Summary
- Delta Air Lines has seasonal daytime flights from New York JFK to Paris CDG but they will not return next year.
- It lasted half the time of the carrier’s first daytime service, which ended 15 years ago.
- Next summer, all of Delta’s triple daily JFK-CDG flights will be overnight, helping yields.
While US-European daytime transatlantic flights are rare, they’re at a record level.
Delta Air Lines
has only one of them: from New York JFK to SkyTeam and transatlantic joint venture partner Air France’s Paris CDG hub. The airline only started such flights in March 2024. While they were always to be summer seasonal, they have been removed from next summer’s schedules. The last day flight will leave for France on October 25.
What is happening?
The topic did the rounds on Sunday, when I was away. When I returned, I examined Delta’s schedule changes in the past few weeks based on what it submitted to OAG. According to this, Delta removed daytime CDG flights in early August. The world, including me, only just noticed it.
Until October 25, the 238-seat Boeing 767-400ER-operated service is scheduled as follows, with all times local:
- JFK-CDG: DL266, 08:15-21:35 (7h 20m)
Northern airlines, including Delta, will switch to winter schedules on October 27. When this happens, JFK-CDG will be served double daily, down from triple daily in the summer, when it’s the carrier’s joint most-served long-haul service. It will return to triple daily on March 29, 2025, when all flights will operate overnight.
Delta’s daytime flight replaced Air France’s, which ran during the day between May and September 2007. It operated daily on the A330-200 and, like Delta, only lasted one season. Will it ever be attempted again?
Hang on: day flights?
JFK-CDG was Delta’s second attempt at Europe-bound day flights. The first was between JFK and London Heathrow from March 30, 2008, to March 26, 2009.
While New York-Paris is a huge point-to-point market with ~1.3 million passengers last year, it is not as big as London. Paris also has another time zone change, and flights are slightly longer.
Given the short existence of JFK-CDG for the second time, it appears that Paris cannot sustain daytime US flights relative to what else could be done with the aircraft. Less productive aircraft, which have to remain overnight, do not help.
It is unclear how full Delta’s day flights are. Not helping is the 21:35 arrival time in CDG, which is too late to connect to much. The daytime service revolves around point-to-point traffic and Delta’s early morning arrivals in JFK from the West Coast, East Coast, and internationally. They will no longer include Bogotá, which currently arrives at 06:24. Delta is pulling the route.
It’s possible that Delta’s daytime fares (and therefore yields) were not as strong as overnight flights (especially dodgy given less productive aircraft on daytime services). After all, premium sales, which are vital in long-haul markets, are probably less good—who wants or needs a bed during the day? Still, daytime flights have good benefits, especially for passengers.
So, what’s left?
Daytime US-Europe service mainly revolves around heavy point-to-point markets that cover few timezone changes and are relatively short. This year, there has been a significant uptick in summer seasonal services on Portuguese carriers, especially Azores Airlines, back to that country’s airports, which will return next summer.
With Paris gone in 2025, Heathrow will be the only northern European airport with them. Airlines will have such services from Boston, Chicago O’Hare, JFK, and Newark. Yet, British Airways ended its Newark-Heathrow day flight in March 2024.