DELTA AIR LINES is to discontinue the intra-European operations which it acquired from Pan American World Airways in 1991, and instead increase transatlantic flights, principally from New York's J F Kennedy Airport.
The restructuring will result in a one-time charge against earnings of up to $60 million, mainly to cover redundancies at Delta's German hub at Frankfurt, but is expected to improve operating income by $62 million a year.
Delta will discontinue intra-European service from Frankfurt to Athens, Bucharest, Istanbul, Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw, and redeploy five Boeing 727s to more profitable routes in the USA. The airline will also cease transatlantic service to Frankfurt from three US cities.
To compensate, Delta will add new non-stop services from Kennedy to Istanbul, Madrid and Manchester, increase services to Athens and Rome and add new flights from Atlanta to Stuttgart and Zurich. Warsaw will be served from Kennedy via Berlin, and the airline hopes to resume services to Bucharest and St Petersburg through codesharing.
Delta president and chairman Ron Allen says that the changes , to be completed by July, will increase weekly transatlantic departures from Kennedy from 84 to 112, serving 15 European cities, up from 12. Delta will operate 266 weekly flights in total to 26 European destinations. Allen says that the changes "-build on our leadership as the number one US air carrier across the North Atlantic".
Operating results on intra-European routes were "unsatisfactory", Allen says, as service "-was severely constrained because of international regulatory restrictions." Delta's transatlantic operations, meanwhile, are "solidly profitable", he continues, and the changes will "-significantly improve the finances" of its transatlantic business unit.
Source: Flight International
