The Cities Delta Says It Can No Longer Afford to Fly From...

Here's a piece I wrote in the Times yesterday about the small-town America losing air service, pegged to Delta's announcement last Friday (here) that it "can no longer afford" to serve these cities.

And here's a link to the list of "underperforming" cities Delta named, with the average load factors on the departing flights from those places.

As noted in my Times piece, Delta has a very strong presence in the markets operating under subsidies from the $200 million federal Essential Air Service program because it acquired Northwest, which dominated air service in the Midwest. Most of the airports on the Delta list are served by regional airlines flying very nice, if older airplanes, the 34-seat Saab 340 turboprops -- which no longer fit into Delta's fleet strategy.

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