Delta’s New Newark Transcon Serves Two Purposes

Jun 30, 2026

More Reading on This Topic: EWR – Newark

Delta has decided to add a new route from Los Angeles, and it’s not one you might have expected to see. Next April, the airline will begin twice daily flights from LAX to Newark. Yes, that’s right… Delta will fly to the home of one of the most special HoJo’s still in existence. Oh, and it’s also United’s big hub. While I don’t expect this route to be financially successful, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it for Delta to fly.

Delta will operate twice daily on the following schedule:

LAX 7:40am Newark 4:15pm
LAX 9:25pm Newark 6:00am (next day)

Newark 7:30am LAX 11:05am
Newark 5:25pm LAX 9:00pm

All flights will be on the A321neo, and no, these aren’t the fancy ones with a million temporary First Class seats awaiting flat beds. These are in the standard configuration with 20 domestic First Class seats, 60 in Delta Comfort+, and 114 in coach.

Newark, if you aren’t aware, lies about 30 road miles to the west of New York’s JFK airport. JFK, of course, is a big Delta hub, and Delta already flies from there to LAX 11 times a day in the current spring schedule. So… why?

Well, you don’t read this blog unless you know something about this industry, so you probably already have your suspicions. Plenty of others who write about this have already speculated this is a warning shot aimed at United. United, after all, flies LAX to Newark 11 times a day, but other than a brief stint during the pandemic, it hasn’t flown LAX to JFK since 2015 when it left. Now, however, United has its growing Blue Sky partnership with JetBlue, and it plans to get back into the LAX – JFK market soon enough.

So, sure, Delta may very well be sending United a message that it should stay on its own side of the Hudson, but I’m not convinced that this is the entire reason. I don’t even believe this is the primary reason. It may very well just be a fun side effect.

I recently wrote about how now is a good time for Delta to try to make gains in LA. And the reality is that Newark is a big market from LAX. Without being asked, Delta sent out an email with this quote from Scott Santoro, the airline’s VP of Los Angeles and Sales-West.

Los Angeles plays a central role in Delta’s network, and this new nonstop service to Newark reflects our commitment to connecting customers across key business markets. From our state-of-the-art Terminal 3 at LAX to our industry-leading Delta Sky Clubs and the Delta One Lounge, we’re continuing to invest in a premium, seamless travel experience. By offering twice-daily flights on our Airbus A321neo, we’re delivering more choice, comfort and reliable connectivity between the East and West Coasts.

There’s a lot of fluff in there, but it does confirm — as you would assume — that this is about Los Angeles and not New York or Newark. It also says that this is about connecting customers in key business markets.

A lot of people on the West Coast think of Newark and JFK as both being gateways into Manhattan, but it’s more complicated than that. That is definitely the case, don’t get me wrong. But they also have their own catchment areas in the other direction. For Newark, that involves the vast northern New Jersey market.

We don’t need to do a full analysis, but just look at this map. There are 12 New Jersey-based Fortune 500 companies that would use Newark as their primary airport. There’s no chance they’re all driving over to JFK. They’re flying United.

^{Map via Claude}

Does the addition of two new flights on Delta to LAX change that reality? Absolutely not. But what about those Delta loyalists who need to go do business with these and all sorts of other companies? This will serve those people. It makes it easier for Angelenos to give all of their business to Delta.

Just look at the this chart we put in Cranky Network Weekly this past week:

Delta recently started serving Chicago from LAX. Now it has Newark. That means it serves all the top 20 destination airports from LAX except for Philly which is much further down the list… for now.

Of course, Chicago is different in that Delta doesn’t fly to any other airport in the region nonstop from LAX today. With Newark, it already has JFK. A lot of those people flying to Newark now are just going to New York but prefer (mostly) United. Delta won’t recapture that traffic. But it does let Delta woo those who fly to Newark because they need to be in New Jersey. I’m not sure how big that market is compared to the total Newark market, but it’s probably bigger than Philly.

This is what I assume is the primary justification for starting up this flight. That being said, do I think it’s going to make Delta money? I suppose it’s hard to say without having visibility into Delta’s corporate contracts. If this enables Delta to score a commitment from a big account and pull it away from United, well, it’ll probably pay for itself. Most likely this is not going to make Delta money directly, but it is the kind of investment that helps Delta to position itself.

Brett

8 responses to “Delta’s New Newark Transcon Serves Two Purposes”

SEAN

Jun 30, 2026 at 4:46 am

I think you’re spot on. As important as JFK is to both NYC & Delta’s network, there’s a huge swath of the region to the west, southwest & northwest that won’t drive to JFK.

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myfeetdothetalking

Jun 30, 2026 at 5:03 am

Delta’s entry into EWR-LAX is going after the LA basin point of sale, and not so much the NY one West of the Hudson. Delta has allocated billions toward growing LAX principally by redeveloping Terminals 2 and 3, and extending its operations into the TBIT. The problem though is that LA is a tough market. Everyone has to be in it. Whether anyone actually owns and wins it, is another matter. Yields on long haul across the Pacific aren’t great for US carriers, given the heavy competition from Asia based carriers. Connections via LAX are not seamless. Delta has struggled to make TATL routes work out of LAX. All that said, Delta has to create even more feed to try and make some of its even more absurd routes out of LAX, like HKG and MNL (planned) work. Will they? Maybe. Not likely.

