Which Airline Has The Best Route Network: American, Delta, or United?
The three major US airlines: American, Delta, and United fly to the largest number of destinations of all commercial airlines in the world. United serves the most at about 370, while American serves about 350 and Delta serves about 350 (I say “about” because the number of destinations that the airlines serve fluctuates rapidly). In addition, each of the three airlines are in the top five airlines for the number of routes served (although that changes constantly, too), but the #1 spot for the most number of routes does go to Ryanair. However, all three US airlines focus on flying to different parts of the world and the United States and consequently have different specialties when it comes to their route network. So what does each of the three major US airlines focus on when it comes to their route network, and how might it affect your choice when it comes to choosing airlines?
United Airlines
Quick Facts:
- Fleet Count: 776 (mainline)
- Number of Destinations: About 370 (the most of any airline)
- Continents Served: North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and Oceania, will serve Africa (Cape Town) starting this winter
- Number of Countries Served: 73
- Number of Hubs: 8 (2 East Coast, 2 West Coast, 1 Central, 1 Midwestern 1 Texas, 1 Guam)
- Number of Long-Haul Aircraft: About 192
- Primary International Focus: Europe
- Secondary International Focus: Asia
- Route Map Link
Hubs and Hub Strategies:
- Chicago O’Hare: Midwestern gateway hub, tertiary European gateway hub, tertiary Asian gateway hub, largest hub
- Houston George H.W. Bush International Airport: Primary Texas and Southern US gateway hub, primary Latin American gateway hub; secondary midwestern gateway hub
- Newark Liberty International Airport: Primary European gateway hub, primary east coast gateway hub, secondary South American gateway hub
- San Francisco International Airport: Primary Asian gateway hub, primary west coast gateway hub, primary Australia & Oceania gateway hub
- Denver International Airport: Primary central and western gateway hub
- Washington Dulles International Airport: Secondary European gateway hub, secondary east coast gateway hub
- Los Angeles International Airport: Secondary Asian gateway hub, secondary Australia and Oceania gateway hub, secondary west coast gateway hub
- Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport (Guam): Smallest hub, Micronesian and Pacific hub, intra-Asian hub, reminiscent of Continental Micronesia
United’s Route Network – Analyzed:
Inside North America, United has a couple of specialties when it comes to its route network. First, they’ve built up a great presence around the northeast and midwest, about the same size if not bigger than the networks of both Delta and American. This was because they inherited Continental’s fortress Newark hub and also had their Washington Dulles hub, along with their O’Hare hub, all of which heavily serve many smaller destinations such as Syracuse or Burlington in the Northeast. Through their Denver hub (also their most profitable hub), they have built up a network larger than Delta’s or American’s in the west, serving more destinations in states such as Montana or North Dakota than its two competitors. In addition, their Los Angeles and San Francisco hubs both heavily serve the West Coast. Finally, United has a much greater presence in Texas and Mexico than Delta has, and about the same size as American has, due to United’s Houston hub.
However, there are a couple of areas in North America where Delta and American shine more than United. These include the deep South of the US, in states such as Georgia, Alabama, or Florida where United has a minimal presence, due to having no hubs in the South (the nearest being in Houston). In addition, United has a tiny presence in the Caribbean compared to American and even Delta, as there are countless destinations there that United doesn’t serve, as a consequence of not having a Southern hub, as American has in Miami and Charlotte and as Delta has in Atlanta.
For inter-continental destinations, United’s main focuses are in Europe and Asia. United has the largest long-haul fleet of all US airlines, despite being the smallest in size at 190 wide-body aircraft. The company’s main focus is in Europe, where it serves 27 destinations. That includes five destinations that no other US airlines serve, Geneva, Naples (new destination this year), Belfast, Oslo, and Porto. United’s transatlantic route network is roughly the same size as Delta’s, and by far, United’s largest European destination is London Heathrow (up to 17 departures a day) while the second largest is Frankfurt, with up to 9 departures a day. United’s large transatlantic route network is no surprise, given their Newark hub which operates to all of their 27 destinations within Europe, and their Washington Dulles hub, which operates to 14 of them.
