Cranky on the Web: Holiday Travel and What’s Wrong with Delta

Nov 22, 2025

More Reading on This Topic: Cranky on the Web, Delta

Bay Area airports prep for busy holiday travel as uncertainties loom – Mercury News
It’s time for holiday travel, and that means a blur of requests to discuss travel tips… but not this one. This was a more substantive story about how Oakland and San Jose are suffering while SFO continues to strengthen. Why? Southwest has shrunk and Spirit is gone, most notably, but it’s more than that.

Shortly after we did our three-part series on what was wrong with American, we got a note from a listener asking us to look at other airlines, even though that may not have problems of the same magnitude. That was a good idea. This week, we take on Delta. What’s wrong with Delta? Well, have a listen.

Brett

12 responses to “Cranky on the Web: Holiday Travel and What’s Wrong with Delta”

Bill from DC

Nov 22, 2025 at 5:55 am

OAK is getting pummeled. Down 1.5 million passengers (13.5%) year over year is wretched without having a global, economic or natural disaster to blame.

Brett mentioned NK accounted for a loss of 1,000 seats per day, 100 seats from DL (1/3 of their flights) and that Southwest had reductions but no specific figures.

The big story is the WN reduction because (a) they command a whopping 82% market share as of April 2024 (i.e., before these decreases) and (b) it’s not like WN to reduce service at airports they dominate. I wonder how deep the reductions have been and which markets have been reduced or entirely lost.

Tough times for the recently renamed sponsor of our favorite weekly aviation updates.

Reply
1. Brett
  
  Nov 22, 2025 at 8:16 am
  
  Bill – So the data I pulled from Cirium was for the full month of Dec and not specifically holidays. Southwest was down 58,569 seats or just shy of 2,000 per day. (It had 432,531 and is now at 373,962.) But I was surprised that San Jose was also very down for Southwest. It went from 372,552 to 343,674 or about 1,000 seats a day. That’s an 8% decline vs 13%, but I didn’t realize SJC had been pulled back as well. Spirit was also bigger in SJC, having shed all 48,209 seats it had last year. (It only had 37,136 out of OAK.)
  
  Reply
  1. Bill from DC
    
    Nov 22, 2025 at 3:14 pm
    
    Thanks Brett. Those seem like big declines for Southwest dominant airports, especially in California.
    
    Reply
Tim Dunn

Nov 22, 2025 at 7:15 am

regarding the “what’s wrong w/ Delta” podcast, your (Brett’s) contributions seem much more subjective and far less objective than usual – and less objective than Brian.

One point that could easily be verified by data is that the A330, not the 767 and certainly not the 763, has been Delta’s primary TATL aircraft for more than a decade

regarding the Pacific, it is hard not to have heard a consistent understanding of how the Pacific has developed for all 3 US airlines. UA had a massive headstart w/ buying Pan Am’s Pacific operations in 1987, the first of the major global region asset acquisitions by the current big 3 that were all predominantly domestic at deregulation. AA and DL both tried niche west coast TPAC hubs but nothing has been able to touch UA’s SFO hub which is the largest TPAC hub on either side of the Pacific. DL merged w/ NW to gain the NRT hub and, briefly the title of largest TPAC carrier – but that network wasn’t consistently profitable. Then Japan reopened HND to TPAC flights and DL, after several machinations realized that trying to operate a hub on foreign soil doesn’t work. UA jumped in and quickly became the largest carrier across the Pacific regardless of nationality – but operated for years to Asia on just a breakeven basis. DL built the SEA hub and added a few TPAC flights, covid hit, UA proved post covid that US carriers could do well flying the Pacific, DL placed orders for the 35K which will be by far the most capable and efficient TPAC aircraft in the US carrier fleet and they are still waiting for those planes. DL has said that in the face of TATL weakness, it will be focused on growth to Asia including the Middle East, India and E. Asia with LAX-HKG coming online in months as the first showdown between DL and UA for the LAX local market. Given that each has another west coast TPAC hub with SFO going to tip the west coast balance to UA and DL’s interior hubs tipping interior US to E. Asia flights to DL and UA already showing weak performance on the route, this will be important to watch as DL attempts to rebuild its Pacific network esp. over the next 5 years.

as for fleet, it is hard to believe that a 225 seat 787 is going to win in a contest with an A350 that will have as much as 100 more seats; if upgauging has been successful in the domestic market, it is hard to believe that downgauging makes sense in international markets. and that is equally true w/ the A321XLR. DL led domestic upgauging and will do the same in international markets esp. as the 767s are replaced.