The focus on LAX is the clearest sign that Delta’s SEA operation and gateway to Asia just doesn’t work and it will get even tougher for Delta at SEA the more AS expands its long haul, which it will.

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1. SEAN
  
  Jun 30, 2026 at 5:20 am
  
  It’s a catch 22, airlines can’t afford to be in LAX with a large operation & yet they can’t afford not too either. The market is to big to ignore.
  
  Reply
2. Cas
  
  Jun 30, 2026 at 5:55 am
  
  Piggybacking on this – how do people see the future of TPAC for the big 4? From the outside looking in, it feels crazy that only United has a proper full-sized transpacific hub on the west coast.
  I haven’t seen Delta announce much out of Seattle (and it seems pretty constrained even if they’d want to). Either they have to ramp up the fight right now and make Alaska regret starting long-haul, or the Delta Seattle hub will bleed out slowly, which seems to be happening. Given that American has given up on its Asian hub goals and has retreated to DFW(/Seattle via Alaska), perhaps LAX is the best of a set of bad options for Delta? I doubt United is gonna fight them for transpacific in LAX when SFO is their main priority and they’re busy in Chicago. As said, LAX is not an easy market to win, but perhaps being more prominent is possible, especially to shore up Delta’s weak transpacific presence. (I seem to remember a Cranky post diving deeper into the big carriers’ TPAC/TATL presence, but I can’t find it right now).
  
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Tim Dunn

Jun 30, 2026 at 5:21 am

glad you are covering the story.

DL has repeatedly built out its developing hubs by flying to the top 20 (or as many as possible of them) markets from each hub.

DL already serves more of the top markets – which from LAX includes a whole lot of other airline hubs – than any other airline. They are simply further reducing the other airline hubs they don’t serve from LAX.

and the fact that they announced this mere weeks after LAX-ORD started (as well as LAX-HKG) would likely mean they don’t see obstacles to gaining traction in another carrier’s top markets from LAX.

and it doesn’t hurt that NK is gone and carried a solid single digit percentage of traffic from EWR and has served LAX at some times; B6 is reducing its presence at EWR including to LAX. DL has a pretty good track record of gaining share in eastern US markets against AS; AS right now only serves EWR-LAX 1X/day even if they intend to come back for more later.

and thank you for not trying to argue that DL will be sunk by not offering flights on Delta One equipped aircraft. the A321NEO is the most cost efficient transcon aircraft and well suited to build share and to gain access to that corporate traffic where DL is the largest airline nationwide including from NYC. There are a whole lot more Fortune 500 companies in Manhattan which are “in play” between EWR and LGA/JFK so DL can win over those by offering something that UA does not at least serve now

as you have noted before, DL has a gate advantage over AA and UA at least for the next few years which means they can add flights that others cannot

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Gregg Wiggins

Jun 30, 2026 at 5:27 am

A 2.6 stars rating, and a photo of an ambulance parked by the entrance on the hotel review page you posted. That surely must be “one of the most special HoJo’s” around.

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NSS

Jun 30, 2026 at 5:58 am

I posted something similar on one of the other blogs. JFK is such a mess right now, and the Van Wyck is still under construction, that it takes me 90 minutes on average to get to JFK from Lower Manhattan. Usually more. I can get to LGA and EWR in about 20 minutes for an early flight. JFK has been so bad for the past few months that I’ve started connecting in ATL to get to LAX or SFO. The connection time is usually less than the commute. I’d gladly fly from EWR to LAX for the next few years while JFK gets finished. I know it’s not a giant pot of money, but it can’t hurt. Wish it was starting sooner.

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Jason

Jun 30, 2026 at 6:01 am

I think you give way too much credit to the ability of corporate contracts to make a route work. I worked in corporate contracting for a major US airline and built all the contracts our sales people sold/ managed with the largest companies. At the end of the day, pretty much every big company has a contract with every single US carrier as there is very rarely a 100% perfect match between a large corporation’s travel needs and what an airline offers. While Delta will serve all top markets from LAX with this move, and this is a logical add from that perspective, there’s no way that a single company’s decision to simply move some traffic to Delta (and there are VERY FEW situations in which one airline is completely dumped in favor of another for one route, especially in a fractured market like LAX) would sway what will likely be a tough market to make money in to being profitable… especially because Delta will have to provide a hefty discount to the corporation in exchange for their traffic. One company moving some but not all of their traffic to Delta will not make the route profitable. And there’s zero chance that Delta would be able to convince any corporation to shift all of their traffic to them with such an inferior schedule. The travelers who actually have to take the flights would not take it.
All that said, it makes sense for all the reasons you’ve mentioned, in my opinion, for Delta to be on this route. Just dont think that one or two corporate customers moving some of their business to Delta will be the savior you seem to think it will be.

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