Delta has announced another route: Seattle to London Heathrow.
Once again, this is obviously a response to American Airlines’ new Seattle to London Heathrow route set to launch in 2021.
Delta will be launching its own Seattle to London Heathrow route in 2021 complementing its partner Virgin Atlantic’s twice daily LHR-SEA service.
The aircraft for this route has not been announced yet.
Delta previously served Seattle to London Heathrow a few years ago until it dropped its service for nonstop Portland to London Heathrow and gave its Seattle to London flight over to Virgin Atlantic.
Once American and Delta launch their new routes, there will be 7 daily flights between Seattle and London in the peak season of 2021:
2x daily British Airways
2x daily Virgin Atlantic
1x daily American Airlines
1x daily Delta Airlines
1x daily Norwegian Air (London Gatwick)
Delta Press Release:
The war continues. American could respond with more international service out of Seattle, but Delta’s move is simply a defensive one.
Really weird theory here. I’m betting on 767-400 because I feel like Delta’s going to drop Portland to London (operated with 764) after British Airways begins its flight this year.
I can totally see that-the 764’s often start a route and get swapped out for 330’s or bigger when the need arises. I suppose unless they’re trying to harmonize the service with VS perhaps?
This is absolutely ridiculous. This route cannot possibly have that much demand. We certainly don’t need 4 airlines serving this one route and a 5th to gatwick. What are airlines thinking?!
It’s the same thing… “neo” just means new engine option and even Airbus calls it the A330neo.
Delta also announced a Minneapolis to Phoenix service with the A330, likely a move against American as well. Really interested to see how this will continue…
Mmm petty [redacted😤] feuds are fun to watch…
Nice to see AA and DL lighting fires under each others rear ends.
Just like SEA DFW on the 221, this is just another sign of DL realizing that they starting something by poaching LATAM.
Interesting to see even more flight on the LHR-SEA route.
On the other hand it’s a pretty reasonable expansion given that DL/VS are not expanding exactly to the level of BA/AA on the route.
True. But (as you wrote) travellers will now be able to choose between (most likely) similarly timed flights on the two competing groups, which makes it a very interesting competition.
