Delta - American Competition in New York

Delta New Routes

SkyTeam member Delta Air Lines announced the opening of four new routes from its JFK hub beginning September 7^th. JFK- St. Louis and JFK-Nashville will be launched on September 7 with JFK-San Antonio and JFK- Orange County following. With this new service, Delta continues to maintain its position as the second largest domestic carrier at JFK in share of seats, behind LCC JetBlue.

The table below summarizes domestic US capacity at JFK with the leading six carriers listed:

Source Flightbase 14-20 September

American Airlines Renewed Focus on New York

American Airlines has a renewed focus on the New York market at both JFK and La Guardia (LGA). In November, American will begin new twice-daily service to Fort Lauderdale and will increase service to Las Vegas to twice-daily also. This heightens competition with Delta that operates Fort Lauderdale twice daily and Las Vegas on a 40-times weekly schedule.

American's regional affiliate, American Eagle will also begin three services beginning November 18^th, which will all be focused on current Delta routes. American Eagle will operate regional jet service on a daily basis to Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Norfolk, Virginia, all routes where Delta enjoys a monopoly at the current time.

American Airlines expansion is largely focused upon taking market share from SkyTeam member Delta Airlines, as it attempts to improve domestic connections for the Oneworld alliance at its' New York hub. British Airways is increasing frequency from London Heathrow into JFK. The improved connections in the US from its Oneworld partner will support the British Airways routes.

American and Delta Airlines currently compete on 18 domestic routes from JFK, which the table below showing weekly frequencies from JFK illustrates.

Source Flightbase 14-20 September

The Next Battle Ground...

American could look at a number of additional destinations from JFK to attack Delta other than the additional routes that it will begin to service in November. Three of its four new routes are only operated by Delta (Norfolk, Indianapolis and Cincinnati) and only Fort Lauderdale has another carrier, JetBlue. However, Fort Lauderdale- JFK is a large market with over 830,000 origin and destination (O&D) passengers flying between May 2009-2010 (IATA BSP Data). American will view the market as large enough to take market share.

Of the other top Delta routes not served by American, many of them have JetBlue service such as Buffalo, Burlington, Rochester and Salt Lake City. US Airways serves Charlotte which is a strong US Airways hub and likewise Delta from Atlanta which may persuade American to shy away from these markets. Minneapolis, however could be an option for American, served by Delta and what it will consider a weak carrier, Sun Country Airlines, which has a 26% share of the existing market of 278,000 O&D passengers (IATA BSP Data May 2009 -2010) particularly as it is already served from other American Airlines bases in Dallas, Miami and Chicago.