United’s second-largest intercontinental focus is Asia, where United’s route network simply puts American’s and Delta’s to shame. United has always had a large route network in Asia out of their San Francisco (and also out of their Chicago and LAX hubs) hub, where they fly to ten destinations nonstop to mainland United States, but also fly to eleven other destinations in Asia (including many lesser-known Pacific islands via the Island Hopper) solely from their Guam hub (inherited from Continental Micronesia). Also, United still does technically fly to Mumbai and Delhi in India, although those routes have been suspended but will start back up again soon due to airspace restrictions. United also has a larger presence in Australia and Oceania than any other US airline, flying to Sydney from three US hubs, Melbourne from soon to be two US hubs (no other US airline flies there), Auckland, and Papeete, Tahiti (no other US airline flies there).
However, United does have a much smaller presence in South America than American Airlines (although
American Airlines
Quick Facts:
- Fleet Count: 965 (mainline)
- Number of Destinations: About 350 (second-most of any airline)
- Continents Served: North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia/Oceania
- Number of Countries Served: 50
- Number of Hubs: 10 (4 Northeastern, 2 Southern, 1 Texas, 1 Western, 1 Midwestern, 1 West Coast)
- Number of Long-Haul Aircraft: About 154 (777, 787, 767, A330)
- Primary International Focus: Latin/South America
- Secondary International Focus: Europe
- Route Map Link
Hubs and Hub Strategies:
- Dallas Fort Worth International Airport: Largest hub, primary Texas and Midwestern gateway hub, secondary Latin American (especially Mexican) gateway hub, secondary Asian gateway hub, secondary European gateway hub
- Charlotte Douglas International Airport: Primary southern gateway hub, secondary European gateway, tertiary Latin American gateway
- Chicago O’Hare International Airport: Secondary European gateway hub, midwestern gateway hub, tertiary Northeastern gateway hub
- Philidelphia International Airport: Primary European gateway hub, primary Northeastern gateway hub, secondary Midwestern gateway hub
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport: Primary western hub, secondary Hawaiian gateway hub
- Miami International Airport: Primary Latin American gateway hub, tertiary European gateway hub, secondary Southern gateway hub
- Los Angeles International Airport: Primary Asian gateway hub, primary West Coast gateway hub
- New York JFK International Airport: Tertiary European gateway hub, quaternary Northeastern gateway hub
- New York LaGuardia Airport: Secondary Northeastern gateway hub
- Washington Reagan National Airport: Secondary Northeastern gateway hub
American’s Route Network – Analyzed:
Inside North America, American heavily focuses on a few areas. Firstly, one of American Airlines’ primary focus for years has been serving Latin America and the Caribbean. They can serve so much of it because they have two of their largest hubs in two primary gateway locations: Miami and Dallas. This does have the result of American serving most of the Caribbean and Central American the most out of all US carriers. American also serves about the same amount of destinations in the Midwest as United does and about the same in the South of the United States, due to the location and large size of its hubs in those locations.
You may have noticed that American Airlines has a total of 4 hubs in the Northeast of the US (and that’s not even counting Boston, which could easily count as a focus city for them). That’s because two of the hubs (both New York JFK and New York LGA) were AA hubs and two others (Washington DCA and Philadelphia) were US Airways hubs pre-merger. Now, usually in mergers, airlines get rid of redundant hubs. This occurred when United got rid of their redundant Cleveland hub (because of its proximity to Chicago) and Delta got rid of their Memphis hub (because of its relative proximity to Memphis, Cincinnati, and Detroit). I was almost expecting American to drop one of those hubs, although that never happened. That means that American has a huge amount of capacity serving the Northeast of the United States. However, three of those hubs (New York JFK, New York LGA, and DCA) are some of American’s smaller hubs, as both LGA and DCA only serve short-haul destinations and JFK almost only serves transcontinental and international destinations that can’t operate out of LGA.
