As someone who is potentially looking at basing a career decision on the viability of a DTW base at Delta, I was hoping to start a little discussion about its future at the airline. I acknowledge that most of this is “crystal ball”-type stuff.

Taking a look from a macro prospective, Detroit as a city seems to have factors playing against it when you start to look on a 15-30 year horizon. It’s a rust-belt town not unlike CLE, PIT, CVG, etc - all cities that seem to be in various states of socioeconomic decline, and have been for a number of decades.

How do you all see DTW as it pertains to Delta’s network in the long-term? I know a substantial amount of it’s traffic is connections, not O&D.

I know a lot of this is hard to predict, but I was just hoping to get a general idea from those more “in the know” about what the general trajectory of DTW as a base has (or will) look like for Delta.

 

Honestly, you would know just as much as we would. Those kinds of decisions are kept so close to the chest at the highest levels of the company that it's impossible to project.

Personally, unless there is sudden consolidation or a failure of an airline, I think most Delta hubs are pretty stable. The Detroit metro population has been fairly steady for the past decade or two. It still is a major economic player unlike the post industrial landscape in the other areas of the rust belt. At this point, unlike with the CVG/MEM drawdowns, there really isn't anywhere to put that capacity. I don't think it's economically advantageous to focus all that flying into MSP or vice versa. NYC can't take that traffic and sending a lot of that traffic to ATL is incredibly inefficient and adds significant travel time

 

It’s probably one of the best airports delta has to offer, it just turned 20 years old but still looks fairly new
during COVID it was gutted especially the connecting Midwest cities mainly due to regional jet crew shortage. However more and more mainline is coming back, most of the 717 coming back on line are headed up To dtw.
the recovery of Asia plays into the base more than anything else,
crew wise it’s still the third largest base in the system, and it is situated well geographically.
delta has said it’s core hubs will see most growth this year so we will see what happens.

 

DTW is the accumulator of DAL. Strong corporate presence to maintain a robust schedule. Has flights and fleets based there to cover almost all DAL destinations. While ATL/NYC are semi full with capacity, DTW remains underutilized so can grow and cover any issues in those hubs. During weather events many pax are routed through DTW (read makes nonreving a bit frustrating). Excellent airport facilities, historically the CPO is well run and mostly helpful since the merger. Of course no fleet is ever safe at DAL, but I’d feel confident that if you have 30 years to fly DTW should be a base. Size and flying always subject to change.

Best of luck with your choice.

 

DTW I feel has a long future - Of course, you never know, Delta has closed more bases than it's opened in the last 20 years. But, Detroit is still a large metropolis, the headquarters of Ford, GM and Chrysler, which have large operations throughout the world - requiring plenty of air travel. Other car companies also have operations here in design or research, Toyota for one is big, just because there are lots of 2nd tier auto suppliers in the area.

As for the airport traffic, the numbers are down lately because a lot of Delta's China operations went through DTW - but those was cut during COVID. But, with the end of COVID testing for inbound Chinese visitors, a lot of that flying is back on the schedule. DTW CPO recently has been asking 330/350 pilots to make sure their Chinese visas are good.

Right now, DTW is the third largest base after ATL and NYC (out of 7) so it's much larger base than CLE or CVG ever were. PIT was big for US Air, but I suspect Pittsburgh didn't have the large corporate customers that DTW has. Also, the Detroit Metropolitan area is about 50% larger than Pittsburgh.

DTW has few ATC delays other than when there is a snowstorm or thunderstorm close to the airport.

 

DTW ain't going anywhere.

 

Didn't that just restart?

 

China flying is back on the schedule, but not like before. It is a thru flight via ICN. Pre FauciFlu it was nonstop, and that isn't likely to return anytime soon.

 

Starting in late March it's direct without the ICN stop. - it's loaded in TravelNet for both PVG and PKX.

 

I'm talking about inbound to China. It was a huge reason why we stopped a lot of our service.

For people coming to the US from China (or a few other countries in Asia) the only requirement is a negative COVID test. And we aren't going to send people to COVID hospitals like they did in China for a quarantine or anything.