The Air Show is always an interesting listen but this one would have been more effective with the same level of data that has been used in other episodes.

Reply
1. Bob V
  
  Nov 22, 2025 at 6:32 pm
  
  I do not want to nit pick however it is proper form to spell out the numbers 1-10 and use numerals 11 and higher. “Delta had five delayed flights” not “Delta had 5 delayed flights”.
  
  Reply
  1. EG
    
    Nov 23, 2025 at 6:49 am
    
    What are you doing spell check here?
    
    Reply
    1. Bob V
      
      Nov 23, 2025 at 6:32 pm
      
      Not to throw darts, however, Tim Dunn who obviously LOVES Delta needs to go back to English 101. His use of numbers, semi-colons and starting sentences in lower case letters takes away from his credibility. When one is writing in a public forum where one wants to be taken seriously all proper forms of grammar should be followed. Lastly, and a personal peeve for me, all Boeing aircraft are the model plus the operator. For example: 727-232. There is no such thing as a B727. NO B. Totally incorrect. B787 not exist. Boeing 787. Read the Type Supplemental Data Sheet.
      
      Reply
      1. CraigTPA
        
        Nov 24, 2025 at 5:32 am
        
        Oh for duck’s sake…this is ridiculous. I’m damn close to a grammar fascist myself – I openly cringe whenever people use “less” when it should be “fewer”, still normally use two spaces after a period when not space-constrained, and have argued with people over whether the Oxford comma is optional (it is NOT, and I will metaphorically die on that hill) – but even I find this ridiculous.
        
        Typing out the word “Boeing” every damn time you mention a Boeing plane type in casual writing is just plain ridiculous (pun intended). If you disagree, look at today’s article where Brett uses the “Bxxx” convention. Then go argue with him…in his blog.
        
        While I find Tim’s posts can be tedious and/or extremely subjective whenever the subject of the One True Airline comes up, many of his posts are insightful and to suggest that we should ignore them simply because he writes in a casual style in a casual setting is ridiculous.
        
        Arguing that someone posting in a blog, or the comments section of a blog, should write out the word “Boeing” every time is like arguing that instead of writing “the British government” authors should write “The Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” or “His Majesty’s Government” every time. In other words, a dumb thing to say.
        
        Reply
  2. CraigTPA
    
    Nov 24, 2025 at 5:43 am
    
    Oh, and you should have a comma before “however” in your first sentence. Or a semicolon, if you want, although semicolons in an informal setting can come across as pretentious.
    
    Or you needed to make your first sentence into two separate sentences and put a comma after “however” in the second one, although having “I do not mean to nit-pick” as a stand-alone sentence is clumsy even if gramatically correct.
    
    Glass houses and stones…
    
    Reply
DesertGhost

Nov 22, 2025 at 12:57 pm

No company is as perfect as its fans allege. And no company is as terrible as its critics charge. In reading many airline blogs over the years, and traveling myself, I have found that there tends to be quite a bit of exaggeration and emotionalism instead of truly objective observation in the space. However, overall, this is usually one place where there is a concerted effort to try to balance criticism and praise, and to be reasonably fair about both.

Companies have periods where they apparently can do no wrong, and periods where nothing seems to go well. And there are a lot of factors, both internal and external, that can determine profitability from one quarter to the next, or one year to the next. Some of those factors are outside of the company’s control. Some are not.

It’s easy to second guess corporate decisions when critics have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. It’s not quite as easy to make decisions before the fact. And another wild card is that decision makers and pundits can sometimes draw the wrong conclusions from history, or fail to consider the fact that circumstances may have changed.

All of this is to point out that the people who make decisions are human. And the only people who never make mistakes are those who do nothing.

Reply
southbay flier

Nov 24, 2025 at 9:12 pm

Delta really hasn’t gotten that much worse since Richard Anderson has left, but I do miss his focus on the stuff that matters – getting to where I need/want to go on time in some decent level of comfort. Delta was great at buying cheap used planes and making them work reliably.

Plus, I’m glad I no longer ever get a flight on the 737-800. Those screens were great in 2008, but not in 2025. 99% of my flying is on the E175 and the A220. The E175 is pretty standard and the A220 is quite nice.

Reply
stogieguy7

Nov 25, 2025 at 5:31 am

You would think that Alaska or Breeze may see opportunities to expand at OAK and/or SJC. Both are quite populated and affluent areas and a drive to SFO is a pain in the you-know-what from both areas. With NK and WN shrinking at both facilities, there would seem to be room for a new major player.

Reply