As for intercontinental destinations, American’s main differentiating market is South America. They fly to quite a few destinations in South American, including to four destinations in Brazil alone (that may not sound like much, but United and Delta only fly to two). American flies to 11 destinations in South America that United and Delta don’t fly to, including Cordoba, Brasilia, Montevideo, Santa Cruz, and Manuas. American also flies more frequently to other cities (which UA and DL fly to) including to Buenos Aires (4-5 x daily), Santiago (2x daily), and Lima (3x daily). American’s main focus really always has been Central and South America, and they show that with their route network that’s much bigger than United or Delta’s in Latin America.
American’s second major intercontinental focus is Europe. They do fly to less destinations in Europe than both United and Delta do, but they still fly to 23 destinations there. Impressively, American added a few destinations that no other US airlines fly to in Europe, including service to Dubrovnik, Bologna, and Budapest. American’s main gateway to Europe is Philadelphia, although they also fly multiple routes to Europe from Chicago, Dallas, New York JFK, and Miami. One thing to note about American’s services to Europe (and some to South America) is that their 767s and 757s (which fly on some of those routes) don’t have any form of in-flight entertainment in economy class (besides 1990s style overhead TVs), so make sure to avoid those aircraft.
Finally, American Airlines has the smallest route network of all three airlines in Asia. They only fly to six destinations in Asia, which is simply pathetic. This is because American has found many of those routes to be unprofitable, including their Asian routes out of Chicago, all of which they’ve cut besides their Tokyo route. That totals to only 11-12 daily flights to Asia from North America, which shows how little a portion of American’s efforts is on flying to Asia. Additionally, they only fly to two destinations in Australia and Oceania – Sydney (year-round) and Auckland (seasonally). American also has no serious plans to serve and never has served any destinations within Africa and hasn’t served the Middle East since they cut their Philadelphia to Tel Aviv route in 2016.
American’s main focus really is mostly on South and Central America. While they have grown massively within Europe, mostly via their merger with US Airways, they lag behind United and Delta in both Europe and Asia.
Delta Airlines
Quick Facts:
- Fleet Count: 914 (mainline)
- Number of Destinations: About 330 (second-most of any airline)
- Continents Served: North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, Africa
- Number of Countries Served: 52
- Number of Hubs: 9 (3 Northeastern, 1 Southern, 2 West Coast, 1 Western, 2 Midwestern)
- Number of Long-Haul Aircraft: About 152 (767, A330 (-200,-300,-900neo), 777, A350)
- Primary International Focus: Europe
- Secondary International Focus: Asia
- Route Map Link
Hubs and Hub Strategies:
- Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International Airport: Largest hub, primary European gateway hub, primary Central and South American gateway hub, primary southern gateway hub, tertiary Asian gateway hub, world’s largest airport
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport: Primary Midwestern gateway hub, secondary East Coast gateway hub, secondary European gateway hub, secondary Asian gateway hub
- New York JFK International Airport: Primary European gateway hub, secondary East Coast gateway hub, primary African gateway hub, secondary Caribbean and Latin American gateway hub
- New York LaGuardia Airport: Primary East Coast gateway hub
- Los Angeles International Airport: Primary Hawaiian gateway hub, secondary Asian gateway hub, primary Australasian gateway hub, secondary West Coast gateway hub
- Seattle Tacoma International Airport: Primary Asian gateway hub, secondary West Coast gateway hub, secondary Hawaiian gateway hub
- Minneapolis St. Paul Airport: Primary Midwestern gateway hub, tertiary European gateway hub, tertiary Asian gateway hub
- Boston Logan International Airport: Secondary European gateway hub, tertiary East Coast gateway hub
Delta’s Route Network – Analyzed:
Delta has a huge presence both in the Northeast and in the Southeast due to its large amount of hubs there. Like American and United, Delta’s presence in the Northeast is perhaps the largest out of all areas in the country, due to its hubs in New York (JFK and LGA), Atlanta, and in Boston. Their presence in the midwest is still large, although not as large as it used to be. Delta used to have four hubs in the midwest after its merger with Northwest – in Minneapolis, Detroit, Memphis, and Cincinnati. Since then, they completely de-hubed Memphis (they now only serve their hub cities from Memphis) and turned Cincinnati into a smaller focus city, with the only long-haul route remaining out of Cincinnati being Paris. After the merger, they drastically cut out redundancies in their route network – having four hubs in the Midwest – and kept their two largest.
