Delta is picking up traffic American Airlines will lose when it halts its Philadelphia-Tel Aviv route in January.
Delta Air Lines announced Thursday it is adding four flights a week to its JFK-Tel Aviv route in addition to the current daily round-trip service.
The new flights will begin in May, five months after American Airlines, which is merging with US Airways, halts its Philadelphia-Tel Aviv route. The company claimed it was losing $20 million a year on the route.
Delta obviously sees greener fields in Israel. Its additional flights will use a Boeing-77-200ER craft that can seat 291 passengers. Five daily round-trip flights from Philadelphia to JFK will help pick up the traffic that US Airways-American is abandoning.
Delta’s Senior Vice President Nat Pieper stated:
From next summer, Delta will offer more than 2,300 extra seats between Tel Aviv and New York, one of our largest trans-Atlantic markets, responding to customer demand for increased non-stop service.
With 11 weekly services between the two cities and a choice of departure times, we are offering customers greater flexibility when it comes to planning their travel both to New York and throughout the U.S.