Delta Air Lines recently announced a series of schedule enhancements to strengthen its international network for summer 2010. The changes – which will expand service for customers in 17 cities – leverage Delta’s industry-leading joint venture with Air France-KLM, growing alliance relationship with Alaska Air Group and increased fleet flexibility gained from its merger with Northwest.

“No other airline has the alliance partners, fleet flexibility or network breadth to consistently deliver new routes for customers while at the same time being responsible in managing capacity in the face of a global economic recession,” said Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s executive vice president – Network Planning and Revenue Management.

Delta’s 2010 changes are part of the first fully consolidated schedule published following Delta’s merger with Northwest, allowing the airline to reallocate existing capacity to new routes. Delta also will maintain many of the international route reductions it announced in June in response to decreased global demand.

Delta’s new and expanded nonstop routes for summer 2010 will be focused in three regions: Trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic and Africa.

By June 2010, Delta will add new nonstop routes from its primary US-to-Asia gateways in Detroit and Seattle and realign flights at its Tokyo-Narita hub to better match capacity to demand.

From Detroit, Delta will introduce new nonstop service to Seoul-Incheon and Hong Kong and expand service between Detroit and Shanghai. Delta has continued to position Detroit as a major gateway to Asia thanks to its strategic geographic position for millions of customers who travel between the U.S. East Coast and Asia.

At Seattle, new nonstop flights from Seattle to Beijing and Osaka will be timed for convenient connections with Delta and Alaska’s 267 combined daily departures to 64 destinations from Seattle/Tacoma, and will complement Delta’s existing daily service to Tokyo-Narita.

At Tokyo-Narita Delta will resume seasonal nonstop service between Tokyo and Salt Lake City; resume three weekly summer flights between Tokyo and Atlanta; expand capacity between Tokyo and New York-JFK; and expand service between Tokyo and Los Angeles with four additional weekly flights. With these changes, Delta will offer Narita customers more than 25 daily departures to more than 20 nonstop destinations.

"Delta is committed to providing customers with convenient options between the most popular business and leisure destinations across Asia and our global network, connecting Asia to more points in the U.S. and beyond than any U.S. carrier,” Hauenstein said. “Since Delta’s first flight to Asia in 1987, we have become the region’s premier U.S. airline through organic growth and our merger with Northwest."