Because of their hubs in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Salt Lake City, Delta also has a large focus on flying to smaller cities on the West Coast and in the West, such as in Montana and California, although not as large as United’s. Their focus on flying to the Caribbean is also larger than United’s, but smaller than American’s, largely due to their fortress Atlanta hub. However, Delta doesn’t serve a couple markets in North America that both American and United serve. One of those markets is Mexico (besides Cancun and Mexico City) in which Delta doesn’t serve many smaller cities there, although they do partner with Aeromexico.
In terms of Delta’s long-haul operations, their primary focus by far is in (Western) Europe. Delta has the largest European operations out of all the US airlines, as they serve 27 destinations (the same number as United, although they do have more flights to Europe). That includes six destinations which no other US carriers serve: Ponta Delgada, Malaga, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Nice, and Copenhagen. Delta also has massive operations at two airports in Europe: Amsterdam and Paris. That does make sense, as both cities are major hubs for their SkyTeam partners: KLM and Air France, respectively. Both cities actually used to be qualified as Focus Cities, but Delta has now retracted that label from both airports. They fly up to 15 flights a day to their Paris hub, including to three non-hub cities: Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Raleigh. Delta flies up to 21 flights a day to Amsterdam, including up to 4 flights a day to Detroit, and flights to three non-hub cities: Orlando, Portland, and Tampa.
Delta is also currently the only US airline to serve the continent of Africa, although United will rejoin Delta this winter in serving it. Delta flies from New York JFK Airport to Dakar, Lagos, and Accra, and from Atlanta to Lagos and Johannesburg, giving Delta essentially a monopoly on those markets. Additionally, Delta doesn’t have as big of operations in Asia as they previously did when they qualified Tokyo Narita a hub (and if you go even further back in time, the days of Northwest Orient). They only serve 9 airports, two of which are flights which they only operate via Tokyo Narita: Singapore and Manila. They even recently scrapped their last route to Hong Kong! Delta still does serve more of Asia than American does, with a major focus on SkyTeam hubs: Shanghai and Seoul, although nowhere near as much as United. Their largest Asian gateways are Detroit and Seattle, where they only serve five destinations from each of those airports. Finally, Delta’s South American operations are similar in size (if not a bit smaller) than United’s but also cannot at all compare to the size of American’s
Overall, Delta does have the smallest long-haul operations of all three major US airlines. What sets Delta apart (I haven’t mentioned this yet) is its in-flight product, with closed suites on all of their A350s, some 777s, and all A330neos. Additionally, their soft product shines and is better (besides bedding, where United is the best of all US airlines) than United and American. They also recently introduced new positive changes to economy class on long-haul flights. No, Delta’s route network isn’t the largest and the size of it is smaller than United’s and American’s, but they do have superior onboard products than them.
Conclusion
I hope that in this article, I captured the areas of the world where each of the three major US airlines flies to the most and which airlines have the largest route network. United generally focuses the most on flying to Asia (and Australasia) and Europe, more so than Delta and American, while American focuses the most on Central and Latin America. Delta, however, focuses the most on their flights to Europe (especially their connecting flights through Paris and Amsterdam) and also currently is the only US airline to fly to Africa. The three airlines do have similar route networks (especially inside the United States), although all of them do have different specialities regarding as to where they fly to.
In your opinion, which airline has the best route network?
