are either sold out or no flights on the date i need or the city i need to get to!!!i recently looked at atl to jax 2 flights a day booked up but i can have an 18 hour layover in ATL nuts used to be 13 flights a day to jax for all of the traveling consultants….
No way July is done. They are still showing all flights to Korea. No way they will fly them them.