Hi all,

Long time reader, first time poster here. I'm a somewhat frequent SkyTeam flyer (Delta DM), and usually wouldn't mind to pay a reasonable premium for Delta flights. However, for one of my most frequent routes, SJU-CUN, the pricing for Delta flights have been very confusing to me for quite some time. I'm hoping the experts on this forum can help explain:

For the flight SJU-CUN (either way), regularly one can find 2-legged flights from JetBlue, AA, or United as low as $140 each way. (There's no direct flight since Volaris discontinued around hurricane Maria). Sprit can be even cheaper (<$100). For Delta, however, the cheapest I usually see is more than $1K (eg. via JFK). That's often more expensive than buying the individual legs separately. For example, one can generally find SJU-JFK, then JFK-CUN for ~$260 combined.

Is there a reason why Delta's search would show more than 2x prices than just buying the 2 legs individually? Even at $260, the price is still not competitive vs. AA, UA, B6, Copa and Spirit. Does that just mean Delta has no intention/need in competing in this particular market? Or could it be some sort of oversight in price coding?

Thanks in advance for all your insights!