Transatlantic airline traffic reaches record highs as incumbent carriers expand service

Edelweiss was third with a 34% rise due to its new Zurich-Seattle route. IberoJet followed at fourth place with a 25% increase after boosting frequency on its Madrid-Orlando route. KLM rounded out the top five with a 17% jump; this was driven by starting Amsterdam-San Diego service (replacing Delta’s Portland flight) and adding more departures elsewhere, especially to Las Vegas.

Some airlines saw declines in their US-Europe operations. PLAY reduced its US flights by 45%, ending all American routes; Keflavik-Washington Dulles ended last December, while Boston and Stewart services will conclude in September. Singapore Airlines cut back by 42%, discontinuing its Singapore-Manchester-Houston service—the world’s longest one-stop flight by block time. TUI decreased its operations by 32%, Azores Airlines by 30% (shrinking from nine US routes to four), and Condor by 17%. Compared to last year, Condor no longer serves Frankfurt-Baltimore, Minneapolis, Phoenix, or San Antonio.

Despite dominating the market share for transatlantic travel, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines also grew their offerings this August but did not appear among the fastest-growing carriers when ranked by percentage change due to their already large scale. American and United added about 7% more services each; Delta increased by 4%.

American now operates 57 European routes for August including new connections such as Charlotte-Athens; Chicago O'Hare-Madrid and Naples; Dallas/Fort Worth-Venice; Miami-Rome; Philadelphia-Edinburgh (with widebody aircraft); and Philadelphia-Milan Malpensa. However, it discontinued O'Hare-Venice since last year.

United expanded to serve Denver-Rome; Newark-Bilbao, Faro, Funchal, Palermo; Washington Dulles-Nice and Venice—bringing its total European destinations up to 81.

Delta offers service on 77 European routes including additions like Atlanta-Brussels/Naples; Boston-Barcelona/Milan; Detroit-Dublin; New York JFK-Catania; Minneapolis-Copenhagen/Rome (the former reflecting SAS joining SkyTeam); Tampa-Amsterdam—but dropped Atlanta-Stuttgart and Portland-Amsterdam (the latter replaced by KLM).

"Despite the trio's inevitably high dominance, they have expanded strongly in August. They have added nearly one in two of the market's additional departures," according to carrier submissions reviewed for this report.

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