Delta will increase service from Boston, adding two international destinations and boosting capacity about 24% over its previous peak, to better compete against an American Airlines Group Inc.-JetBlue Airways alliance that unifies the airport’s top two carriers. Delta will add nonstop flights to Tel Aviv on May 26 and Athens the next day, adding to existing flights to Amsterdam and Rome, the Atlanta-based airline said in a statement Sunday. Flights to six other international cities that existed before the coronavirus pandemic also will return. Delta will operate up to 160 daily departures from Boston Logan International by summer 2022, adding about 3,800 seats a day, up from the previous high of 129 flights in October 2019. Delta is adding the service as American and JetBlue continue to expand their alliance in the US northeast, including Boston, despite a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department and attorneys general from several states to block the partnership as anti-competitive. American and JetBlue have disputed the claim and said they will continue implementing the venture, which also includes New York. JetBlue currently handles about 32% of passenger traffic at Logan, while American is at 19% and Delta, 16%.<br/>
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Delta said Sunday that its ticket sales had stabilized and started to improve, putting it on course to deliver Q3 revenue within its original forecast for a 30%-35% drop versus corresponding 2019 levels. This is an improvement from its projection last month when it adjusted the forecast to the lower end of that range after a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. The airline is due to report results for the quarter through September on Oct. 13. “For Delta, they bottomed out in the later part of August and the first part of September,” CE ED Bastian said on the sidelines of a meeting of airlines group IATA. “Business traffic is growing back in the US.” Domestic travel bookings are expected to surpass 2019 levels next year, Bastian added. Later, the airline said it would boost its capacity by more than 20% next summer over the 2019 peak by increasing service from Boston.<br/>
The CEO of Delta said Sunday that the company has not decided whether to mandate COVID-19 vaccines as the White House has requested. The vaccination rate at the airline should be above 90% by Nov. 1, CEO Ed Bastian told reporters on the sidelines of a conference of airlines group IATA in Boston. The White House is pressing major US airlines here to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for employees by Dec. 8 - the deadline for federal contractors. <br/>
Delta is speaking with the new flag carrier of Italy, Italia Trasporto Aero (ITA), about possible joint ventures, the US-based airline’s CE says. Ed Bastian says, however, that the Atlanta-based airline is not considering investing in the new carrier. ITA, the successor airline to Italy’s Alitalia, is scheduled to launch flights on 15 October. National carrier Alitalia, which has been in extraordinary administration for more than four years and from which ITA is acquiring various assets, will stop flights from that point. “We are not going to be in the market to purchase an Italian brand right now,” Bastian says Sunday. “But we have had a long relationship with Alitalia for many years; it’s a very important market for US travellers going on vacation in the summer periods. I don’t know what the next steps for ITA will be. They have some more-fundamental questions as they are starting to launch rather than what their international partners are – but we are in conversation with them.”<br/>